...Imagination in Education
November 6, 2014
www.liveoakcharter.org
In This Issue...
Page 1
8th Grade Dance Conferences Winter Spiral Lost and Found
Page 2
Event Calendar Youth Discovery Cards Lantern Walk
Page 3
Social Emotional Learning Media Exposure
Drama in Middle School
Page 4
Drama in Middle School cont.
Page 5
Live Oak Sports Community Events Credo Corner
The Leaflet is available in three for-mats.
Blog
liveoakleaflet.blogspot.com You may visit the blog via the web, or subscribe to receive the articles as they are published via email.
www.liveoakcharter.org/leaflet-newsletter
Paper
Distributed to every family via your youngest child’s folder. If
you wish to opt out of the paper version please inform the school secretary.
The Leaflet is published every oth-er Thursday. The next publication date is Thursday, Nov 20. If you wish to submit an article, appreci-ation, or community bulletin post please contact Jen Stevens at [email protected].
The deadline for submissions to the next issue is Monday, Nov 17.
Live Oak 8th Grade Dance - Winter Night
Save the Date! Live Oak’s 8th Grade Class will host a Winter Night dance on
Friday, Nov 21 from 7-10pm, at the Petaluma Women’s Club at 518 B Street.
The dance is for 7th and 8th Grade students from invited schools only. Per-mission slips are required. The cost is $10 and includes refreshments. Ques-tions? Please contact Annika Speckhart at [email protected]
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Soon teachers will be holding conferences with parents and guardians. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the child’s progress since the start of the school year. During the conference, teachers and parents will be shar-ing student work, examinshar-ing learnshar-ing milestones, and discussshar-ing the cur-rent developmental picture. Schedule a meeting in collaboration with your teacher for Monday, Nov 10 or Tuesday, Nov 11. Some teachers may offer conferences on additional days. Please contact your teacher to sign up for a conference.
Ms Wigert is offering conferences for parents of students in grades 6, 7 and 8 on Monday, Nov 10th. Please sign-up no later than Nov 7. To reserve a slot go to www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e49a8ae23a02-math. If you have any questions please contact Kim Anderson at 707-762-9020.
Aftercare will provide childcare for students during parent/teacher con-ferences. The service is offered by the Live Oak Foundation. Donations are greatly appreciated. There are limited slots available. Sign-up deadline is
Friday, Nov 7. Please visit one of our SignUpGenius pages and chose one
slot per child. For questions please contact Ms. Denise at (707) 762-8436. To sign up for a slot on Monday, Nov 10 go to
www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e49a8ae23a02-parent To sign up for Tuesday, Nov 11 go to
www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e49a8ae23a02-childcare To sign up for Thursday, Nov 13 go to
www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e49a8ae23a02-childcare2
Winter Spiral - New Date and Times
1st, 2nd and 3rd grade families, please read on… Set-up is now on Sunday, Dec 7, 9am-12pm
This year the Winter Spiral is only scheduled on one date, Monday, Dec 8 • 1st grade families arrive by 3:45pm
• 2nd grade families arrive by 5:00pm • 3rd grade families arrive by 6:00pm
More detailed information will follow. We need help with apple donations, gathering of greens and set-up. Please come join us at our next meeting,
Thursday Nov 13 at 8:30 in the library. Contact Jasmine Gerber or Julie
Beck-ner for any questions.
Lost and Found
EVENT CALENDAR
Thu Nov 6, 2014
Bulldog Dog Show-No access to outside stage lawn & between Beverly Hall & Lower campus
5:30-7pm 6th Grade Parent Meeting Puberty Part II
7-8:30pm Finance Meeting
Fri Nov 7, 2014
Bulldog Dog Show-No access to outside stage lawn & between Beverly Hall & Lower campus 3:10-4:10pm Chess 4 Kids
Handwork room
Mon Nov 10, 2014
8am-5pm Parent Conferences No School
Tue Nov 11, 2014
8am-5pm Parent Conferences No School
Wed Nov 12, 2014
8:30-10am Class Coordinators Meeting Handwork Room
6:30-8:30pm Foundation Meeting Aftercare Room 6:30-8pm Parent Salon: Social
Emotional Learning Program at Live Oak
Thu Nov 13, 2014
6-7:30pm Ks Parent Meeting 7-10pm LOCS Board Meeting
MPR
Fri Nov 14, 2014
3:10-4:10pm Chess 4 Kids Handwork room
Sat Nov 15, 2014
9am-1:30pm Volley Ball Practice Location TBA
The Live Oak Community Calendar is host-ed at the liveoakcharter.org website. You may subscribe to the calendar and link it to your own datebook. If you have an event to include in the calendar, please submit it to Muriel in the office or via email at [email protected].
Youth Discovery Cards
Students may use a “Youth Discovery Card” to get two free tick-ets (1 student and 1 adult chaperone) to attend a Discovery Series or Youth Ensemble Concert. Simply pick up the card in the Live Oak office and take it to the event. At the event the Green Center box office will issue 2 tickets. After attending the event, please return the Youth Discovery Card to the school office for others to use on future dates.
Concerts are on the following dates:
Discovery Concert Series (2pm)
• November 8 • December 6 • January 10 • February 7 • March 21 • May 2
Youth Orchestra Concerts
• March 6 (7pm) • June 6 (7pm)
The Discovery Series Concerts offer a window into the life of an orchestra. The symphony opens the doors to their dress re-hearsals for the later evening performance. Not only do you get to hear the pieces performed, but you get to hear the conductor and orchestra discuss their performance in real time, making cor-rections and altering their play. The ability to hear the same piece performed with corrections is fascinating for budding musicians and gives a window into the sensitivity and care given to the final performance. Concerts are held at the Green Center on the Sonoma State Campus. Check in at the office for more details.
Kindergarten Lantern Walk
The Lantern Walk will be held on Friday, Nov
21, beginning at 6pm in
the Kindergarten class-rooms. On this night the children, along with their parents, will make a magical jour-ney into the dark with only the light of our lanterns to guide the way. At the end of our journey we will come together around a fire to sing communally before departing in our own directions, each of us holding our own small light inside.
This event is for Kindergarteners and parents/adult family only.
Reminders
Social Emotional Learning at Live Oak
Presentation on Phase 2: Explicit instruction, cohesive language, and buddies!
Wednesday, Nov 12 at 6:30pm
Over the past several years, the Faculty at Live Oak has been working to integrate social emotional supports into our program. The 1st phase of development included the facilitation of weekly class circles to practice mindfulness, conflict resolution skills, and community building. Live Oak also began offering SEEDS coun-seling for individual students and small groups and expanded hours for playground monitors and teacher aides to increase supervision and adult availability. A second phase of development begins this year with the implementation of a comprehensive Social Emotional Learning Program, cohesive playground practices and a student mentor program. We invite all parents to this evening conversation to discuss the program elements and how we can work as a community to maintain a healthy learning environment for our chil-dren. Childcare is provided, please contact Ms. Denise at [email protected] to reserve spot.
Thoughtful Consideration of Electronic Media in Grades K-5
Salon: Sharing Experiences and Parenting StrategiesThursday, Nov 20 at 6:30pm
As we look at trends in Waldorf middle schools, we see the sincere importance of engaging the media ques-tion in the early grades. In particular, increased exposure in the lower grades is altering the social fabric of our classes. In this evening salon, we will be sharing information from a recent survey conducted at Live Oak and other north bay Waldorf schools. We will discuss strategies for parents as we explore the unfolding role of electronic media in our families and community. This is an important meeting for younger grade par-ents as it is vital to have a game-plan now for how the media picture will evolve for your family through the years. All grade parents are encouraged to attend, lower grades in particular. Childcare is provided, please contact Ms. Denise at [email protected] to reserve spot.
Drama in the Middle School
by Gila Mann, 7th Grade Teacher
Class plays in Waldorf schools, with the most culminating one usually performed in eighth grade, were not included as part of the Waldorf curriculum. Rudolf Steiner had suggested reading and perhaps even acting out a scene or two from dramatic poetry, but to go as far as creating a full-fledged evening perfor-mance for the community was not part of the original intent.
So, are we doing something pedagogically superfluous when putting on dramatic plays in the Waldorf middle school?
Looking at the middle school students going through puberty at various stages, it seems clear that adoles-cence is a challenging time. With hormones surging, it can be a time of upheaval and eruptions. Childhood has been left behind and new challenges are often overwhelming to the young person in his or her striving towards individuality and adulthood.
This crossroad, a kind of spiritual Rubicon, can be greatly aided when working creatively. While the young-er child works inwardly predominantly with the development of rhythm throughout elementary school years, the need for drama awakens within the twelve year old around the beginning of puberty. Using drama, creating class plays can be a dynamic means to help students to become themselves in the fullest and healthiest possible way. Drama, the most social of all arts, can also counteract some of the self-cen-teredness and antisocial impulses that can flair up during adolescence; only when the play is wanted and carried by ALL students in the class will a performance truly succeed.
Although the importance of the pedagogical theater was never included in Steiner’s curriculum, Robyn Hewetson writes in “Drama as a Source of Wellness” that:
“In the last four lectures of the Speech and Drama course Rudolf Steiner describes the three reasons why we need to include drama in the lives of our students. [They were his last lectures, Steiner died six months lat-er] There are many reasons to put on a play: to increase memory, to develop social skills in the acting ensem-ble experience, to deepen the understanding of a main lesson, to increase public speaking skills, to show the class to their families and friends in a new light. Rudolf Steiner, however, gives three much larger reasons:
Drama in the Middle School
cont.The first reason to put on a play with a group of students, he says, is to increase their zest, their vigor and enthusiasm for life itself. … Putting on a play in a class with lots of enthusiasm for the story, the characters and the performance therefore is a direct route to increasing love of life!
The second reason for putting on a play is to gain an even deeper knowledge and experience of the world soul. When I, with my own soul, take on the role of Juliet, I have the possibility of investigating her soul with my own, and through her soul I can investigate all the souls of the other characters in the drama. This activity vastly increases my direct experience of the world soul. What is the faculty which is most developed by this work? RESPONSE-ABILITY: a phrase [meaning] to develop our ability to respond to the widest possible experiences in human life. Of all the arts none has the possibility for us to practice our responses more than the performing arts of acting, singing, making music, dancing. Helping our students to be able to respond creatively in the moment is a mighty motivation for doing drama! This work is all an investi-gation of the world soul.
The third reason for putting on a play is to develop a faculty to recognize our own destiny. Steiner assures us that by being fully engaged in the creative deed of revealing a character on stage, in the presence of an au-dience, under the lights and yet also maintaining an equally conscious awareness of the audience and their responses develops an even finer human faculty. It is this faculty, which Steiner indicates will strengthen in us the ability to find our own destiny. He even tells us that actors have an advantage over other people in this respect. This is harder to grasp. It means that if we can maintain our full daily consciousness of the world around us AND simultaneously create a character – a character, which arouses the empathy of our own soul – that a particular faculty is developed. This faculty is one, that in the midst of life, will enable us to recognize the people, the places, the tasks of our destiny and enable us to respond appropriately to them. Imagine if, [by] putting on a play, we were to open our awareness to the possibility that the students, work-ing on memorizwork-ing their lines, learnwork-ing how to move on stage and to dialogue together before an audience, were simultaneously being prepared to meet their own destiny with enthusiasm, response-ability, and the courage and wisdom to recognize their own tasks and friends in life?”
Taking Steiner’s three reasons to include drama in the lives of students to heart, I will strive to become more aware of the transformational power of pedagogical theatre in our middle school.
And yes, class plays are alive and well at LOCS. At the moment, the seventh grade is working daily on their class play “Her Three Kings” by Eugene Schwartz, a play about Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Queen of France and later of England during the Middle Ages. Our performance will be on Wednesday, Nov 19, at
Mondays with Ms. Meret
For Kindergarteners only-Folktales from around the world and a craft project. Ms. Meret will escort your child to the Handwork room from Kindergarten, where they will listen to a folktale from a far away place and make a craft. Bring a lunch. 5 sessions $100 12:30-2:00pm.
Contact [email protected] to sign up.
Live Oak Student and Alumni Performances
Sunday, Nov 19, 3pm- Petri and Aedan will perform with Santa Rosa Symphony’s Preparatory Orchestra
at Sonoma Country Day School’s Jackson Theatre.
Saturday, Nov 22, 3pm- Cyrus and Zachary will perform in Santa Rosa Symphony’s Youth Orchestra at
Weill Hall, Sonoma State University.
A limited number of free passes are available in the Live Oak office for these concerts. If the passes are al-ready taken, contact Tanya Alva at least a week in advance for discounted tickets ($10 each instead of $17 at the door).
Live Oak Sports News.... Go Dragons!!
Soccer at Live Oak
Middle School Soccer is coming this spring! Live Oak will have its first co-ed soccer team for 6-8th grade in March and April, 2015. If you are in-terested please contact Alex Boshell, [email protected].
Live Oak Cross Country Team, 2014
Congratulations on a great season!
Community Events and Announcements
Credo Corner
Saturday, Nov 15,1-4pm Open House Program for interested students and their parents. The program
will include a student presentation of current class work, a selection of Credo faculty teaching mini-les-sons and a look at theater at Credo High.
Applications for 2015-2016 are due Friday, Dec 12, 2014. Application packet available at www.credohigh.
org
Scrooge’s Christmas and Holiday Faire at Credo High School, Friday Dec 5 @7pm (Holiday Faire runs
from 4-7pm) and Saturday Dec 6 @ 2pm and 7pm (Holiday Faire runs from 12-7pm).
Tickets are available starting at 4pm on Dec 5 and 12pm on Dec 6. $10 adults, $5 students/children Our Holiday Faire will showcase local artisans selling handmade gifts and homemade baked treats. We will also be serving a light dinner.
Handwork Spotlight
Photos by Ms. Meret
