First Grade plants Norway Spruce Sapplings on the Short Hills Campus!

After a wonderful morning of composting and learning about the importance of rich, fertile soil we got to try our hand at planting! Oh what fun we had!

Mr. Gagliardi, a Pingry parent and staff member, let us help him with the planting of Norway Spruce sapplings on the Short Hills campus. First, we learned all about what plants need in order to grow and the dos and don'ts of planting. Then he sent each first grader on their way, sappling in hand to find the perfect planting spot! Parents, be sure to ask your first grader what the special potting plants were made out of and how tall our sapplings will get over the years!

Even though it was a bit chilly outside, we bundled up and headed out to find a great spot for our sapplings! It was much harder work than we anticipated! Lots of rocks and roots were in the soil, but we also saw lots of wonderful signs that the soil was rich and filled with nutrients for our sapplings. We saw lots and lots of worms in the ground, so we know that our sapplings are in good hands! We promised to come back and sing to them, talk to them and make sure they were growing along the edge of the forest! We'll be checking in!

Composting & Planting in Pingry's First Grade!

Wow! What an exciting day we had! We had a terrific lesson from Ms. Erica Fischer from the Cora Hartshorne Arboretum. She told us the basics about composting, and we surprised her because we already knew a lot! While we haven't done any composting yet, we sure know a lot about it! We're getting ready to dig in!

We enjoyed spending the morning doing hands on activities as we learned about the importance of reusing our "greens". Be sure to ask your first grader what can and cannot be put into a compost! They know all the rules!

We played with worms, tried to identify decomposing food and learned lots and lots of great vocabulary! We even added those special words to our personal dictionaries! Be sure to ask your first grader about words like ' humus, castings, decompose and fertilizer'. We know all about it!

Then we took a terrific walk on our Pingry grounds and used our senses to see what we could find. We 'heard' the waterfall, snapping twigs, birds and the wind. We 'smelled' the leaves and plants. We 'saw' signs of animal homes and even saw animals skeletons! We didn't 'touch' much, and certainly didn't 'taste' anything, but we had a terrific time! Check out our pictures on the side bar and see the fun we had!

Back from a busy day in the Lovett Garden!

Hi Guys!
I'm back from a very busy day at the Lovett School in Atlanta! I spent the whole day helping out my friend Ms. Spiers teach her science classes! We taught four 2nd grade classes and one first grade class. It was a lot of work, but lots of fun! I learned so many new things and got lots of wonderful ideas for things to do!

When I went to see Ms. Spiers in the fall, their garden wasn't built yet. They just had that wonderful green house that I showed you pictures of. Today, they have a terrific garden that the students manage with a little help from their wonderful science teacher and the maintenance staff. Wait until you see the pictures!!! I'll post them on the side bar shortly!

Guess what kinds of things they are growing in their garden? I'm going to put a survey at the bottom to see if you can guess what my favorite thing in the garden was! Log on and find out!

Ms. SW

Ms. SW heads south, again... in March

Hi All,

I'm heading south again, to Atlanta, Ga. I am going to be attending the Pingry Alumni reception with several people from the upper campus. I will post pictures so you can see what I am doing away from school!

Last time I went to Atlanta, in February it was snowing when I got there! Hopefully, the weather will be wonderfully warm this time! I'm crossing my fingers! Cross yours too!

Of course, I am going to take a class or two while I am there. Stay tuned to find out what I am learning this time! It has something to do with springtime and planting... any guesses?

See you on Monday afternoon!
Love,
Ms. SW

Saturday December 5th in Denver

Hi Everyone! Saturday was a very busy day for us, as it was the last day of the conference and a big travel day. Everyone was leaving Denver and it was crowded and busy trying to get out of there!

We had a terrific workshop with the students who came with us. They ran a workshop for all the adults at the conference, because they came to Denver to learn how to be leaders in Diversity. They did a fantastic job and I will post pictures of this soon.

We are all very tired, because we got home at about midnight, and then still had to travel to our houses. I got in my bed at 1:30 am in the morning! It was a great conference, but I was glad to be home and in my own bed.

The teachers had a lot of fun, but we missed the Pingry Holiday party back in New Jersey. So, instead, we went out to a wonderful place and had a chocolate fondue dessert celebration. It was really, really fun and delicious! I had a lot of fun with my friends from all over the country and learned lots of new things. I look forward to sharing it with the Pingry community in the months ahead!

See you on Monday! I brought everyone a pencil from Denver! Now you have pencils from 2 states! Love, Ms. SW

Day TWO in Denver!

Hello from Denver, again! We are having a great time, but it is sooooo busy! Today when we got up it was a little warmer! It was 11 degrees instead of 8 degrees like the day before! There is still snow on the ground, but just a little and they have done a good job of shoveling the sidewalks. The sun is shining, so hopefully it will warm up just a little!

This morning, I went to hear an AWESOME speaker names Charlene Teters. She is a Native American woman from the Spokane tribe in Washington State. She is an artist and does a lot of work around making people aware about why it is not appropriate to have mascots for college and professional sports teams that are Indian names. When she was getting her masters degree in fine arts at the University of Illinois, she was one of only two Native American students at the entire school. Their mascot is an Indian chief. She talked about how she felt watching the whole school make fun of Native Americans. She has worked very hard since then to make sure that people understand that this is not a good thing to do. It was very interesting and at times the people in the audience were very sad for her.

This afternoon I am in something called an affinity group. I am in a room full of only African American teachers. I am enjoying being in a room with a bunch of men and women who look just like me and teach in schools. I met a very nice teacher from a school in Morris Plains and I have seen some friends from Morristown Beard, Far Hills Country Day and Dwight Englewood Schools. I have also seen lots of my friends who teach at the private schools in NYC where I used to teach.

Did you figure out who my roommate is? It's Ms. Mehta!! We have been having lots and lots of deep conversations about all the things we are learning here. While I was with all the African American teachers, she was in a room with all the Southeast Asian Teachers. She too felt a nice comfort level being in a room with lots of people who look like her. Put on your thinking caps and think about why that might make a big difference to us.

The next thing I am going to do is go to a State meeting. All the schools from NJ will be in one room and we will make some plans and arrangements for speakers and workshops when we get back.

Today it is sunny and we can finally see the mountains. I will post a picture from my hotel window, but it's kind of hard to see because there are lots of tall buildings around us. We are right in downtown Denver. It's also very cold and dry here. There is hardly any moisture in the air. What do you think the Queen of Lotion is doing???? I'm using lots and lots of lip balm and handcream from my favorite store!!! I came prepared! Lots of people didn't so in the bag of goodies they gave us, they put in some of the things we would need. I'll post a picture of my goodie bag.

I hope you had a good week in school. I'll be back on Monday. Remember... this is "go with the flow" time because we are going up to Martinsville on Wednesday for the all school music program.

Everyone is having lots of fun and learning lots of things! I can't wait to see what the Pingry Upper School students have learned! They are going to present what they have learned to the teachers on Saturday morning before we head to the last speaker of the conference.

Keep checking in! I'm still here and will blog as much as I have time for! Love, Ms. SW

FREEZING IN DENVER!!!

Well, we made it to Denver!!! A stretch Hummer came to the Pingry parking lot to pick us up! Can you believe that? The students and teachers were very excited! But it was very early in the morning, so we had to keep our excitement quiet!

We arrived in Denver and gained 2 hours because this part of the country is 2 hours behind us... so it was about 12 noon when we got here, but really about 2pm our time. We were starving and looking for food right away! But, guess what? It was 18 degrees here and there is snow on the ground! I just turned on the news in my hotel room and it's going to be 1 or 2 degrees above zero tonight!!! Brrrrrrr!!!!! We need our warm woolies!!!!

We are here with 22 people from Pingry. I am posting some pictures on the side bar... It's almost time for us to go check in at the convention center. I will check in again later this evening, after I go to the gym, of course!

Ms. SW

Heading to Denver in December!

Hi Guys! This month I'm heading to Denver, Colorado for the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference! Wow, that was a mouthful! I will be traveling with 22 people from the Pingry School and we will be very busy!

Remember, there is a time difference from NJ to Denver, so my blogging will be a little off for you. But, I promise to check in and let you know what is going on! I'll post pictures of the events and the teachers having fun and learning lots of new things!

Be sure to answer the poll to see if you can guess my roommate! I'll post the answer on the blog soon... keep checking!Love, Ms. SW

Busy, busy weekend!

Hi Everyone! I am sorry that I have not had 5 seconds to blog yet! There has been so much going on! I am not having breakfast this morning so I can send you a little message before I go back to my workshop at the Botanical Gardens!

I had a great visit to the Westminster School in Atlanta on Friday. I visited 2 first grade classes and watched a reading lesson and a yummy, yummy math lesson on number sentences! The kids made dominoes out of graham crackers, icing and chocolate chips! They had a good time, even though they had very sticky fingers! Friday afternoon, I drove about 65 miles to Athens, Ga, home of the University of Georgia! There are LOTS and LOTS of GA. Bulldog flags, stickers and car decals everywhere! People have their whole cars decorated with Bulldog paraphernalia! College football is a big deal in this state!

My class on sustainability is at The State Botanical Gardens of GA. It's a beautiful place, much like Calloway Gardens, which I visited in September. My class is in the beautiful new education wing of the Visitor's Center and I am learning all kinds of hands on thing about plants and gardening. We had lunch in the Garden Cafe and everything in there is compostable. Even our plastic cups and straws were made of of corn and we put them in the compost that we made. There was no garbage can anywhere, because everything went into a recycling bin or composting bin. We took our plates, cups, napkins, straws and I took my pickle, and put it in the big mulch bed we made. I spent about 5 hours outside in the warm weather (77 degrees!) digging, raking, shoveling, spreading and planting. It was VERY hard work, but really, really fun! In the 4:00 session, I learned all about worms, slugs, beatles, and grubs and how they are important to the decomposition in composting. We played with all kinds of bugs for about 3 hours! I was dirty, sweaty and very tired by the time the class was over for the day! But, I am learning a lot and having a terrific time with lots of other gardeners, farmers, teachers and people in this community. Today we are going to a landfill, a farm to learn about animals and how they all play an important part in our learning about creating a sustainable environment. I will post more pictures when I get back! Time for me to head to class! More later today...

Wonderful Wednesday and day THREE!

We have a bunch of chicks in the brooder box and the incubator is all cleaned out and ready for the farmer to take away. Now, we have 3 days of caring for our chicks and making sure they are well fed and rested! I'll post a slide show very soon... just have a few more picture to take! Here's what was in the brooder box this morning at 7:15am! It's hard to count them from this picture because they are all snuggled up together. You'll have to ask your child how many we have in all!