| Tasting and Giving Food | | Primary students at Greenwood Friends School visited Bloomin’ Bagels 2 in Bloomsburg. The class learned how bagels were made and they enjoyed bagel sticks. Students also learned that the store donates bagels to the Food Cupboard every day. The Primary class visited the Food Cupboard in Bloomsburg and donated items they had collected. Students learned how the Food Cupboard operated; how donations are sorted and stored and dispersed.
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| Gift of Reading | | Intermediate students presented their “Gift of Reading” Projects, some as large as a coffee table, to their peers. Students explained and analyzed the characters, setting, plot, and themes of their books. Middle School students began some preliminary legwork for their next book circle, The Odyssey, by researching the epic poet, Homer.
Students are learning more about the “monomyth,” the hero’s journey, through some activities with shorter narratives. Students will link what they have learned to other stories they have experienced through book or film.
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| | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service | | Continuing a long-standing tradition, Greenwood celebrated Martin Luther King Day as a Day of Service. This year, students collected and made food for area food cupboards and for area animal shelters.
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| Stories, Real and Imagined | | A favorite story of the Primary class this week was The Funny Little Woman, by Arlene Mosel. The story, set in Japan, led to student discussion about connections between many fairy tales and fables. For instance, some themes in this book show up in other stories: protagonists climbing into magical realms, food being magically produced, and nasty villains stealing magic items.
Primary students also learned more about Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. They found many connections between the men, including discrimination in both backgrounds and their adherence to non-violence.
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| | Help for Haiti | | Greenwood Friends School held a community bake sale to benefit relief efforts for Haiti disaster victims. Many donations were bought by Greenwood students, staff, parents, and visitors to the school.
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Watercolors in Winter
Primary students worked with water color paints in art class. They used different strokes and mixed colors all for varying effects. Students also read winter-themed books, including Rose meets Mr. Wintergarten, The Reindeer Christmas and First Snow In the Woods.
| Ventures to Asia
Intermediate and Middle School students began their studies of Asia by looking at various philosophies and lives of such notables as Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Buddha, and Indira Gandhi. Students studied the geography of Asia and also several religions that originated on the subcontinent. In gym class, students learned many yoga poses. In kitchen science, another link to Asia was explored: India’s “superfood”, lentils, was used in a recipe.
| Intermediate Literature
Intermediate students reading Great Expectations arrived at the part where secrets are revealed and all pieces begin falling into place. Students reading The Family Under the Bridge contemplated what it might be like to be homeless this time of year while two other groups read very diverse books set in the same time period: World War II. Both groups learned a bit of background about the war including the German occupation of Norway and the London.
As part of their studies of the Middle Ages, students looked at life in a castle, viewed a PowerPoint about castle construction and how it changed over the years, and identified the many people who lived and worked inside the castle walls.
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