Pop Ferguson has been playing the blues since he was a kid and this week he is sharing his passion with Rainbow fifth and sixth graders. LEAF in Schools and Streets partners with LEAF performers to bring some of their talents to schools all over the Asheville area. Children working directly with artist leads to inspiration and change in a child’s life. It can spark a passion that will last a lifetime.
This same reason is also why every year Rainbow Mountain also brings both performing and visual artist into the school to work with all the children. The month of May has the arts in full swing here and on this Friday, May 18th, we will hold an all day celebration of the arts with our Imagine! event. On this day the classes and parents will tour the visual art galleries set up around campus and then walk down to Calvary Baptist Church to watch the performances.
Not only has the fifth and sixth grade class been learning to play the blues but they have also taken the bus downtown to photograph the city while working with photographer, Mehera Kleiner. Other classes are also having having fun. The third grade class is up to their elbows in newspaper strips as they make bird mask with ornithology enthusiast, Alan Ward. In fact they’re up to their elbows in all things bird. They’ve needle felted little birds, they’ve sculpted birds, and of course they’ve studied birds.
Kindergarten is learning Brazilian samba dance. First grade studied photography and are now in the middle of African dance, Second, Fourth and the Omega program are all rehearsing for their plays. Walking by the classrooms I overheard some strange dialog until I remembered it’s play practice. Whew! I’m hoping to get away from the front desk Friday to see all the acts. It promises to be entertaining.
Sixth grader Falconer with his very well trained Falcon
The fifth and sixth grade class went medieval. After studying the history and culture of medieval Europe, the students turned their classroom into a medieval castle. Each student had a role to fill and tell about. There was the royal family, the knights, artisans, a sheriff, an inventor, a miller, a stable hand, fish monger, falconer, healer, an apothecary, and others.
The parents and other grades rotated from room to room and heard the stories from each student about their medieval persona and on how that role depended on the others in the room. At the end they all sang a nice, catchy ballad about Robin Hood.
The class did a wonderful job transforming the space and relying their knowledge. I think every visitor learned something new that day.
Exotic spices filled the air along with the calls of street merchants. The bustling crowd of proud and curious parents were clamoring about. Was I really in the Rainbow playground or had I found myself transported into the middle of an Indian street bazaar? All around me I saw the blue room preschoolers dressed up in colorful and fancy clothes as they sat at their stalls (mats) along the paved area. Some stalls were shops where the children hawked trinkets like bangles and tie dyed fabric (made by the preschoolers earlier this month). Other stalls I visited were informational stalls where the student told me about yoga or cleaning brass.
India doesn’t seem like the typical subject preschoolers would learn about. So their teacher, Jessica Redford explained. “The kids were very interested in India ever since Molly went.” Molly was the after school preschool teacher with us last year. She left us and Asheville to tour India for six months. While in India she sent her former class a large box full of bangles, little wooden trinkets for counting and beautiful cloths for dress up.
Today the children celebrated all they had learned about India with their bazaar and then a large Indian feast. Their parents supplied the tasty, aromatic meal, and the children supplied their fair share of excitement.
Millions Will Participate in the Annual Turnoff week and 139 kids of those millions will be from Rainbow Mountain. We think it’s always time to PLAY! So we choose as our team name; PLAY – Positive, Learning, Active, Youth.
Rainbow Mountain Children’s School will join thousands of schools, libraries, and community groups nationwide in a coordinated effort to encourage millions of Americans to turn off televisions, computers, and video games for seven days and turn on the world around them. Screen-Free Week is a chance for children to read, play, think, create, be more physically active, and to spend more time with friends and family.
“Screen-Free Week is a much needed respite from the screen media dominating the lives of so many children” said Renee Jackson, fifth/sixth grade teacher. “Now, more than ever, it’s imperative that we help children discover the joys of life beyond screens.”
On average, preschool children spend over four and a half hours a day consuming screen media, while older children spend over seven hours a day including multitasking. Excessive screen time is linked to a number of problems for children, including childhood obesity, poor school performance, and problems with attention span.
Screen-Free Week (formerly TV-Turnoff) is coordinated by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a national advocacy organization devoted to reducing the impact of commercialism on children. Since the Week’s founding in 1994, it has been celebrated by millions of children and their families worldwide. For more information, visit www.screenfree.org.
“From the mouth’s of babes…” What a POWERFUL speaker. This girl reminds me of some of the young people who have graduated from Rainbow Mountain.
~Renee Owen (Executive Director)
PS. The video is slightly out of focus, but totally worth it.
Exotic spices filled the air along with the calls of street merchants. The bustling crowd of proud and curious parents were clamoring about. Was I really in the Rainbow playground or had I found myself transported into the middle of an Indian street bazaar? All around me I saw the blue room preschoolers dressed up in colorful and fancy clothes as they sat at their stalls (mats) along the paved area. Some stalls were shops where the children hawked trinkets like bangles and tie dyed fabric (made by the preschoolers earlier this month). Other stalls I visited were informational stalls where the student told me about yoga or cleaning brass.
