Cynthia Calhoun, Author at Rainbow Community School

Kaleidoscope – November 2024

by Cynthia Calhoun | Nov 4, 2024 | Blogs

Dear Rainbow Friends and Families,

If you like, you can listen to this recording.

It has been over a year since I have published a Kaleidoscope. This pause has been a mindful one, offering time for reflection on Rainbow’s communication practices, with the goal of designing an intentionally integrated set of publications that support an informed and engaged community.

The return of this publication marks a few adjustments. To begin, Kaleidoscope will be published seasonally, in support of a cadence of strategic communication that is digestible and meaningful. Also, you will always find a recording of the document for readers that would prefer to listen to the contents over taking the time to read it on a screen. May these adaptations offer you all a meaningful and worthy read, supporting your participation and understanding in the full Rainbow journey.

Following Nature’s Wisdom: What Can Be Learned In The Wake of Helene?

As we grapple with the destruction and loss of the past several weeks, I hope you are finding ways to honor, process, and attend to your wounds and needs. The work of facing trauma, while personal, is something that can be done in partnership. Please be reminded that Will Ray, our Director of Counseling, is available to support students and families in the coming weeks, and to help you engage in additional therapy services. He can be reached via email will.ray@rainbowlearning.org or by phone (828-424-4733).

In nature, power and force are often equally integrated with beauty and strength. This past month I have been humbled by the collective humanity growing all around us. Fellowship, care, service, love, awareness, engagement, understanding, compassion…the list goes on. These, I hope, are the experiences and memories that rise above the flood line. May they buoy our grief and guide our resilience.

In support of parents and caregivers

One of the most natural instincts we have is to protect our children. They are born into this world depending on us for the most basic of needs, and as they grow it can be difficult to know how and when to provide autonomy and engagement with challenge, failure, fear, and sorrow. The reality is, there is no single way to parent a child through the complexities of this world. As humans, we benefit from a personalized approach that accounts for our strengths and vulnerabilities.

That being said, many families come to Rainbow with some level of shared values around developmentally appropriate access to media consumption, technology, social/emotional discourse, and so on. However, when our world increasingly surrounds our children with unavoidable complex and dynamic realities (Covid, Climate Change, Social Media, etc) it is our obligation to pause and consider how best to move forward as a community. In these moments, allowing our children to guide the inquiry often inspires the most profound and appropriate learning.

In the coming weeks as we digest the impacts of the storm, the outcomes of the election, and the process of rebuilding in our community, we can be mindful of keeping Rainbow a student-centered environment. Recalling that each child will be looking to the adults around them for cues to feel safe, grounded, and ready to learn. As adults, we are not immune to the emotional toll of our current circumstances. Even so, we have the ability to create a collectively conscious atmosphere at Rainbow that supports our children.

A conscious return to our school programming

The first few weeks back have felt wonderful. The teachers created a compassionate re-entry process supporting the children emotionally, providing familiar routines, and engaging their love of learning.

We also have a few upcoming events that offer opportunities for community fellowship, spiritual connection, and a pathway for matriculation.

Movie Night- We are publishing this event internally, but Rainbow families are welcome to bring extended family and friends. For folks who choose to attend the potluck before the movie, please label any food you anticipate sharing. Everyone should bring their own lawn chairs, blankets, and snacks.

Day of the Dead- We are grateful to have our Hispanic families leading us in the preparation of the Ofrenda and planning of this sacred holiday. Anyone that is able to offer donations for the altar or sign up to be a firekeeper on the day of the event, can find details in this LINK.

Tamales will be served free of charge, sponsored in collaboration between Rainbow and a parent donor. They will be shared on a first come first served basis while the altar is being created on Wednesday.

Omega Open House- Omega Middle School will be hosting our fourth and fifth grade students and families for a visit on November 8, 2024. It will be an opportunity for our current students to get a personalized understanding of how the 7 Domains model shifts in adolescence to facilitate scholarship, encourage healthy autonomy, and inspire long-term thriving. More details will be shared directly with Fourth and Fifth grade families.

Winter Performance- Our annual winter performance will be held on December 19th at 3:00pm. This performance will feature preschool-5th grade classrooms and Omega elective performances. Since it is a school-wide event, we will not host afterschool that day, and Omega will dismiss prior to the event. More details will be provided soon. This is a beautiful celebration of music and art that will be a welcome culmination of 2024.

Yours In Partnership and Appreciation for the Journey,

Susie Fahrer
Executive Director

This year’s science fair is going to be awesome!

by Cynthia Calhoun | Feb 12, 2020 | News

The science fair has some great experiments going on.

The annual science fair is always a fun event. Across grade levels, all students participate and present their projects to the other grades. All students – whether individually or in groups – are responsible for coming up with testable ideas, hypotheses, drawing conclusions and interpreting results.

It’s not always so easy to come up with something that is both interesting and challenging. But, we have a sneak peek of our Omega 7/8 students doing just that.

We visited their classroom recently to see them testing and working diligently on their science projects to get ready for the upcoming science fair. In the Omega classroom, students were working in four different groups on a specific science experiment they chose.

Proving that gases have weight

This particular group set out to prove that gases have weight by using combustion. They weighed out pieces of wood and magnesium before burning. Next, they put each one to flame and tested their weight after the burning process.

Their prediction was that the wood would weigh less, and the magnesium would weigh more.

Omega students set out to prove that gases have weight by burning wood and magnesium, while comparing the weight of each before and after the burn process.

Engineering a Reptile Egg Incubator

The idea behind this science project was to engineer how to transport a reptile egg from site A to site B while using heat chemistry. The goal was to keep the egg stable and warm, as it could not shift position or roll over, nor could it endure temperature fluctuation.

The incubator required calcium chloride, baking soda and water. Students needed to measure whether they could detect temperature changes after they dissolved calcium chloride, and baking soda into water. The eggs needed a constant temperature of 28 – 32C during transport and being able to maintain temperature for a certain amount of time was an important consideration in this investigation.

Two of our Omegan students work on their project: Engineering a Reptile Egg Incubator (with heat chemistry).

The Digestion of Minerals in the Stomach

This group began their science class by heating up small glass pipes and bending them to simulate the “pipes” in human digestive systems. Once complete, they would then mix hydrochloric acid and marble to observe the reaction (much as it would happen in the stomach). The last step was to measure the resulting water and carbon dioxide from the process.

Above: Two Omegans heat and bend glass pipes to simulate “pipes” of the digestive system.

Below: All the materials needed to complete their investigation.

Testing for Vitamin C Content by Titration

Are you curious about how much vitamin C is actually in the things you buy? This group set out to answer those questions by testing how much vitamin C is present in various common beverages through a titration technique. Students used an indophenol solution to determine the presence of vitamin C by how much the color changed. The various beverages they tested included freshly squeezed lemons, limes, and oranges. They also tried orange juice found in the grocery store, and sodas that claimed to have Vitamin C.

This Omega group is checking the presence (and amount) of Vitamin C in common beverages using titration.

The Results

The results from each of these experiments is the subject of the upcoming science fair. You’ll have to check out the Omega 7/8 classroom to find the conclusions to burning magnesium and wood, how to maintain temperature in an egg incubator using chemical reactions, what happens to calcium carbonate when it reacts with hydrochloric acid in the stomach, and how much vitamin C is really in our common drinks. Check Rainbow Reminders for science fair details!

Who’s your favorite Greek deity?

by Cynthia Calhoun | Jan 28, 2020 | Blogs, Home Page News

Fourth graders figure out their favorite Greek deity

We headed over to 4th grade recently where our students were immersed in the world of ancient Greece. They learned about mythology and creative arts. Their teacher, Kurt, said they really loved learning about the Greek gods and doing hands-on activities related to their learning.

Because of that, Kurt let them do a special activity that would further their learning with Greek mythology. They investigated their favorite god by reading a story, and created designs using paper shaped like pottery. These designs were based on what they knew about the deity they studied.

Hercules – probably the most famous Greek deity

They started off their lesson with a short video about Hercules. They talked about how the story of Hercules is from long ago when “chaos reigned.” Students realized there were many references to pottery and design, as well as other historical events.

Greek Pottery

Fourth graders had a chance to look at examples of ancient Greek pottery. They saw references to Achilles, a centaur, minotaur, war and peace, Hercules and more. Once they had a chance to look at different examples, their teacher explained that stories they were about to read would also inform the designs they’d create on their pottery.

Stories about Greek gods

Each student paired up with another and chose their favorite Greek deity to study. They were allowed to read the story to each other, silently, or alternate between silent reading and reading aloud as they liked. Once finished, each student created their paper pottery. Essentially, they created a stencil using one piece of paper, cut it out, and finally glued it onto paper with a brown background.

After students finished gluing their stenciled piece onto the background, they could begin drawing designs. They worked with pencils and black markers. Some designs were quite eloquent and detailed. One requirement was to reference the story they read within their pottery design.

These pottery designs complemented the rest of their unit on Greek mythology. Intricate and detailed, each pottery piece reflected each student’s drawing style. As students concluded the unit, they did further research on their chosen Greek god. This research led to a one-page report, which they later presented to their class.

This one lesson touched on several different domains: the social and emotional, in which students were able to collaborate with one another, and worked together to complete their stories and pottery projects. They engaged in the mental domain in researching more about Greek deities. They were able to use the creative domain with their pottery designs and even touched on the spiritual domain with regard to Greek beliefs and mythology itself. All teachers at Rainbow create units that incorporate the seven different domains at least once.

2nd grade classification of…shoes?

by Cynthia Calhoun | Dec 9, 2019 | Blogs, Home Page News

Classification of shoes to teach valuable lessons

We headed to second grade recently to find students doing classification of…shoes! There is a very interesting reason why.

As students started out this lesson, they began with some silent reading time. These quiet moments helped get them ready for what was next.

It was so quiet you could hear their minds “thinking.” Little did they know, they would need their sharp minds and their shoes for the subsequent portion of their lesson.

Their teacher, Eddy, had them take their paired shoes and separate them. They put one on the checkered green rug in their main classroom, and the other on the green rug in the library/centering room.

Classification of shoes in different ways

The kiddos separated into two groups with the following instruction: to group or separate the shoes according to a system they would create. In other words, students could separate shoes by color, brand, size, or some other determining factor. They brainstormed different ideas of how they might classify their shoes within their groups.

Each group chatted and came up with a plan that all could agree with and implement.

Neither group had any idea how the other was classifying their shoes. However, they each came up with very different ways of grouping and organizing their shoes.

In the library room, students grouped shoes by their overall color. In the main room, students grouped them by how they “closed” or secured to the foot, such as with velcro, slip-on, shoestrings, etc.

Once they did that, their teacher asked them to reclassify their shoes and come up with a second way to group them all. Students in the library decided to group by the “purpose of the shoe,” such as hiking or running. The other group classified all the different shoes by size.

Why classify shoes?

Why would students do this?

They brainstormed about labeling and classifying things to make sense of the world and understand it better. Eddy asked them, “aren’t there lots of different kinds of trees?” All students agreed that there were. He asked them about animals, plants, and seeds. Everyone agreed that, yes, there are many different varieties of each of these. It is in classifying and grouping plants, animals, and seeds, humans can identify what they are and understand what they do and their role in the world ecosystem.

Learning about the animal kingdom

After everyone got their shoes back, they began talking about the scientific system of classification. They learned about the five main kingdoms of living things: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria (monera), and one-celled organisms (protists). Later, they went more in-depth with the animal kingdom. Eddy gave each student a piece of paper with the name of an animal on it. Each student had to determine if the animal they had was a mammal, reptile, amphibian, fish, or a type of bird. Some of them were tricky! Did you know that a whale is a mammal? Or that a skink is a type of reptile?

Students walked away with a broader understanding of why people classify the world around them. They explored a number of ways in which it’s possible to do so. What a fun way to use methods of scientific thinking to reason, deduce, classify, as well as integrate other skills such as collaboration, discussion and reaching a consensus.

We love how Eddy integrated elements of the 7 Domains. Students were able to move around the classroom. They worked together to complete their tasks which reinforced the social domain. This process of reasoning and classification touched on the mental domain. Talking about organisms in nature brought in the natural domain. One lesson with multiple approaches. That is a day in the life of a Rainbow student.

First Grade Rocks the Rock Cycle

by Cynthia Calhoun | Oct 30, 2019 | Blogs, Home Page News

Learning about the Rock Cycle

First graders have been studying the rock cycle, and they’re learning it through the seven domains: the mental domain, creative, and natural, among others.

The story of Piedra

Have you heard of Piedra? She’s the main character in the story their teacher, Rachel, told. Students gathered around while they heard the tale of Piedra, whose journey spanned MILLIONS of years.

Rachel told of how Piedra lived in Appalachia, then made her way to a nearby river where she stayed for hundreds of thousands of years. Over the course of that time, she witnessed turtles, ducks and river otters going about their lives. Little by little, Piedra rolled and rolled downriver, eventually finding herself out at sea. Piedra saw sea animals that she’d never seen before swimming all around her.

Millions of years in the making…

Gradually sand and silt from the sea bottom began to cover her up until she was completely buried, taking about 20,000 years to happen. Piedra stayed there for another million years until she felt a warmth coming from the earth. She felt a whoosh and before she knew what happened, she erupted through a volcano as hot lava, and immediately cooled once she hit the air. She emerged once again as a rock upon a mountain. Only this time, she was a rock who had changed.

Through this compelling story, students learned about how a rock might go through the entire rock cycle. They talked about other cycles they might be familiar with: the lava cycle, the water cycle, and the butterfly cycle.

Illustrating the Rock Cycle

After students heard the story, they had an opportunity to create an illustration of the rock cycle. Miss Rachel led them through a guided drawing.

They began with a line.

Followed by a volcano.

Next they erased the left part of the line and replaced it with a wavy ocean line.

They followed that with a “lava ball”…

…that grew into a lava chute.

They erased the top of the volcano to allow the lava to exit the earth, and had some fun drawing globs of lava “splashing out and spilling over the side”.