Collection of Weekly Letters

Sol Childs picking grapes. September 2015

September 18

Hey Creeker parents,

Another good week at school as we settle into routines and discover new information.

In spite of having a lot of sick kids this week (and a dentist appointment Wednesday for me,) we still got a great deal accomplished. The students from 4th on up are editing their work on their personal essays and beginning fiction pieces. The oldest students are entering these on their blogs. It is very exciting to get comments and we would love if you would read and respond.

BLOGROLL

Later, Sol, Hayden and Miles will have blogs.

Even though it is challenging to make it happen, each student gets one on one time to talk about improving their writing at least once a week. Later, I hope to make that twice a week.

All the students have been reading (or in case of the 3rd grade being read to) stories about Orville and Wilbur Wright. As part of the upper grade's history studies, Mr. Joe is sharing important technological developments with the kids--like the invention of the airplane. In my class, we supporting that by reading about the two brothers. We have readers at three different levels as well as a story about a mouse who stows away in Orville's pocket for the 3rd graders. This helps them all share learning at the level that they are capable of enjoying.

On Wednesday, while I was gone, Jessica taught the students to write acrostic poems about flight. I'm hearing that they'll be putting the poems on kites that they will be building as part of learning about flight. Cool stuff!

Kato says about her class, "Kids have been doing a fantastic job of finding their own tools, helping clean up, remembering room rules, each others' boundaries and their own options when things get frustrating. The grade students are about to plunge into the meat of their more specific work in every subject, and have started getting weekend homework. Each K-2 child has a yellow folder that will go with them on Thursdays and MUST RETURN ON MONDAYS! It will contain assignments, finished work from the week and any communications to parents necessary."

This year it is very exciting to see how much is being accomplished with the support of parents --Jessica, Nicole, and Kelly --working in the classrooms (plus Lisa keeping the place so clean and Kirsten working with Kato.)

Thanks for all your help with the fundraisers and getting your tuition in. We've started off very successfully!

Andre helps Disco feed the birds. [September 2015]

11/21/14

Good Morning,

Today is the last day of this block. Don’t come to school next week. You will be lonely. Have a nice Thanksgiving.

The main thing that is going on here is construction of the shed for the pizza oven. I expect this to be mostly done here pretty soon, and for us to be moving into the construction of the actual oven. Following is a more detailed (and incomplete) list of what we will need.

Wooden shake shingles. These are gonna be needed soon. 150 square feet worth. And whatever nails they recommend to nail them on. 11 feet of whatever sort of ridge shingles go with that.

House bricks. Standard measurement is 7 ⅝ x 3 ⅝ x 2 ¼. I do not really care what they measure at. If you have some lying around we need about fifty.
I need a masonry blade for a Skil Saw. To cut the bricks. Skil Saw blades are 7”-7 ¼
Sand. About five 5-gallon buckets full of fine sand. Maybe a bit more. This could be pulled off any beach in the north county. Black sands beach in Shelter Cove is too coarse.
Buckets. As many 5 gallon buckets as you can spare.
Newspaper. A paper bag full. I can always burn it if there is too much.
Bags of mortar, for masonry. 2 eighty pound bags should do it.
Sonotube. 12 inch diameter. Four 5-foot sections.
Bags of ready mix concrete. (Sakcrete) I think I might need as much as 30 80-pound bags. I hope not. Anyway. Picking up some of this will be useful. (i’m gonna check this plan with Kevin, who knows a bit more about concrete than I do.)
Fire brick. Again, not particular about size. Large and flat probably better. Enough for 6 square feet.
Any old rebar you might have lying around. Everyone has some of this in their yard. Do not care about gauge, length etc.
Bailing wire.
Concrete reinforcing mesh. Enough for a 4’x4’x4” slab
Old stovepipe. Smaller diameter better.
3 bales of straw. I failed to save any from the Harvest Ball.
Small tarps. 4x8 sort of size
1 4x8 sheet of ¾ plywood. CDX or equivalent.

OK. Thats what I can come up with. If you happen to be in town and pick any of this up, that would be awesome. Bring a receipt and we can reimburse you for whatever materials you buy. I am going to avoid going to town until I absolutely have to.

The students just produced a newspaper!! Check it out. It’s pretty cool. Link can be found on the front page of the website: http://salmoncreekschool.wix.com/salmoncreek

Also, if you have not read a blog post in a while, check them out. Links can be found on the website here: http://salmoncreekschool.wix.com/salmoncreek#!student-work/cplh

Leave a comment! Kids love hearing from you.

9/12/14

Hello Salmon Creek School Occupants.

I hope you are enjoying the heat! Soon it will be rainy and cold, and mouldy mushrooms will be growing on everything… Except for your kids’ brains. We are going to try and keep those polished up.

I spent last weekend surfing, climbing Mount Shasta, and kayaking Burnt Ranch twice. I went 41 hours without sleeping, as Shasta turned into an all night thing. It was a good time.

This week started off with a field trip to Hardy’s vineyard. We harvested grapes, as part of learning about migrant labor in California. The kids proved to be a very effective child labor force, and made short work of harvesting over five hundred pounds of grapes. We even made it back to school in time for some academics.

Our block work this week has been memorizing and reciting poems. Students did a good job with this, the younger ones particularly exceeded my expectations with their ability. Our next assignment in the public speaking block is a persuasive speech. Students will choose a topic, and deliver a speech structured around persuading their audience to their point of view. They will be working with Kym simultaneously, who will have them write a persuasive essay on the same topic.

I hope that everyone has a good weekend. Remember your current events for next week!!

BEN

Happy first week back to school everyone!

The week has started off well. We have a fairly mellow group of ten students this year, evenly divided between a younger group of 3rd and 4th graders and an older 5-7 group. This allows for group activities and team sports to be conducted on much more equitable footing than was possible last year.

This week has mainly been focused on getting to know one another again, as well as baseline assessment for the year. Students have been working through a standards test for math, and doing some writing exercises in my class. They have begun their first block, public speaking, by preparing a presentation about the summer of a colleague in class. Today they will present that speech, and we will move on to the next thing, which will involve reciting poetry.

Next week we will move into regular classes, beginning the math curriculum for the year. Each group will have a half hour lesson in the morning for a lesson, and then an hour before lunch to work on math, and any other homework that may come up. The goal this year is to have a minimum amount of homework going home.

There will still be recurring assignments, that may not be completed at school. These include book reports, which are due as before, at the beginning of each month. New for this year are current events, due every week from each member of the 5th through 7th class. Both current events, and book reports will require reading and writing to be done at home.

Science and History this year are based around an California, and the United States in the period from 1800- 1900. We will be exploring the cultural interactions during these years, as well as the technological advances and limitations.

So far this week I have been happy with everyone's ability to work well with one another, as well as in the classroom setting. I am hoping we can continue with this dynamic for the remainder of the year.

Thanks,

BEN

August 16th

Hello Salmon Creek,

First let me apologise for my complete and utter lack of communication with anyone this summer. This was partly due to being in remote, inaccessible places for the majority of the time, and mostly due to me checking out of reality for the last three months… So.

I hope you have had a good summer. Here is a brief description of mine. After the Rogue, (which was my most fun Rogue trip so far) I drove to the Grand Canyon. Floated down that. Then drove to Idaho in time for the North Fork Championships, a kayak race. I saw a bunch of my friends who I rarely see, and boated with them. I then went for a 6 week kayaking trip through Central and Northern Idaho. There are lots of rivers and hot springs up there. I am beginning to think Idaho is not so bad. From there I went to Seattle, Portland, and back to Arcata for three days. Between Portland and Arcata we climbed Mount Shasta in six hours round trip. My friend Matt and I then loaded up his truck and drove out to Utah. We rode our dirtbikes from there to Canada, through Idaho, mostly on single track trails. That took a week. After 2 days in Boise, I came out to tahoe, where I currently am, and will probably remain for a few days. I am missing a fair amount of skin, but am otherwise in very good shape. I expect to be back in Salmon Creek between the 25th and 29th. Tentatively.

I hope everyone is doing absolutely very little, to the best of their ability, since upon your return to school you will be asked to work relentlessly, tirelessly, and very very hard. Expect hands to be raw, and brains to be swollen. But! There is something you can do to prepare for this grievous challenge. Start reading books for book reports. Be sure to pick books that I am likely to approve; most of you should have that criteria pretty well figured out at this point…

Additionally, it would not kill you to look through whatever math you did last year, and remind yourself what it was all about. Since I know you all kept your work, and have it neatly filed away, this should be easy. Khan Academy is also a good refresher resource. At the very least, have your parents test you on the multiplication tables you know. Those will be more important this year THAN THEY HAVE EVER BEEN!!!

Other than that, remember to come to Kym’s house on Monday the 1st for a back to school barbeque. More importantly, remember to come to school on Tuesday the 2nd, for school. Because thats when it starts.

Please remember to slack off as much as possible in the coming weeks. Have a good time! Wear yourself out. Enjoy the remainder of summer. I know I intend to.

BEN

March 7th 2014

Hello Everyone. Next week is the last week before spring break. It is also the last week before the science fair, and the last week before the eighth grade takes their Academy of the Redwoods test. Going to be a busy week. First, science fair projects. With a few exceptions, most people are well behind on their science fair projects. You have one week to get these into shape. I am sending boards home this weekend, not assigning any other homework, and hoping something happens. We have gone over in class all the elements that should be present on the board, and I expect students to make some progress on this over the weekend, and into next week. This is an all or nothing assignment. If you do not turn it in on Friday the 14th, you get a zero on the biggest assignment of the year. This would not be good. Monday and Wednesday of next week I will be meeting with the AR bound 8th graders again after school. I will be putting out a small grade sheet next Friday, so if you are not confident in your grade, come see me, and we can see what to do to get it up before grades go out. Time is changing on Sunday. You will need to get to school an hour earlier on Monday. Don’t forget to set your clocks forward. Monday we also have a board meeting. Be sure to attend. We for sure(ish) have at least one Rogue Permit. I guess that means that we need to begin planning in earnest. Please email me with any further questions. Thanks, BEN

February 28th, 2014

Hello. This week has gone by remarkably quickly. I think I have navigated it through the fog of a cold and an injured back. I have been particularly irritable, (more than usual) and a bit low energy. I apologize to any students I may have annoyed because of this. I am going to spend this weekend in some cold, turbulent water, so that ought to help matters. Science Fair is the big thing on the list at the moment. Amazingly enough everyone is not finished and ready to go, even though we have been talking about this since September, and dedicating 2 hours a day to it since early February. I guess it has to do with the leading a horse to water thing, but instead of a horse it is students, and work as opposed to water. THE ENTIRE PROJECT, WITH BACKBOARD FINISHED, IS DUE ON THURSDAY MARCH 13TH. NO EXCEPTIONS. I’d be pretty surprised if there will be much recess going on in the next couple weeks. Third and Fourth graders are exempt from this. To add to the fun there is a book report due Monday. I might be slightly flexible on the book report, if I see that major progress has been made on the science project. Major progress. Moving forward, we are making progress with math, even if science fair preparation is a giant time sink. The eighth grade is gearing up for their AR tests (for those who are taking them), and everyone else is keeping pace. The sixth grade is dealing with geometry right now, which is proving a little more challenging to them than I thought it would. We will probably revisit it again later in the year. Fifth and fourth are both nearly done with their books for the year, and will soon move into other material. Third grade is right on schedule, and I am pleased with the way have been able to work independently for the last couple weeks. In the next few weeks we should hear back from the Rogue River office, and be able to begin planning that trip. If you really have a strong interest in going, I would recommend that you begin making that clear to me. So far I have had strong commitments from a few people. This is a trip that will have a numerical cap, so getting estimates early will make the whole thing go easier. I hope everyone has an OK weekend. The rain has been nice here, and there have been many soaking, muddy kids to be seen. My favorite kind. BEN

2/16/14

Hello denizens of Salmon Creek. This week your children have been mostly copasetic and cooperative. They have been luridly learning luscious lumps of ludicrous algebra. Well, some of them have. Others are occupied with geometry, addition, subtraction, percentages, rocket science, creationism, and cellular molecular biology. Others of us are still learning to keep our pant legs inside our boots when we stomp in mud puddles. The rain this week has kept us in, which as worked out as we catch up on some things from before the break. Namely, birdhouses.

Monday was the deadline for three things to be turned in. 1. Photographer report 2. Photography portfolio, 3. Book Report. Exactly two people turned everything in on time. This makes me think that I will have things due more often, on a certain date, in the future. Time management can be important, particularly to students heading off to high school.

Starting this week we will be getting going on the science fair block in a big way. I would like to have this mostly done before the second week of March, but as usual I imagine we will be scrambling at the last minute. It seems to be so much more fun that way.

The website is mostly done. Here is the current address: http://www.salmoncreekschool.wix.com/salmoncreek This will change, as Tom sets up his redirects. This address should always work, unless we change something.

On Monday we have a board meeting. You should probably come. I have not heard from the people at the Rogue office yet, so that will be a non issue. There are other things that are important being discussed. Probably. I hope you have a good Sunday evening. See you all tomorrow. At the board meeting.

Salmon Creek