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 January 10, 2016
Greetings!
166,726,959 served
We have kicked off 2016 in a big way, with an exciting beginning to the new year. Let's revisit our action-packed, first-week-back-from-break week:
Who knew the word 'cousin' has a homonym -  cozen - that means 'to cheat'? That was among the many challenges faced by our 6th-8th grade students at Tuesday's Spelling Bee. "Mazel tov" (Yiddish for 'congratulations' - yes, it was a Spelling Bee word) to seventh grader Aisha, who emerged as the winner - she will now represent Swain at the next level of competition.
Sixth grade Ancient Civ teacher Chris Burns charged his students with listening to old radio programs like Abbott and Costello and The Lone Ranger, to acquaint them with that style of storytelling. Then, working in small groups, the students wrote their own "radio" dramas to tell stories from ancient days.
The actors shared the adventures of characters like Athena, Poseidon and Zeus and - with an appropriate dose of sound effects - entertained and educated their audience, gathered around the 'radio' in an adjoining room. Yet another way to utilize the public speaking skills they're honing in Rebekah Lang's English class.
More public speaking opportunities at the Lower School Town Meeting, as fourth graders shared what they've learned about slavery quilts (below), and at the Middle School Town Meeting where two eighth  graders told us 'who inspires them'. Inspiration speeches have been done by all of our eighth graders for almost ten years.
Two years ago psychologist/ actor
Dr. Michael "Mykee" Fowlin shared his many characters with us, and on Thursday he returned for two more inspiring presentations. It is difficult to describe how Mykee slips in and out of an assortment of personas - from the high school 'jock' to the brainy 'feminist' to the six-year-old with ADD challenges - to show how we don't really know others, and how we benefit when we work to break down those barriers.
After his presentation to middle school students, he asked them how they felt. These were some of their answers:
I feel: inspired ... exposed ... not alone ... united ... moved ... open
Mykee was especially interested to see our "Take What You Need" bulletin board (near The McCann Center lobby), in which positive sayings are posted - and taken - by our students and faculty/staff. He took a photo of it to share with other schools!
We gathered as a community Friday afternoon to recognize our winter athletes at our Red & White Pep Rally - see the photos here.
Then we wrapped up this big week with two events  for families to create together. Almost 60 K-8 students brought their families to "Maker Saturday", in which they could work on projects together in The Imaginate Center - making snowmen out of 'found objects' and exploring electrical connections with the Makey Makey equipment were especially popular (right: not just family togetherness - holding hands is a key part of making the circuit work).
This afternoon over 100 members of the Swain community - three generations! - gathered in The McCann Center for a LEGO Building Blocks event to recreate the buildings and landmarks of Washington, D.C. out of 70,000 tiny pieces! There was terrific interaction as everyone worked together to fill the giant 32' x 16' map of our nation's capital. See more photos here.
This week's top story on Facebook was the announcement that Art teacher Trisha Samuel and her husband Mark (and their daughter Adeline) welcomed Marshall Edward Taylor to their family on Friday. Marshall weighed in at
9 pounds, 12 ounces, and everyone is happy and healthy!More news to share: WFMZ-TV reporter Nancy Werteen was at Swain earlier this week to visit our Makerspace program. See her report tomorrow morning during the "Sunrise" program at 6:30 a.m. Not to worry if you miss it: later in the day we will get a link to the story to share with everyone.
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Thanks for reading this extra-long edition of Swain Stories. We hope you are following all of our Swain news on Facebook and Twitter!
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