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October 22, 2010Dear , Enjoy this current issue of the Connection. Here you will find all the latest SWS news and information. The Connection will be delivered to your email inbox every two weeks. You may need to click on Display images below in the upper left hand corner of this email to see the pictures that are part of this issue.   Accreditation VisitA fact-finding team of ten educators composed of 5 Waldorf and 5 PNAIS members visited our  | | GRADE 5 PASTEL |
three campuses this past week, to interview faculty, staff, parents and students, and look at documents, classes in session, and emergency kits! They wrote a 75 page report about their findings, which will be submitted to the PNAIS* and AWSNA** Accreditation Commissions in the next few months. This report will be the basis for the review of our Accreditation application. We will use this report to continue making improvements, and to plan for our future developments. We are grateful to everyone who helped make the four-day visit a success and look forward to sharing this document with you when we receive it.
* PNAIS stands for Pacific Northwest Association Of Independent Schools
** AWSNA stands for Associated Waldorf Schools of North America
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Upcoming Open Houses
Many of you remember learning about Seattle Waldorf School from a friend whose children already attended. Perhaps they invited you to a festival or open house so that you could learn more about our wonderful school. Now you have the opportunity to share SWS with your friends and family by inviting them to our Open Houses in November. We'll offer faculty presentations, information about admissions and financial aid, and student guides who will speak with our guests about their experiences as students at SWS. We look forward to meeting many guests!
November 16, 6:30-8:30 pm, preschool through grade 4, grade school campus
November 17, 6:30-8:30 pm, grades 5 through 7, grade school campus
November 20, 10:00 am-1:00 pm, high school campus
Click here for directions.
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Sibling Application Packets Now Available
Families with siblings who plan to enter SWS next fall are invited to pick up or request an admission application from the school office. To receive priority placement, we ask that sibling applications be submitted by December 16, 2010.
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Farmers Market - Last Two Sundays!
This Sunday, October 24 - The Gazebo Gals from noon to 2 pm
October 31 - Come dressed as a farmer and join in our Costume Parade at 2:30 pm. SWS high school students will distribute prizes to every person in a farmer's costume. You are also invited to the meeting of the Farmers Market Board - we are looking for people who might like to become involved, for example in taking on some of the tasks of the Market Manager. Other positions are Market Education Coordinator, Children's Craft Coordinator, Marketing Coordinator. (All jobs can be shared.)
 
| OCTOBER 17 AT THE MARKET: MUSIC AND FOOD, THESE ARE SOME OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS.... |
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Mark Your Calendar For...
...Bookfair at Santoro's Books
Friday, November 5, 6-9 pm, Santoro's Books, Greenwood
Postcards with more info about this SWS Parent Association fundraiser will be sent home with students during the first week of November. A percentage of all sales that evening will benefit our school, so feel free to invite your neighbors, friends & family to join us.
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...Winter Faire
Sunday December 5, grade school campus
Winter Faire is a beloved tradition and an opportunity to purchase or create holiday gifts and enjoy the compan y of fellow parents as you sit in the cafe and participate in one of the many volunteer jobs. Working together on an event like this really helps you to get to know other parents. Call Maria Galvao to learn more about jobs of all sizes: 206-542-2079. Additionally, a list of all volunteer opportunities will be available shortly on the Community page of our website. If you would like to be a vendor, call Shelly McSweyn at 206-365-2366.
GRADE 8 FELTED SLIPPERS
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...SWS Musicals
The sounds of "Tradition" are filling the air in the high school as the 10th and 11th grade begin rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof, which will be performed at the Erickson Theatre in Capitol Hill on January 21, 22 and 23, 2011. All 40 sophomores and juniors are involved in some way - either on stage, in the orchestra, or backstage. High school drama teacher Julie Beckman is directing, aided by special guest director Corey McDaniel, with SWS favorite Laurie Andres accompanying and leading the orchestra. It promises to be a wonderful experience for the whole community!
Middle school students will be able to participate in the Gilbert & Sullivan musical Patience, a very funny show with opportunities for many students to shine. The musical will be performed in Huckleberry Hall at the grade school on March 4, 5 and 6, 2011.
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SWS Adult Parent Education
Eurythmy & The Extra Lesson
Wednesday, November 10, 7 pm, grade school campus, Huckleberry Hall
Andrea Preiss, Bonnie Freundlich and Michael Rice will share their expertise about the purpose of eurythmy and the extra lesson in Waldorf education. Free and open to the public. Click here for the flyer.
Unfolding Of The Child's Soul
Johanna Steegmans will help us deepen our understanding of the riddle of the incarnating soul. Free and open to the public. Click here for the flyer.
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Focus on Faculty
In this section we will introduce faculty members, starting with teachers new to our school.
Bob Koon is not exactly a new teacher at SWS, but we are fortunate that this year he has joined our high school faculty full time. Bob has lived in the Seattle area all of his life, and taught middle school math and science for 25 years. For the last four years, he worked in the School of Oceanography at the UW as a research scientist engineer. Helping graduate students with their projects and designing research lab equipment were parts of the job he enjoyed a great deal. In his free time, Bob has led countless national and international hiking and bike trips.
Last year he taught a technology lab class at our high school, which centered around programming a microprocessor board the students had soldered, and he helped lead some biking and hiking trips. This year, Bob is teaching Math (Probability, Permutations and Combinations, Non-Euclidian Geometry and Trigonometry) and Science at the High School (Climatology, Geology and Senior Science), and continues to participate actively in our outdoor education trips. Bob is also an inventor, and we are the grateful beneficiaries of his creative engineering talents - he has spent countless hours fixing our high school handicap lift, which resulted in a successful inspection by the City of Seattle, and a significant saving for our school. Thank you Bob!
We are glad Bob has chosen to share his love of the outdoors, science and math with our high school students. You can see Bob in the picture for the Hyla Woods trip below, on the far left.
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Grade 12 Stone Carving
Under the guidance of practical arts teacher Mike Kline, our seniors are working to shape a 50 lb block of alabaster into a head or face. In the picture you can see the wooden stands that were built earlier this school year in a collaborative effort by grade 10 and 12. Grade 12 also made sandbags to help support those chunks of rock that do not have a sufficiently flat surface. Our stone carving activities, taking place outdoors, have become a neighborhood attraction and generate much interest from passers-by!
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Grade 10 Hyla Woods Trip
Our tenth grade students spent a week at Hyla Woods, a family-owned business operating three FSC-certified forests in the Northern Oregon Coast Range. In the picture on the left you see Peter Hayes, the forest owner, as he describes a forest harvest practice. The group hiked through areas where five different types of harvest were utilized, and compared and contrasted the yields while discussing the pros and cons from a variety of perspectives. The students worked in pairs to discuss and decide what they might do if they became the owners and managers of a forest.
 
Always, art is an important part of the work experience. Above, Elliot is sketching and mapping the trail.
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HS Sports - Co-ed Cross Country & Girls' Volleyball
 | MADDY IN MAPLE VALLEY
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Our cross country team competed on October 7 in Maple Valley in a beautiful park alongside a lake, with a few challenging hills and narrow passageways. Coaches Andy Barker (grade 10 parent) and Cheryl Smith (grade 10, 8, 7 parent) were very proud of the students who participated in this first race. The athletes represented the school very well, many of them never having raced before.
Students are running in the second race in Port Orchard as these words are being typed...
Our brand new girls' volleyball team had their first game at Nathan Hale High School this Tuesday. Coach Tiffany Towles (grade 3 parent and grade school handwork teacher) reported that everyone learned a lot and had a lot of fun. In the grade school office, Shelly McSweyn (grade 9 parent of volleyball player Molly) had to answer repeated questions from grade school girls about the game. There is no doubt - volleyball fever is catching!
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Site Workday
Last Saturday, under sunny skies, parents, faculty and students worked to beautify the grade school campus. Wood chips were spread, the dry creek by the wood shop was cleaned out, weeds were banished, and flower arrangements were created to beautify our indoor space in preparation for the accreditation visit. We look forward to other workdays, and to building community by sharing work, stories, and a meal together.
A big Thank You to all who gave of their time, skills, and company!
  
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Ultimate Frisbee Coordinator Found
We are pleased to announce that Natalie Steiner has accepted the position as coordinator for the grade school ultimate team. Natalie is well known and appreciated for her organizational skills and good humor! Look for more information about ultimate Frisbee in upcoming issues.
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Grade 5 - 8 Halloween Student Assembly
Every year, on the Friday before Halloween, grade 5 through 8 students and their teachers share a special time just for them in Huckleberry Hall - games, yummy food, and much fun with costumes - including a costume contest. Grade 1 through 4 students will celebrate with their teacher in their own classrooms.
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Grade 4 Bestows Riches On Grade 1
The fourth grade students have been having fun collecting oodles of chestnuts and bringing them by the basket-full to grade 1. Grade 1 students are delighted and put the chestnuts to good use, for example in playing Bakery.
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Grade 3 Trip to Sunfield Farm
René Dubay was one of the chaperones for our 3rd grade students' first overnight trip. René shared that she enjoyed getting to know the children as well as the adults a little more, and that she holds many good memories of being able to observe the students during their time at the farm: moments of fatigue from having reaped the grain or worked another chore, delight after milking a goat and feeling its warmth, surprise at being admonished for stepping on (garden) beds, and pure joy when running freely across acres of grass without worry...
  
Click here to see more of René's beautiful photos.
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Grade 1 Learns About Letters
From Mary Ellingson's letter to grade 1 parents:
"About every other day, I guided the students in drawing pictures from the fairy tales. In each picture they drew, a letter (or sometimes two) hid for them to find. This gave each letter a form and a sound-associated name. For example, I told the class the Grimm's fairy tale, The Water of Life and we drew a picture of a boat sailing across the sea. When we began to look, we found the Wave Letter (W) and the Boat Letter (B)."
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Carpooling Initiative
Several parents who have both a grade school student and a student at Kinderhaus have organized a carpool from the grade school to Kinderhaus. To support this wonderful initiative, we have reserved two parking spots at the grade school. If you are interested in carpooling, we have a list of parents sorted by zip code in the grade school office.
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Parents Being In Charge
From Martha Swain's letter to her preschool parents
I believe that children need parents to be in charge of life. The children truly believe you know everything. That means you can negotiate less and give fewer choices. This will make the children feel more secure and make your life easier.
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, explained this in a lecture from January 1907 called The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science:
"Two magic" words indicate how young children enter into relationship with their environment. These words are imitation and example. . . . Children imitate what happens in their physical environment which includes not just what happens around children in the material sense, but everything that occurs in their environment - everything that can be perceived by their senses, including all moral and immoral actions that children see."
Wow! That is sobering, isn't it? But we already knew they were imitating everything about us. Steiner then goes further:
"Young children do not learn by instruction or admonition, but through imitation. . . We must not dry up a child's mind and spirit by filling it with intellectual conceptions. . . Nothing is more harmful to children than to awaken independent judgment too early."
So how do we awaken independent judgment too early? I used to ask my little daughter what she wanted for breakfast, what park should we go to, what meal? etc. etc. Steiner explained that we are wrongly asking our children to use energy for thought that should be used for physical growth and imaginative play.
Here is my homework suggestion for you: Listen carefully to yourself this week. Notice the amount of questions you ask. And eliminate some. Be in charge!.
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This section provided as a free service to the SWS community.
Technology And Tweens: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
Thursday, October 28, 6 pm. Downtown Seattle Central Library, Level 4, Room 1
Margit Crane, Teen and Family Coach, highlights the ways that social media sites and technology are misdirecting tween girls - and what families can do about it. This program is for tween girls, their parents and anyone who works with them. This event is not sponsored by The Seattle Public Library. For more information go to nwgirlscoalition.org
Free for NWGC members, $7 suggested donation for non-members. If you're paying at the door, please bring cash or check payable to NWGC.
Family Halloween Dance
Saturday, October 30, 3-5 pm, OM Culture, Fremont
Come dressed up with your kids and dance to great music with kids of ALL ages! We'll have LOTS of hula hoops, scarfs, bouncy balls, pillows, instruments and more to play and boogie with....as well as some Halloween treats! Feel free to bring some to share. $5 per person
Celebrate The Joy Of Self Expression
New art classes with artist and educator Janet Lia
Drawing Charcoal Portraits
Fridays, November 12,19, December 3,10, 17, 9:30-11:30 am, Wedgwood
Enjoy learning to draw portraits in charcoal. Beginners will learn how easy it is to draw from observation, spaces and shapes, instead of outlines. The result will be a strikingly realistic portrait with expressive feeling! Cost: $200 including all materials.
Watercolor Book-Making Class
Wednesdays, November 10, 17, December 1, 8, 15, 10:30 am-12:00 pm, Wedgwood
Create a field book as a holiday gift or keepsake. Learn binding, signatures, and adhesive techniques as will as watercolor unique paper for the cover! Cost: $185 includes all materials
Email janetlia@comcast.net or call 206-522-1937 to enroll.
Sound Circle Center presents:
Tristan and Iseult - For Ages 12+
Saturday, November 11, 8 pm, grade school campus, Huckleberry HallPerformance by Master Storyteller Ashley Ramsden
Click here for flyer.
A Christmas Carol - For Ages 7+
Sunday, December 5, 2 pm, Skinner Hall, Bright Water School
Performance by Master Storyteller Ashley Ramsden
Click here for flyer.
For other offerings by Sound Circle Center, see link at the end of the newsletter.
Teaching Science In The Middle School Years: Supporting The Healthy Development Of Adolescents
Tuesday, November 16, 6:30 pm, Bright Water School
Adolescence brings a significant change for students in the middle school years. A properly structured science curriculum can help guide their thinking while connecting them to the world around them. Elan Leibner, a Waldorf class teacher and adult educator, will explore the underlying intentions of the Waldorf curriculum in the middle school years as well as give concrete examples of the ways in which these are carried out. Free and open to the public.
Marie's Cleaning Services
Marie, mother of Teo in the Lupines preschool, offers house-cleaning services - weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and special occasions - Thorough and detail-oriented, eco-products (or your own favorites), home laundry services - Excellent references. Call 206-734-7912 or email mariegizard@gmail.com.
In case you missed it in the last issue. . .
Want To Live Close To SWS?
Our lovely home is located literally just around the corner from SWS at 10060 Ravenna Ave NE. Enjoy the convenience of walking to/from school and school events. Total of 4 bedrooms, 2 ¾ bath, large living spaces and large yard that comes with a trampoline and swing set. There is a separate one bedroom, one bath, full kitchen cottage in the back that can be used as a rental, home office or guest house. We would love for this house to stay in the SWS community. Open house every Sunday from 1 to 4 pm. See more details and lots of pictures here: http://tinyurl.com/2cc5wrn
Halloween in the Forest
Sunday, October 31, 4:30 to 6:00 pm, Licton Springs Park
The 11th annual Halloween at Licton Springs Park will take place Sunday, October 31, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm. Calling all families of little ones who would like to trick-or-treat along the pathways of the park and meet the costumed "friends-of-the-forest" who have sweet treats to share. Nothing too scary, we promise! Join us at the playground for music and warm organic apple cider. Licton Springs Park is in North Seattle, about a mile north of Greenlake.
By the way, I am always looking out to recruit new "friends-of-the-forest," so if you know anyone who would like to dress up and give out candy to children, please send them my way. Groups are welcome and usually more fun than just standing by yourself. Minimum age for "friends" is 12 years old. If you are interested, please call Betsy at 206-527-1949 or email beeweill@gmail.com
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Mission
We
educate our students to be free human beings who impart purpose and
meaning to their lives, who meet life with courage, and respond with
initiative and creativity to the needs of the world and their fellow
human beings. |
Links
For information on Waldorf teacher training and other course offerings, visit www.soundcircle.org
Visit the Meadowbrook Farmers Market, on the grade school campus Sundays, 11am to 3 pm, June through the end of October. Details can be found on their website: www.meadowbrookfm.org
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Connection is published bi-weekly when school is in session. Please email all submissions directly to: newsletter@seattlewaldorf.org. All articles or ads for the next issue are due by noon on: Wed, November 3.
Submissions Guidelines © 2010 Seattle Waldorf School.
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