We are beyond excited! SATURDAY September 27th @ 7pm, Soulspeak Asheville will be helping us dedicate our new community center auditorium space with a youth poetry slam!
WE ARE ALL POETS will feature 12 youth ages 12-21 from the WNC community sharing their poetry.
There will also be an open mic.
Mel Kelley and Liam Kelley Black (Rainbow alumni) from Soulspeak will be bringing poetry to our Omega students the next two Thursdays as well as offering support to any student who wants to slam or open mic on the 27th.
Matt Foley
Award winning poet, author and teacher, Matthew Foley, from Charleston, SC will feature at the slam.
Free Wordshop
Soulspeak is offering a FREE WORDSHOP with Matthew for youth poets earlier that day from 3-5pm @ Kairos, 742 Haywood Rd.
If You Want to Go…
All Omega students are welcome!
ALL PROCEEDS from the slam go towards providing the free Saturday wordshops and open mics that SOULSPEAK offers our youth poets each month.
Rainbow families will receive a $2 discount per ticket. Adults just $10, students $5! Tickets will be for sale on the decks from Thursday on.
One of the most special things about Rainbow is how students and staff alike have opportunities to grow. Each person grows personally, professionally and spiritually.
Before school starts in August each year, all staff come back together after summer break – many of whom will have engaged in professional development on their own – for a week of training.
As part of that training, the staff goes on a required retreat.
It’s not just any kind of retreat.
The time the staff spends together is designed to help teachers understand the practice of teaching on a higher level, understand how to work with each other better, build relationships, and engage in relevant, innovative training so that ultimately, this translates to working in the classroom with Rainbow Community School’s students.
For two days they engaged in activities that nourished their spirits, and allowed them to participate in workshops that they could immediately use in the classroom.
Temperaments
Pictured below is one such workshop.
The school’s Director, Renee Owen, led a Temperaments training.
This was designed so that staff could understand more about their own temperament, but also how to identify the temperaments of their students.
This allows for better communication and understanding between students, teachers, and the greater Community.
Photo credit: Michael Lightweaver, Mountain Light Sanctuary
At the end of the training, after many discussions, de-briefings and having learned a lot of beneficial information for the classroom, the staff gathered for one final photo.
They held one last Centering and blessing before they dispersed.
End of staff retreat Photo credit: Michael Lightweaver, Mountain Light Sanctuary
As the school year gets underway, we’re learning about what opportunities staff and students participated in over the summer.
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Rainbow’s music teacher, Sue Ford, attended something called the Sister Singers Network Festival at the University of Illinois, Champagne/Urbana this summer.
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There she had the honor of hearing a song that she wrote called “Heal Me” by a mass chorus of 250 women.
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Women’s Chorus singing “Heal Me” a song Sue Ford composed.
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“Heal Me” by Sue Ford was recorded by Womansong a few years ago. Listen to the audio version:
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She also performed with Womansong of Asheville as well as facilitated a workshop called “Rhythm for Singers”.
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The video below shows Sue playing the banjo to one of the mass chorus songs, “I Come From Women” by Amy Carol Webb:
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We’re so proud of Sue!
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But also, if you’re a current or former Rainbow student, family member or even staff, we want to hear your news! Contact us and let us know.
We are thrilled to have our K-8 families back on campus!
Tomorrow, our Pre-K families return to campus.
What a glorious first day it has been!
Making Friends
Returning and new students were glad to see each other. Some had met only days before at their class pot luck, and others have known each other for years. We know one thing is for sure: all our students and families have become part of the Rainbow family.
The First Day…
Students in all grades showed how much they remembered in classroom activities in every grade. Some completed forms that were about what they did over the summer.
Others created artwork, joined a Centering Circle, and others engaged in Imaginative Play.
Some classes took tours of the campus to familiarize themselves with some of the new changes – such as our expanded campus.
We had lots of wonderful photo ops for the first day, coffee for parents. The energy on campus was just glorious.
Take a look at our 2014 First Day photo gallery – you can click on each image to see a bigger version.
Hanf’s game with a photo of some Omega students trying out the game
Mark Hanf Featured in Asheville’s Newspaper
Mark Hanf, one of our new Omega teachers, has been featured in the “Living Section” of the Asheville Citizen Times.
He has spent time hiking the Appalachian Trail.
It’s impacted his life so much that now he wants to hike the entire length of it some day with his daughter.
In the meantime, they both can “prep” for the hike because she’s only five. The best way to do that? With a board game!
Mark Hanf Creates AT Board Game
Mark and a team of developers worked to create a game that would help people learn best practices and skills in preparation for hiking the Appalachian Trail.
The idea came to him after stopping at a shelter along the trail that had been left littered and otherwise pretty trashed. His first reaction was anger. But then he thought that perhaps others just haven’t had the training he’s had to know trail and hiking etiquette. He had been a Boy Scout.
He cleaned up the shelter and took his idea to create a board game to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy where he received a small grant. From there, the game was born.
He’s also started a Kickstarter Campaign to expand and spread awareness about the game. Fundraising for the cause exceeded the goal, totaling 1,093 backers and $57,361 raised. Success!
