Remember tumbling around on the floor with your dad or having a pillow fight with your cousins? Fun, right? Well, it’s also developmentally essential, especially for boys. To read all the fascinating reasons why you WANT your son to roughhouse, click on the following NY Times blog:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/in-praise-of-roughhousing/
(Asheville, NC) – In May, a moss garden will be installed at Rainbow Mountain Children’s School in West Asheville. The garden is donated by Dulcita Love who met Annie Martin of Mountain Moss Enterprises at a Women in Business networking event hosted by VERVE magazine and Boca restaurant earlier this year.
Annie caught Dulcita’s attention when she mentioned that there are over 450 species of moss in Western North Carolina and moss does not require the fertilizers, chemicals, and mowing that other traditional landscape options require.
Annie Martin, aka “Mossin’ Annie”, will install a moss garden and incorporate a “Going Green with Moss” lesson with the The Third Grade Penguins. The students will assist in the garden installation which will include rescued moss from Dupont State Forest and elements such as lichen sticks, nut pods, acorn caps, snail shells, ferns and other native plants.
Teacher, West Willmore, with a background in natural sciences and environmental education, will collaborate with Mossin’ Annie to create a lesson plan that includes the sciences, arts, and fun. Rainbow Mountain Children’s School places a strong emphasis on cherishing the Earth and has an outdoor classroom to bring the students outdoors. Under the direction and leadership of Renee Owen, Executive Director, the school will increase their focus next year on the outdoor environment of the school. Moss will be one way to enhance the grounds, educate students on local flora, and reduce long-term maintenance costs.
Mossin’ Annie writes:
“Like “Penguins”, mosses even like the cold and can be found growing in Antarctica. Mosses grow in all types of environments around the world. Phenolic compounds are like built-in antifreeze. This fact, among other amazing botanical characteristics, emphasizes the variety of bryophytes and their ability to survive extreme conditions.
With this “hands-on” living environmental art project, students will learn various bryophyte types (botany/science); how certain mosses solve environmental issues (environmental science/ecology); and how they can be creatively used in the landscape (art). This moss garden feature will provide delight throughout all seasons, even the winter, and opportunities to keep on learning for years to come.”
Tammy Watford of WLOS TV will film a Never Stop Learning segment during the moss installation and lesson.
In addition, Annie Martin is runner-up for the Big Idea Business Plan Competition sponsored by VERVE and AdvantageWest will receive a full-page story in VERVE magazine.
-Submitted by Dulcita Love
On a recent Friday evening Rainbow Mountain preschoolers headed back into their classrooms in their pajamas. It wasn’t detention it was a preschool “pajama party” to raise money and collect new pajamas for children in Japan whose lives have been affected by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
They listened to stories, played games, and made art. The kids had a ball and the class raised $200 and received several pairs of new pjs for the special collection.
To learn more about the Pajama Program, visit: PajamaProgram.org/Japan.html
Mark your calendars for May 4th!
One of the parents in the Rainbow Mountain community is hosting the Asheville Premier Screening of “World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements”, the new film by Chris Farina which depicts the transformation that happens as a class of students at a neighborhood school work to solve all of the earth’s crises with a balanced budget.
A small panel of local educators, including Renee Owen, have been invited to join the film’s star, John Hunter (teacher and TED speaker), on stage at the Diana Wortham Theatre for an intimate discussion about what Hunter calls “self-evident assessment” and the case for teaching global awareness and the principles of nonviolence in all grades.
The film begins at 6:45, Wednesday, May 4 at Dianna Worthan Theatre. Learn more and get tickets at www.worldpeaceavl.com
There were over 20 people from Rainbow Mountain Children’s School at the Sir Ken Robinson lecture last night, and we were all inspired — actually, validated, is a better word for it. Validated to know that the style of education we have been doing for 34 years at Rainbow, is now considered visionary, cutting edge, and the direction education needs to go nationally.
One of Sir Ken’s points that really stuck with me was when he answered a question by saying, “It’s about Spirit.” He clarified that he was referring to energy. Great teachers are energized by the children and by the material they are teaching. It resonates with their spirit. They also recognize what is special about each child, and they use that. For example, a child who habitually hums would be given more singing instruction and asked to lead songs for the class.
When asked to describe the perfect school, he might as well have been describing Rainbow: A school with strong underlying structure (as Ken said “creativity can only happen within structure”) and an ability to allow both kids and teachers to be creative in all subjects.
Here is another great Sir Ken Robinson talk:
Come by for a tour today!
