by Webmaster | Jan 31, 2015 | Events, Home Page News

Hobey Ford in one of his performances called, “Animalia“.
Hobey Ford at Rainbow Community School
Fantastical characters and sound effects. Incredible stories, puppets and sound effects. All this and more if you come see Hobey Ford!
It’s Saturday, February 28 at 3:30 pm. We’ll start with a sing-a-long with Sue Ford. Doors open at 3.
There will be a kids’ sing-a-long, a raffle, and fun times, too!
Tickets cost $12 for adults and $7 for children at the door. $25 maximum per family.
A Little About Hobey Ford…
Hobey Ford makes his hand-made “Foamies” puppets come alive. He takes children into another world, using his voice, sound effects and song to tell a story.
He engages his audiences and mesmerizes children with delightful, interactive performances. During a show, Hobey is unmasked, but plays many different roles.
Sometimes he’ll be the MC, the storyteller, the puppeteer, and the magician. Artistic scenery and backdrops add to the fun for the whole family.
Hobey Ford Performances
We are so blessed to have Hobey come to Rainbow. His list of performances is incredible!
Animalia
Migration
The Rainbow Bridge and Other Tales
World Tales
Turtle Island Tales
Tales of Light
The Ant and the Grasshopper
In addition to these signature performances, Hobey also helps educators. He can do teacher residences, workshops with the puppets. He also does student workshops, teaching students how to work with puppets.
You should definitely come to this event!
Just look at one of his testimonials:
“Animalia was visually and aurally engrossing; it was a gentle show.
In these days when our children are bombarded with thousands of images per minute, frequently deafening sound and high-tech effects, the show was in startling counterpoint – it progressed at a non-hurried pace children seemed to respond to every nuance, delighting in the playfulness of the animals and in you, too, as you made the animals swoop over them or land on their heads.
The realism of the animals’ movements was truly amazing . . . It was a pleasure to work with you. . . . the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
I know one teacher who used the materials and puppets before the end of the week!
—Christine Brown, Director, Center for the Arts, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
This event is open to the public.
by Webmaster | Dec 11, 2014 | Home Page News, Student News & Accolades
The Legend of Chocolate
The third grade class just completed a unit on the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish. Their Spanish teacher, Cynthia, worked with West, their third grade teacher, to create a unit that would complement what the students were learning in their main classroom.
Students studied about how things work – machines, phones, etc. – in their main classroom lessons and in Spanish class, students learned about where chocolate came from.
At the end of the unit, third graders got a chance to see how chocolate is made, and how the machines work to make all that chocolate.
In their Spanish unit, students learned many new vocabulary words such as food (comida), drink (bebida), the Toltecs (los Toltecas), as well as many more vocabulary words.
They learned abut Quetzalcoatl, the god of Light and Tezcatlipoca, the god of darkness. Quetzalcoatl was the god to bring the food of the gods – chocolate – to the people, especially when they were so hungry. He taught them to farm, and how to turn cacao into a chocolate drink fit for the gods!

Third graders at the French Broad Chocolate Tasting Room
From there, they learned the mythical story about where chocolate originated. They learned the story in Spanish and even learned to recite it.
At the end of the unit, they took a field trip to the French Broad Chocolate Factory and had a tour of the Tasting Room. They listened to Evan, a Chocolatier, talk about cacao, where it comes from, how the Chocolatiers turn the cacao beans into chocolate and how they try to be as sustainable as possible in the process.
The crew at the French Broad Chocolate Factory led everyone into their “back rooms” where students could see all the machines at work. From rinsing, to sifting the cacao beans, to grinding them down into chocolate, they were able to see the entire process from start to finish.
Students sampled chocolate – the dark, unsweet kind directly derived from cacao – from different regions and it has a different taste from different regions!

Learning about chocolate and cacao
At the end of the presentation, the third graders performed the skit of the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish for the French Broad Chocolate Lounge Staff.
Did you know that the French Broad Chocolate Factory uses solar power to heat all its water? And that they make every attempt to source all their ingredients locally?
They also deal only with farms that use fair trade in their practices. In fact, the owners and employees make trips to cacao farms in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Peru and help harvest the cacao by hand.
They have developed mutually beneficial relationships with farmers in those countries.

Watching the grinding machine take off the outer shell of cacao.
Rainbow would like to extend a special thank you to the Chocolatiers – especially Evan – for a wonderful lesson on chocolate, sustainability, how things work, and the idea of being as responsible to the planet and to each other as possible!
by Webmaster | Dec 10, 2014 | Home Page News
Partnership with Children First
Rainbow, as you may know, has a partnership with Children First.
Quite a few of the service learning projects on campus, as well as the Fall Harvest Hoedown directly benefit Children First/Communities in Schools of Buncombe County.
We wanted to share the final results of the Halloween Harvest Hoedown.
Why now?
Because at this year’s holiday program, The Festival of Lights, we are going to present Children First a check for $1,036. This number is 25% of the total funds raised by the Hoedown event.
Here are all the numbers:
Hoedown Profit (after all expenses): $4,143.75.
25% to Children First: $1,036.
by Webmaster | Dec 8, 2014 | Home Page News
Poetry SLAM!

Poetry Slam to benefit MANNA food bank
We have another wonderful event on the horizon: a Soulspeak Poetry Slam!
This is a benefit for Manna Food Bank.
It’s Saturday, December 13th at 7pm at the RCS Auditorium.
You can hear Asheville’s best and brightest recite and share their poems.
A Benefit for Manna…
Many youth poets have toured MANNA and volunteered over the past few weeks to learn more about the issue of hunger in our community.
They will be presenting poems about this at the slam.
Last year they raised $1000 and over 5000 lbs. of food!
This year, they want to double that!
The acapella group from Asheville High will join them that evening, as well to share some holiday music.
It is going to be an amazing event.
Thank you for all your help and support.
We hope to see you there!
If you go:
PLEASE BRING FOOD DONATIONS!
Adults $15
Students & Teachers $10
Purchase tickets at Eventbrite.com now!
Presented in partnership with Francine Delaney New School for Children and Asheville Youth Mission
by Webmaster | Nov 10, 2014 | Home Page News, News
Rainbow Community’s Artist Reception
Food. Wine. Jazzy music. Great conversation. Fabulous art.
The First Annual RCS Art Show was a hit!
Lots of local and regional artists’ work were in the show and the school created an art page for the artwork. The page will remain active on Rainbow’s website for two more weeks, so if you were thinking about buying a great work of art, you still have a chance!
If you were able to attend the event, and tried the food, it was incredible! Tina Crain catered the food and if you need a caterer that uses the finest quality food for delicious taste, check out her website, Chestnut Flats.
Here’s a sampling of the amazing food:

Sweet figs – so creamy and delicious
There was gluten-free pumpkin bread, and other delectable finger foods:

Bite-sized pumpkin bread
The beauty and quality of all the art was simply exquisite. People were able to have conversations around many of the art pieces.

Conversation around the arts
Delicate and vibrant, the artwork truly was the highlight of the event.

Acro Bag by John Littleton and Kate Vogel
Darrah, a Rainbow parent, facilitated the event and worked hard to put it all together.
From the website, to the food, to the setup, she stepped up to the plate and created an event that everyone enjoyed. A special thank you goes out to her for all the hard work she did.
RCS also wants to extend its gratitude to Wicked Weed, and Jeffie Cilano for the white wine.

Fine wine, grapes and fall themed beer were the order of the day
50% of all the art sales support the RCS Combined Campaign. The other 50% goes directly to the artists.
Many RCS parents and families came to the event, as did folks from the greater Asheville community. Thank you to everyone who supported the event!

Thank you for supporting RCS and the arts!