Friday at Planet Parker

A Friday bar-b-q - and there was plenty of sun for the solar mini-cars! 

Keeping cool

The Teddy Bear Camp theme this week is the Arctic!  Penguins, polar bears, and igloos are forming a cool tableau.  Green machines week for the older kids will end with a road rally on Friday.

Visitors this week:  Maya Stevens-Uninsky, '06 and Dad, Philippe, formerly a trustee.  Maya moved away after 3rd grade, but loved Parker.  She is heading to McGill in the fall.  Philippe was gratified to see everything looking so great!

A TED Talk, a Ning, and other new things...

Here is a link to a fun TED talk about thinking differently.  And one to our new Ning for Planet Parker...If you try it, you can find out what a Ning is!

Camp is great fun -  Here are a few new shots!

What can bugs teach about aerodynamics?

What's more fun than catching flying bugs??  Tomorrow:  potential and kinetic energy, building parachutes, and Mentos and diet coke rocket explosions!

Summer smiles

There is a freedom at summer camp that everyone is enjoying.  Kids were out building a bird blind, having imaginative adventures in the woods and creek, racing around in water, enjoying a story and a snack in the shade.  The big culmination was the Peter Pan performance.  What an exuberant group  -  their smiles were a mile wide - and so were the smiles of their audience!

Jamie, our Planet Parker coordinator has set up a "Ning" for Planet Parker - It is like a themed Facebook page.  Here is the link planetparker.ning.com  - you can join, or just visit the link on occasion to see all the activities, photos, and action.

Fun at Planet Parker!

Summer camp has begun!

Alumni near and far

Our latest alumni!  This was a wonderful class - full of the deep desire to learn. Their group was sweet in nature, too, supporting each other and younger students and bringing a real sense of caring to the middle school.

Parker alumni are pretty awesome.  Here is a link to the totally incredible action video made by Curt Morgan, '96, and a link to his Jackson Hole company, Brain Farm.  Curt was a student who was allowed to stand at his desk at Parker, because he was not so great at sitting.  Susie Merrett remembers that he also started his skate boarding and snowboarding career at Parker. Obviously, motion is inherent to his nature!

Susie Merrett recently heard form Matt Martin, with news on some other Parker alumni:

 Hey Susie,

I don't want to embarrass Tom(my) Dollar, but I thought you might be interested to hear that he's working for fivethirtyeight.com, which many consider one of the best political blogs out there:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/whos-afraid-of-nancy-pelosi.html


Dan Sachs is also starting a new job at an exciting clean energy company in San Diego, Sapphire Energy (http://www.sapphireenergy.com/).

Hope all is well in North Greenbush!    ~  Matt

Some recent alumni visitors:  Marcus Haney and John LaRue (with Laura and Carol), and on graduation night, Kelsey, Rachel, Ben, Max and Jack (with Natalie.)

What they really need

There are so many sights and sounds from the final days of the school year, but Field Day sums it all up - Friends of all ages encouraging each other and laughing together in the Fun Run and all the crazy games.  The camaraderie of the students and teachers.  The smiles.

I'll need to do an email with links to some of the progress report narratives to show the richness of the curriculum, the challenges to higher level thinking, and the exciting ways Parker students are being prepared for 21st Century lives. 

Listening to the 8th graders practice their graduation speeches, I was struck by recurring themes:  the joy of being in a place where they can be themselves and be appreciated for who they are, and where friendship and adventure are valued.  This is what is important to the students at this moment in their lives - and beyond all else gives them the confidence and courage to step into the next stage of their lives. 

As the adults guiding them, we their teachers and parents, can feel proud of the educational excellence that we have so carefully crafted, and the kids can take great pleasure in remembering a place where they got what they needed - acceptance, encouragement, celebration, and space to grow!

Skillful students show their stuff!

Lynn Schuster said of the 2-3 students Show of Work on India, as they created a Hindu Temple, played SmartBoard Jeopardy, and shared their Deity essays :

This study was multi-faceted and interdisciplinary. The work and experiences pushed and stretched our students to explore and develop new skills. Writing a thoughtful and interesting essay with greater ease! Creating detailed and beautiful works of art that captured their powers of observation! Dancing! Translating facts into interesting presentations! Showing great poise and confidence as they shared their new knowledge with you and our school community, they demonstrated stamina and an independent commitment to their tasks.

In K-1, the room was transformed into a rainforest in Costa Rica, with rainforest facts, research on birds, creative stories, a pop-up book...

I am reading progress reports right now - the array of deep studies in math, social studies, science, writing, Spanish... wait for the next blog entry for more!

Reach Out - Speak Out

The whirlwind of end-of-the-year activities is fully under way! 

Community work day brought out the troops for log hauling, window washing, topsoil spreading, curtain cleaning, and kitchen scrubbing.

4-5's made a presentation to the trustees on the whole-school Reduce, Reuse, Recycle project - they shared posters, power points, a music video, a magazine, a video puppet show, and letters to local companies - all to educate others.

Thesis presentations were magnificent on Thursday night.  8th graders are skilled presenters - clear, concise, interesting, and funny.  The range of their topics was fascinating: the evils of mass produced foods; the truth behind Woodstock; the increase in salaries in professional baseball; the Arthurian legend; the good works of Michael Jackson, the atomic bomb...to name just a few.

On Friday morning MICE (Make it Clean Everywhere) Teams were out in full force with a new twist:  The Little Cheese commissioner as a helper to the Big Cheese.

My take-away from the week?  Parker students are skilled and practiced communicators.  And they (and their families, too) readily share their time, talents, and energy!