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!

Day TWO hatching update!

WOW! What a busy night it was in the incubator! There was so much "peeping" going on when I came in this morning at 7:15am,that I had to remove a few noisy chicks! Several chicks had fluffed up enough to move into their new home, THE BROODER BOX! There were 10 chicks in all in the incubator when I arrived. If Ms. SW moved 4 to the brooder box, how many were still in the incubator by the start of school?

But, during science class, something happened... ask your child to find out! Now, the fun really begins! Be sure to ask your child about the hatching taking place down the road at Kent Place School! Mrs. Wentz is a good friend of mine, and we have been checking in with them to see how their hatching is going. They got their chicks the same day we did! Ask your child what happened over there! It's quite a tale!
Happy Hatching!
Ms. SW

What's Hatching in 1 SW?

Hi Everyone!

What an exciting weekend it must have been! It looks like all 16 students were good parents and they stayed at school all weekend sitting on their eggs! That's a good thing, because something very exciting is going on in our incubator! When I came in this morning, I started using my senses to see if I could learn anything new from the incubator. I only used 2 of my 5 senses. Can anyone tell me what 2 senses I used? In the mean time, here's what I saw... look closely, because these two pictures are NOT the same! Enjoy!

Fun at Hillview Farms!

Happy Wet Weekend everyone! Sadly, it's cold and rainy outside again, but I hope this message finds you warm and toasty somewhere inside! Yesterday, in spite of the weather, we had a great time at the farm! It was a bit chilly and damp, but everyone was properly dressed for the occasion! So glad we didn't have any ball gowns dragging in the mud! Below you will see some of the 99 pictures I took in the 2 hours we spent on the farm! A great time was had by all!

Here are some things to ask your child about produce that comes from the farm:

1) Name 2 differences between a peach tree leaf and an apple tree leaf.

2) Where do finger potatoes grow?

3) Why are bees important on a farm?

4) Do the apples at Hillview Farm get polished by hand?

5) What state does the farmer grow his BIG pumpkins in?

Your child should be able to answer all of these questions! We learned a lot about what grows at this particular New Jersey Farm! Hope everyone's pumpkin made it home safely. A special thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Shum, Ms. Larson and Ms.Taylor for taking time out of their busy day to join us at the farm! We greatly appreciate it!

The Greenhouse and playground

This is the green house and the playground for the 2nd - 5th graders. It was really big and the kids were having fun outside. The weather is much warmer here... it was 84 degrees today! I was all bundled up in fall clothes when I got off the plane and it was 78 degrees! Good thing I checked the weather and knew the right things to pack.

Science class at Lovett

This is the science class that I visited. It was a second grade class and they were just starting a new unit on soil. They are planting a community garden and the first step is to learn about the different kinds of soil things can grow in. So, after a brief discussion, some ground rules and some instructions, we headed out to the Greenhouse where the hands on lessons took place! I had so much fun learning about soil! And there was a little visitor in the greenhouse waiting for us!

What an exciting day at LOVETT!!!!

Hi Everybody!

I had a terrific visit at the Lovett School! Wow! What an amazing facility they have! I will post a few pictures of things I saw! But, I can't post them all, because I took 109 pictures with my camera! Each class had between 18-22 students in them and a lead teacher and an assistant teacher. The all had smart boards and lots of books that we have in our classroom too! And the first and second grade classrooms have the same personal dictionaries that we have in our big boxes! I was so happy to see them! The kids were very, very nice and I made some friends, as I was helping with spelling during writer's workshop. I had two favorite classes at the Lovett School. You'll have to guess which ones they were on my new poll!

Answer to the Poll

The answer to the Poll is...

All of the above! I will be doing all the things on this Poll during my weekend in Atlanta, GA!

Did you get the right answer?

A Busy Saturday October 3rd!

Hi Everyone,

I am getting ready for my trip and making a list of all the questions you asked. I will try to find out all the answers when I get there. I have sent your parents an email with my entire schedule for my visit at the Lovett School. I will be busy starting very early in the morning. I am visiting a lot of classrooms and some science classes too. I'll see what their lunch is like, because I get to have lunch with the first grade. They eat even earlier than we do! Can you believe that? I wonder if they have snack at the end of the day like us? They must be very hungry at the end of the day... It is going to be a lot of fun! If they will let me take pictures, I will post them when I update the blog on Friday evening or early Saturday morning. In the meantime I hope you are having a restful weekend! See you Monday morning!
Ms. Smith Willis

Summer 2009

In June I spent a week in Georgia at a school called Woodward Academy. It is a beautiful campus full of LEED or LEED Like buildings. I learned all about sustainable environments and got lots of curriculum ideas for my classroom. I am looking forward to teaching you all about how we can be good stewards for our environment, starting right in our classroom! This is my new friend Maxine. She is a 3rd grade teacher at an Independent School in Hawaii!

September 2009:

This month I traveled to the State of Georgia, my favorite place to visit! I had a great weekend and went to a wonderful place called Callaway Gardens. I did lots of fun things which you can read about on the side bar. But, my favorite part of this place was this HUGE garden called Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden. I have posted a map of the entire Callaway Gardens in our classroom. See if you can find Mr. Cason's Garden on it! It was my favorite part of the whole trip because I love to see flowers and fruits and vegetables growing! What an absolutely beautiful place to spend a Sunny Saturday!