The term "community" takes on several levels of meaning at the Teton Valley Community School. The school provides a supportive learning community that includes students, parents, and teachers.  Within the Pre-K classroom, a sense of community is built through problem-solving and communication skills, and shared ownership over the curriculum and classroom culture.  Multi-age learning is an important aspect of the educational experience at TVCS, and takes place within the Pre-K classroom and through collaboration with other classrooms.  Our project-based learning curriculum often involves real-world learning in the local community, and we take local trips and have local expert guests visit our classroom to complete investigations, seek local knowledge, visit historic sites, and participate in community events.

It's finally here! We actually, finally, really, seriously got to perform our Mountain Lion-made rendition of Down by the Bay for the entire school community. Down by the Bay allowed us to combine our interest in letter and word sounds and rhyming with our studies in nature. We each picked an animal we thought was neat or interesting and then challenged ourselves find something that rhymed with it. The Mountain Lions did a great job remembering their parts, and we all very much enjoyed watching the other classes perfromances and celebrating our reading buddies graduation! 

In preparation for our end of the year celebration, we met with the rest of the schol this week to practice a song that we will all sing together. Local-favorite, Beth Macintosh, created a song compiled by ideas from older TVCS students. The Mountain Lions will help by singing the chorus. We look forward to sharing this sond with all of you at the upcoming all-school Extravaganza! 

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been trying out some songs and skits that we enjoy just for fun. But this week, we had to decide which our favorites were, and which song or skit we should perform for THE EXTRAVAGANZA! On Monday and Tuesday, students voted between performing a series of nursery rhymes, singing If You’ve Got the Sun, and singing Down by the Bay. Although Down by the Bay was in the lead by two votes on Monday, there was no clear leader until the end of the day on Tuesday. If You’ve Got the Sun made a later surge on Tuesday, however, Down by the Bay came out victorious and will be what the Mountain Lions perform for THE EXTRAVAGANZA!

We’ve been working on what makes a rhyme recently, and singing Down by the Bay will certainly help us learn more about letter and word sounds and rhyming. If they haven’t already, each student will come up with their own rhyme to sing during Down by the Bay at the extravaganza! There are some great thoughts on rhyming so far. We won’t spoil who gets to sing which rhyme, but here is a teaser of what some students have come up with so far:

Down by the bay,

Where the watermelons grow,

Back to my home,

I dare not go,

For if I do,

My Mother will say,

Have you ever seen a…

Bug giving a pug a hug

Bird whispering a word

Cat eating scat

Moose kissing a goose

Bunny spending money

Fox wearing socks

Dog lost in the fog

Cat wearing a hat

A cheetah eating a “burrita”

Bear eating a pear

Fly wearing a tie

Llamas eating pajamas

Moose drinking apple juice

Horse saying “of course”

Skunk looking like a punk

We picked up steam our birthday mosaic this week! We started using our birthday tiles, as well as pieces of colored construction that match our tiles, to visualize our ideas. This has been a year-long process, creating a tile for each student on their birthday or half birthday, decorating it with studio supplies in their favorite color. The culmination of deciding what our mosaic should be, and building it, and having it hang somewhere in our classroom will be a wonderful, unifying event that will help us end the great school year we’ve been having. 

This week with Amber’s 1^st and 2^nd grade class, we worked on helping them with character development and the plot to a creative story. This process will take the next few weeks, and during our next reading buddy afternoon with them, we’re going to teach them how to watercolor! Once the Mustangs have learned the ins and outs of watercolors, we are going to help them illustrate the creative stories we were so integral in developing! Stay tuned for more pictures and stories in this process!

We also met up with the Toros, our reading buddies on Friday’s. This morning was a mellow morning of reading, but we’re looking forward to later in May when the Toros return from their excursion to really hone their survival skills (their current project). When they return, we will spend a day in the woods with them, and they will teach us some of the skills they’ve mastered! We can’t wait!

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, we got such a sweet treat: Erin and Harriet came to visit us! Every Mountain Lion was very surprised and excited when they walked into the classroom to see Erin and Harriet waiting for them! It was a great time to catch up. We got to fill Erin in on what we’ve been up to the past eight weeks (holy cow, eight weeks already!) and we got a bit of a glimpse into what Erin and Harriet do on a daily basis. We learned more about babies, and what they do and how they grow by observing Harriet while she was here. We were very curious about how she was born, how she drinks milk, if she wears diapers, what they smell like, and if she giggles or smiles yet. Right now, Harriet is working on holding her head up, and is such a strong little lady! She’s growing quickly, and has already grown out of some of her clothes. She sleeps for about two or three hours at a time and then likes to eat. She is has beautiful blue eyes and has a very happy family by her side! Erin is enjoying being able to get out and about, and go to yoga and Pilates occasionally now, while Ben stays home with Harriet. The Tanzer-LaBreque household takes lots of long walks and is headed to the desert for Harriet’s first trip later this week! Thank you, so much, for coming to visit us Erin and Harriet! Have a fantastic time in the desert!

Notable quotes and questions from our visit with Erin and Harriet:

 “That baby needs Mama Erin!” –Carly

“Congratulations, Erin!” –Rowan

“Your baby is super cute.” –Lily

“Does your baby sleep?” –Leslie

“Do you nurse or use a bottle?” –August

“What does your day look like at home?” –Caitie

“How did you make her born?” –Dylan

 “Does she nap in the stroller?” –Lily

“Does she wear day time diapers?” –Carly

“Does she need to wear shoes?” –Rowan

“Does Harriet crawl yet?” –Nico

“She drinks milk, right? Milk from Mama Erin!” –Marleigh

“When she grows up, what will her favorite food be?” –Rowan

“Does she sleep? –Owen

“She even needs to eat at night time?” –Carly

“How was she born?” –Marleigh

“When she gets older, will she eat other food besides milk? Like baby food?” –Owen

 “Babies don’t have teeth, they only drink milk. Not even water.” –Smith

“How does she drink milk?” –Owen

“I thought babies drank from bottles?!” –Smith

Our reading has continued with the Mustangs this week! They brought a list of questions to ask us to try and get to know us better. The questions ranged from if we'd ever had any broken bones, to what our favorite games to play was. In the coming weeks, we'll be working on a collaborative watercolor and storytelling project! Stay tuned!

Reading buddies are the best! This week we had the opportunity to read books and get to know our newest buddies, The Mustangs, on Tuesday, and we continued to read with our buddies, The Toros, on Wednesday (we hadn't seen them since vacation!)

The Tuesday/Thursday class had an exciting change in schedule this week. We just began reading buddies with the Mustangs, Amber’s 1^st and 2^nd grade class! Every Tuesday from now until the end of the school year, we will take some time before we rest to enjoy reading and some other fun projects with these great older learners. This week we met our buddies, some for the first time, and read a few books. Next week, we are planning of thinking of some questions we may want to know about our buddies to help us get to know them better. In the coming weeks, we’ll share bits of our project with them and even ask them for help and input! Similarly, they will share neat aspects of their project with us! We are stoked for this welcome new relationship with the Mustangs!

On Friday we said good bye to Cash, as he and his family move to Texas for new climates and adventures! We send with them lots of well wishes and hope they have a great time!

We passed the talking piece after project time, and each Mountain Lion had something they wanted to share with Cash:

"I love you, Cash." -Leo

"I wish you could come for a visit." -

"I wish you could come to my house for a playdate." -Carly

"I wish you weren't leaving so I could have you over for a sleepover." -Bennett

"I wish I could go with you!" -Henry

"I wish to visit you and we can play in Texas." -Dylan

"I will miss you. And I wish I could have a play date with you." -Willa

"I'll miss you." -Lily

"I love you Cash." -Brooks

"I love you and I miss you and I wish we could have had a sleepover. Maybe this summer we can do it?" -Murphy

"I wish we could make another gingerbread house together." -Owen

"Good luck Cash. I hope to see you soon!" -Marleigh

"Cash, can we have your new address? That was we can write you nice letters and send you pictures." -Jaime

"Cash, I'll be thinking of you and your family finding new friends and adventures." -August

"I'll miss you being here, Cash, and hope you have a great time at your new home in Texas. Come back and visit us anytime." -Caitie 

Perhaps the biggest news of the week was that Erin had her baby on Saturday, February 22^nd!

Harriet Tanzer LaBrecque is welcomed by proud parents Erin and Ben, and the entire Teton Valley Community School family. She was 19 inches long and weighed 5 lbs. 13 oz, and is a gorgeous little lady! Now that Harriet is actually here (and not named Rainbow Dash or Wanda), we have gotten the chance to see some pictures of she and Erin, and even had the opportunity to FaceTime with Erin and Harriet on Friday morning during a baby shower.

We spent the week reflecting on what we love and miss about Erin, wrote her lots of letters and made some art projects for her, and on Friday during the baby shower, with help from Hilary Ordonez and Kathryn Ferris, each placed a bead or charm on a necklace, and with it a wish for her or her new family. We love you, Erin and Ben, and welcome to the family, Harriet!

Thoughts for Erin and Harriet:

“I love Erin and want to give her a big hug.” –Connor

“I miss Erin, and love her a lot. And I wish I could send her a hug in the mail.” –Owen

“I miss Erin.” –Abigail

“I love Erin because she likes to help me. And I love her.” –Leo

“I miss Erin because she is so good at projects. And I love her so much! I actually in real life don’t know what I would do without her.” –Dylan

“I miss Erin to death. I just want to give her one more hug!” –Lily

“I miss Erin because she always helped me and Leo and Bennett.” –Henry

“I love her just so, so much.” –Brooks L

“Erin! I love you a lot and just want to give you a too big hug.” –Owen

“I love you, Erin.” –Ava

“I just got a haircut. Do you think Erin needs a haircut? I could give her one! Erin, I love you and I’ll give you a haircut!” –Brooks H

“I wonder what you look like when you’re awake and without your hat on, Harriet.” –Owen

“I love Erin and I want to see that baby, Harriet.” –Laila

“I miss you al and I want to give a real big hug to Erin and the baby.” –Willa

“I love you, Erin! And I bet I would love baby Hattie, too.” –Elli

“I love Erin. And that baby.” –Gray

“I love you, Erin. And I want to give you a big hug when you get back. I wish I could see Harriet, I think I’ll love her.” –Dylan

What we wish for Erin as we choose a bead and charm for her necklace:

“I wish to see the baby.” –Willa

“I wish you had my cake right now.” –Abigail

“I wish for the necklace.” –Bennett

“I will love Erin and give her big hugs and then I will give her kisses.” –Connor

“I can’t wait to see your baby!” –Dylan

“I wish Harriet was here.” –Henry

“I wish that you were at school right now.” –Murphy

“I wish her baby would turn into a dolphin!” –Rowan

“I love her.” –Brooks L

“I wish Erin was here to help me and Henry and Bennett.” –Leo

“I miss you.” –Lily

“I wish for Erin to have a pony and a castle and she is a princess and everything is really pretty.” –Carly

“I wish Erin and her baby were here right now.” –Cash

“I wish she was back in the classroom with her baby.” –Owen

“I wish you have a happy, healthy baby!” –Sara

“I wish you take it all in. It goes by in a flash!” –Karen

“I wish you many joyous moments and many hands!” J -Kathryn

“I wish you lots of love… and sleep!” –Hilary

“I wish you so many smiles, laughs, and love!” –Caitie

It's not everyday that each one of our students is so engaged in the same project that it causes them to jump up and down or laugh or be utterly shocked, all in unison...

On Wednesday our parent helper, Kathryn Ferris, challenged the students to see how tall they thought a block tower could reach in our classroom. It was a very worrisome and exciting project! Simultaneous looks of terror, and happiness, shot around the classroom as each additional block was added. Once the block tower reached the ceiling, students created a barrier around it so nobody would get hit with a block if the tower were to come crashing down! We took some guesses as to how tall it was, guesses ranged from four feet to 40 feet, but after giving a hint that our entire building wasn’t even 40 feet tall, we revised some guesses. It was a great, spontaneous project to work on creative and cognitive building and estimation. When the block tower finally fell, it was a welcomed loud crash and celebration!

It has been a few weeks since we have had a chance to see our reading buddies.  On Friday, we were able to get together again.  The "big kids" picked a special book to share, and the "little kids" each chose a new book from our classroom library that they wanted to read.  We had a nice time getting cozy and reading together.  Not only do we get to work on our pre-reading skills, we also grow socially and emotionally from our experience with multi-age friendships and opportunities.  Thank you to Nancy and her lovely Toros for being our buddies!

"If you don't say anything then he won't feel the love."

-Marleigh, 2/13/2014

This week we celebrated Valentine’s Day! It was a large and important task to make valentines for all of our friends, and we talked about it all week. On top of making the valentines, we had to write names… a lot of them! Each class has fifteen students, so chances are that your Mountain Lion wrote the names of fourteen other students, plus their own name fourteen times. For some students, that’s the equivalent of morning sign in for over two weeks, for some other students it is the equivalent of morning sign in for about three months! In addition to working hard on their valentine cards and treats for one another, each student was also tasked with finding each envelope with their friends’ names on it. Decorations, different hand writing, and over stuffed envelopes made this a hard job too. However, each student was excited about this very important delivery service that took place on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

So that was all of the hard work, and love that went into celebrating Valentine’s Day this week. We also got to enjoy Valentine’s Day! At the end of closing meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, we kicked off our celebration by passing a compliment to the friend sitting next to us at closing meeting (some friends were still resting). After these very kind and thoughtful remarks to one another, students finally got to hunt their envelope down in the classroom and enjoy reading their names, their friends’ names they were receiving a card from, and thank each other for the generosity shown this week, and always. Wednesday and Thursday both ended with saying and signing a lot of “thank you” and, maybe even better, a lot of hugs. Here are the compliments we passed around at closing meeting:

2/12/2014

Carly: “Lily is really nice to me.”

Lily: “I just love Owen.”

Owen: “I love Leo! I like to play with him, and he always lets me play with him.”

Leo: “I love Henry. A lot. He helped me clean the kitchen today.”

Henry: “I like Connor because he makes me laugh!”

Connor: “I love Laila a lot because she’s really nice to me.”

Laila: “I love Willa, and I love playing with her. It’s so fun.”

Willa: “Dylan is a good friend and she’s really nice to people.”

Dylan: “I like Abigail because she makes me smile.”

Abigail: “I like Marleigh because she is fun to play with.”

Marleigh: “One time I hugged Carly in the mudroom. And I love her.”

2/13/2014

Dylan: “I love Jessie because she makes me laugh.”

Jessie: “I love Carly just because she is so silly!”

Carly: “I have love for Elli because she is so nice to me.”

Elli: “I love Laila because she plays with me.”

Laila: “I like Ava. She is nice to everyone.”

Ava: “I like him. Murphy. He is nice.”

Murphy: “I love Marleigh. She plays with me and we have so much fun.”

Marleigh: “I like that Emmett, he is silly.”

Emmett: “I love Woods because he brings Valentines.”

Woods: “I like Dylan because she brought so so many Valentines”

This week we celebrated a lot of half birthdays! For those friends whose birthdays do not fall during our school year, we celebrate their half birthday. Just like our friends who have their yearly birthday during our school year, we worked on each student’s birthday tile. We added new colors to our mosaic collection: as of this month, we now have orange, purple, and more red! In the next few weeks, we’ll start thinking about what our mosaic should look like, and how we can incorporate all of our tiles into that. We will also begin putting some thought into where we would like our mosaic to live once we have an idea of what kind of image we would like to portray. How will we get all of these cool and heavy tiles to fit in one place? What will it look like? How will we ultimately decide what the mosaic should be of, and what should it represent? We will begin answering these questions in the next couple of weeks, and it is sure to be an exciting process!

With the transition of one project to another, also comes a physical transition in our classroom. We will re-arrange and re-vamp the classroom so that it fits the needs of our new project. Another thing we've been noticing is the transition of Erin's belly! Her belly gets bigger and her baby comes closer to joining us every day. As we prepare for this special, but big, transition, the Mountain Lions have been asking a lot of questions. How big is that baby? When is it coming? Who is August? Who is Jess? What happens to Erin? How long is she gone for? How does that baby get out? Is the baby okay to stay in there another three weeks? REALLY? How big were we as babies? What is that baby going to be like? We've been answering these questions... using friends and teachers (and probably parents!) to find answers to these curious questions. Erin and Caitie encourage these questions, and we will continue to talk about Erin's transition as her leaving date and/or due date draw closer and closer. Today we learned about what a baby looks like at 36 weeks, and guessed when we thought little lady Tanzer-LaBrecque will join us! The picture above, on the left, is from back in August when Erin's baby was the size of an orange. This week we took another picture, and the baby is now the size of a large cantelope!

Every Friday, we are lucky enough to do some collaborating with Bonnie and Chris's Pre-K class, The Grey Wolves. We get the chance to see what is happening in their classroom, explore their choices and projects, and have the opportunity to interact with other friends, old and new alike. We also get to share what is happening in our classroom and tell our friends about our project and ideas. Here is a little look at what we were up to while the doors were open today!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! On Monday we celebrated this special day by reading Marcus Pfister’s “The Rainbow Fish”, a book about a fish who is different than his friends, but is proud and shares his differences by the end of the book. We also talked about what makes us special and different from our friends. How are we different from each other? How can we celebrate those differences?

What makes you special, or different from your friends?

“I wear different kinds of shirts and do cool stuff.” –Murphy

“I really like coloring.” –Leo

“I really like playing with Leggos.” –Bennett

“I wear different shoes. They have claws.” –Henry

“I have monkey slippers with bows. Not everyone has those. I like rainbows.” –Carly

“I like painting, but not everyone likes that.” –Lily

“I like stamping.” –Dylan

“Owen has red hair.” –Dylan

“I have Daddy put silly music on every day.” –Rowan

“I like to go to gymnastics.” –Abigail

We are so fortunate to have reading buddies every Friday with Natasha's class, The Toros. We get to cozy up with a few books of our choice and these wonderful 5th and 6th graders get a break from their hard work to come and read to us! Not only have they read with us, they have helped us with taste testing, frosting mixing and making, and chicken duty. 

Happy Halloween!  On Wednesday, we celebrated with our Monday, Wednesday, Friday class and the Grey Wolves next door. We played in both classrooms and explored all the activities we had to offer. On Thursday, we celebrated with our Tuesday/Thursday class.   We carved pumpkins with real tools, played pin the nose on the pumpkin, made pumpkin bread from Sawyer’s family recipe, stuck our hands in a mystery box to feel gooey “brains” and “eyeballs,” ate many yummy snacks, and played with friends. We even went on a parade to visit the big school and our friends in the red house and showed them our adorable costumes.

Thank you to all the parents who brought in a snack or stayed to play with us. You helped to make our celebration a great success!  

On Tuesday we had an exciting project going on with our Mustang reading buddies! We got the chance to read the final copy of the story we helped our buddies write last week. The Mustangs had spent the week prior writing, editing, revising, and finalizing their stories during their writer’s workshops period of the school day. When they arrived, their stories were typed or nicely written on special paper! It was now our job to read the final copy with our buddies and then help them illustrate the book! We introduced them to watercolors as a medium for their stories if they wanted, and then we got to work. The outcome of this collaborative process are well thought out, creative stories that will be shared with students and parents for weeks to come.

On Friday we had our last day of reading in the classroom with The Toros. Because the Toros are 5^th and 6^th graders at TVCS, their last weeks of school are a very exciting and busy time. They are preparing for their annual expedition next week, getting ready for graduation, and finishing final projects. Once The Toros return from their expedition, we hope to spend a day in the woods with them where they teach us some of their newly honed survival skills! However, until that time comes, we spent the morning reading, cozying up, and making cards showing The Toros how thankful we are for spending time reading and learning with us.