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Your WEEFC Dollars at Work
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Leland Faulkner, World of Wonder
Leland Faulkner's highly-entertaining program combined shadow imagery, storytelling, and magic, to show the students that there is wonder all around us. He showed the wonder in his hands by using them to create intricate shadow images of animals including birds, deer, camels, cats and many more. Next, he used his imagination and a single sheet of folded paper to create items such as a bow tie, moustache, drinking glass, crying baby, sunglasses, tutu and an accordion. Finally, he told a magical story about an invisible chicken which taught the children that believing in something can make dreams come true. The performance concluded with a "flight of paper butterflies" which appeared magically and finally disappeared as they transformed into multi-colored confetti. The children delighted in this engaging, unique and incredibly imaginative performance.
WEEFC is proud to support many innovative programs designed to enhance creative thinking and imagination and instill an appreciation for the arts.
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Mathematical Thinking Through Technology
WEEFC funded two visits by Drumlin Farm to Kindergarten classrooms to augment their science unit of study on animal life cycles. Students had the opportunity to interact with live animals, compare life cycles of many different types of animals and observe changes occurring in animals from birth to adulthood. One of the highlights of the program was the opportunity for each classroom to care for its own chick after watching it hatch. The programs, entitled Hatching Out and Pond Life, focus on teaching students the importance of careful observation and recording data in doing scientific work. All students kept a notebook in which they described each stage of an animal's life cycle and classified, compared, and contrasted different animals that hatched from eggs. They also recorded observations about the appearance of different animals and how their appearance at birth compared with an adult of the species.
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Visiting Author & Poet
The WEEFC-funded Wordfest Program is celebrating its 26th year of bringing authors and poets into the classroom. Lyn Littlefield Hoopes, the author of many children's books and poems, returned to Country School in January to visit third grade classrooms to begin an 8-day residency. During that time, she worked with students and introduced them to techniques designed to develop creative writing and poetry skills. When working with the children, Lyn emphasizes discovery, seeing our surroundings with new eyes and experiencing the joy of creating. The class collaborated, writing a single poem, and then each student worked on, edited and revised their own pieces which were shared with the class. In addition, Lyn worked with the art teacher to develop an art project to further enhance the poetry study. Finally, the program concluded with a Poetry Breakfast when students shared their work with their parents.
Other Wordfest authors visiting Country School this year included Grace Lin, Brian Lies, Giles Laroche, Suzy Kline and Jarrett Krosoczka.
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