the school year is ending
and summer is beginning!
Welcome back readers, and welcome new readers!
The end of May marks the end of the academic year for Bruderhof elementary schools and the Mount Academy, so we thought we’d give a little insight into what happens during the final days and weeks of school.
Trudi – in Spring Valley, southwest Pennsylvania
Today I walked into our middle and junior high school for the last time this school year. Final assessments are done, students are emptying and cleaning their desks, sorting textbooks into towering stacks. Paper recycling bins overflow. Teachers organize and clean their classrooms with the help of the students, and valiantly finish off grading.
As a tutor, I have less grading to do, but I experience the same thrill of realizing how far we’ve come since September. Beyond academics, I notice with amazement the marked growth of character in some of the students whom I got to know well.
Certainly my favorite moment of the week was making a chocolate chiffon cake with my math student. We were learning fractions and I promised her we could do some baking together before the end of the school year. It was a hilarious and multisensory experience, and the student proudly carried the cake home on the bus.
Now almost 3 months summer awaits, another opportunity to learn but in an entirely different way. Our summer program keeps the kids outdoors most of the day. What could be better?
Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York
Five children in our house have been counting down the last days of the school year, and this past Friday Woodcrest School (K-8) had its traditional end-of-school celebration: a pizza party with games and relay races with the whole community. In the last weeks of school, though, there was plenty of activity inside and outside of the classroom to keep things interesting (other than final exams which also happened). The Mount Academy, where our oldest son is finishing his sophomore year, holds out a little longer, but the end is in sight with graduation scheduled for June 6.
Here’s are some of the events of the last weeks of school for the grades our children are in:
The Woodcrest School first grade invited their Reading Buddies to a Reading Party where we read books together and had cake and coffee. Reading Buddies are adults whose workplace is within a few minutes’ walk from the school; the first grade makes a weekly visit to their buddy to practice reading aloud. My reading buddy is my youngest daughter – when school started last fall she and her classmates just about knew the names of the letters, and now they’re reading Doctor Seuss and Amelia Bedelia with great confidence.
The fourth grade hosted an Island Party for their parents and grandparents. Posters and reports about islands were displayed on the walls, and tables were loaded with island food made by the students with their teachers: Scotch eggs, plum clafouti, sausage rolls. For entertainment, the students sang six songs (written by their teacher, who accompanied them on the piano) about things they’ve learned which they will now remember forever since the catchy tunes and fun rhymes will not easily be forgotten.
The sixth grade likewise threw a party (theme: continents) which was likewise delicious (curry, baklava, peanut soup, Irish stew). Another year-end treat for this class was an excursion to an epic Prince-of-Thieves-inspired ropes course.
Final exams and assignments loom a little larger for the eighth grade, but between the studying they found time for an overnight trip to New York City.
Meanwhile, at the Mount Academy a variety of end-of-year events provide distraction for students trying to cram a year’s worth of material for a final. Some of the highlights:
A rite of passage for the freshman is acting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Pick the name of your Romeo (or Juliet) from a hat, and let it rip.
The sophomores organized themselves into a volleyball tournament, and also had a Shakespeare moment acting out a standoff between Brutus and Cassius.
A handful of clubs were still competing in May, including Robotics who went to the VEX World Championships in Texas, the Envirothon team which became New York State champions, and Future Farmers of America. Unified Basketball, where athletes with and without disabilities compete together, came to a glorious conclusion as well.
Norann - in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia
We celebrated the end of the school year – and the completion of modern history studies – by taking our junior high students on an Autumnal visit to Australia’s capital, Canberra.
I have visited Canberra with students on several occasions, but each group of youngsters brings their own perspectives and family experience to an excursion like this, and it always feels like a unique journey.
On the way down, we stopped in at Cowra, a small inland village that hosted a POW camp during WWII. In 1944, over 1000 Japanese prisoners staged a breakout which resulted in the deaths of 231 Japanese and 4 Australians.
The camp has been preserved and filled with plaques commemorating the stories of POWs from Japan, Germany, and Italy, and the Australian guards.
Since the 1960, Japan and Cowra have reconciled their difficult pasts. Cowra now boasts a Friendship Garden and Japanese Cultural Centre as signposts of the warmth between the people of Cowra Shire and Japan.
Our week in Canberra included a visit to the War Memorial where the students could learn the stories and heartbreak that affects soldiers and their families in the many conflicts Australia has been involved in.
We visited many other places of interest such as the Old Parliament, current Parliament, the Australian Mint, and a museum dedicated to the American architect couple, Walter and Marion Burley-Griffiths, who won the international contest to design Canberra.
Norann
This week we pivot from the last day of Autumn (31 May) to the first day of Winter (1 June), which means the last of our fall colors will blaze out before the gold of the wattle trees begins.
I love this time of year for walking because of the crisp air, lack of flies, and discovery of color in the tree rips from the various deciduous trees we’ve planted.
To celebrate the glory of this season and share it with others, we hold an annual Fun Run here at the Danthonia Community where participants can run or walk a 10K, 5K or 2K through our land. Afterwards, everyone hangs around for a delicious barbeque. (Many friends and family accompany their runners as far as the start line, then cheer them as they depart and return.
The course this year – which was changed last minute due to an overnight dump of rain – included going through our olive grove, past the free-range pig pastures, and across the creek.
During yesterday’s race (held on the last day of Autumn), I enjoyed being the “tail-walker” for the 10k which means walking behind the runners, communicating with the race coordinators via radio, and being on hand to assist with injuries.
Over 90 runners signed up for the race, and we had a safe and enjoyable day of running, resting, and feasting.
Trudi
You gotta stop and smell the roses—I do. I pass a rose bush on my way to work every morning. It’s a heavenly smell and I always think of this song:
This weekend I was in New York City. Highlight? Definitely Central Park. I stopped to smell the roses in the Shakespeare garden.
Last week in Pennsylvania:
Woods in late May,
Are breathtaking.
Marianne
On a walk with my sixth grade daughter we found a red-wing blackbird’s nest.
Look how lovely:
That’s all for now folks. Enjoy the season you’re in!