Harper Lauren Schwindt

Born October 19th, 2010

Planting Days

Thanks to those of you who have donated plants the students were able to begin Planting this week with the help of Dawn and Abeer as our volunteer garden helpers.

Click here to view our planting slideshow.

Garden Update

We've received some wonderful donations this week for our garden. Based on conversations with parents and students I know there is still interest in helping out. So, I've decided to post an update on what we've received so far.

What we've received so far:

• 3 Native Huckleberry plants
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Lavender
• Mint
• Chives
• Various flower bulbs
• Gardening tools

Still on our wish list:

• 3 Oregon Grape plants
• 2 Maidenhair Ferns
• 8 Wild Ginger plants
• 3 Camelia (small variety)
• Espallier Apple Tree
• Chard, kale, collards, lettuces, leafy greens (winter variety)
• Salvia Sage
• Hebes
• Echinacea (Hot Lava & Hot Papaya)
• Pansies
• Rudbeckia
• 3 watering cans
• Organic fertilizer

Thanks again to those of you who have donated, helped, or offered to help bring our garden into fruition. If you have a green thumb or are particularly garden savvy we welcome your advice on everything from necessary supplies to seasonal planting ideas to design and layout. Please don't hesitate to call, email, or drop in.

-Grade 4 Team

Our Garden is Here

Last spring I put my 5th graders to the task of designing their "dream garden." One of the criteria was to measure and design sketches for a garden that could fit in some of the open spaces near our portable. They were so excited by the idea we wound up planting beans, tomatoes (donated by Al's Gardens Center), and herbs in planters outside our portable.

All along our ultimate goal was to get a garden going at Sexton Mountain. So, in June I sent a Capital Improvement Proposal for our potential garden into the Beaverton School District, which included sketches and measurements created by my 5th grade class. Our garden was approved within a week.

With the help of some dedicated Sexton Mountain parents we created a slideshow to promote our potential garden at the school carnival last year. We were lucky enough to make contact with someone at Home Depot. It turned out HD has a whole division of volunteers who specialize in building school gardens. I sent our plans to HD and we were awarded a $2000 grant for our garden.

Long story short, HD's team of garden construction volunteers came to Sexton Mountain today with trucks, tools, lumber, and soil and built our gardens for us in the quintessential Oregon rain. Despite the weather they stuck it out and the garden beds look great. We are very thankful for their efforts.

Parents...if any of you happen to have a green thumb, extra tools, supplies, or ideas for our raised beds we welcome your contributions.

Some Things We've Been Working On

Our entire class showing off their Alien Writing. The students worked on these pieces for a little over a week. In most cases they completed several, however in the end they chose one or two of their favorites to be displayed in the hallway near the library. These aren't as easy they look, especially for fourth graders. Other than being cool to look at, the object of this lesson is to get the kids to slow down, trust their hand eye coordination, and think things through. They did an amazing job!

The pictures below are some of the final products from a mini class project we did together called Vegetation ABC's. Each student researched a plant, tree or flower that started with the same letter as their first name. They were asked to create a poster with illustration that included the plant's scientific name, habitat, physical description, and interesting facts. Some students chose to do extra credit by doing two, or including a poem, or including animals that depended on their topic. They did a great job for their first integrated project. There is many more to come.

It Has Begun

Signatures: As you may have noticed after this first week of school, parent signatures play a significant role in not only our classroom, but in Mrs. Krueger's and Mrs. Tanksley's grade four classrooms as well. We all feel that our students' success in school improves when their parents are active, engaged, and aware of the goings on at school as well. Therefore, you will find your children coming home quite often this year with various projects, assignments, and activities for you to read through together and for you to sign off on.

Project Criteria Sheets: Almost all the major projects we do have criteria sheets that break down the various tasks involved in completing the project. Since these projects can be complex and can take anywhere from a week to a month to complete, we like our students to take the criteria sheets home to read through with their parents and sign. We always go over the criteria sheets together extensively at school and refer back to them constantly until the project is complete. Therefore, it's important for students to have these with them at school.

Our first criteria sheet, Cereal Box Project, should have made it's way home for you to read through and sign this weekend. This project, like most of our projects, has many parts that add up to one completed whole. Due to the opened ended nature of such projects, we typically do not set a due date for the entire project at the beginning. Rather, we break it down into parts with individual due dates for each part determined in class and then we set an overall project due date based on student progress once we've made some headway. That said, all students are expected to meet all due dates unless there are extenuating circumstances. The first aspect of our Cereal Box Project is a personal timeline, which is why the kids were asked to brainstorm some ideas for their timeline with you over the weekend.

Daily Planner: This is a hugely important resource for our class this year. Students use it everyday to record both what we did in class and what is expected for homework. Your child's Daily Planner should look very similar to the Daily Planner you can find on our blog under the School Survival heading. On Thursday each week they fill out Skill to Support Lifelong Learning section and ask for your signature. I see this as another time for you to connect with your child's learning. Their planner should be neat and legible. And, they should be able to explain every aspect of it. If they're having trouble completing work or forgetting things it usually means they're not completing or using their planner correctly.

I hope this helps with some of the questions you may have had this first week of school. I think we had fun and productive first week. I've been very impressed with the overall make-up and effort of our class. I think we're in for a great year. Remember, we have Curriculum Night September 30th. Please do not hesitate to get ahold of me if you have any questions or concerns.

Mr. Schwindt

First Day

We had a great first day of school today. We started a lot of different projects and activities that we'll be working on over the next few days, including:

1. Me Poster - rough draft in spiral to be finished tonight (DUE 9/8)

2. Student Interviews - pairs interview each other and create a Venn Diagram about each other

3. Blog Hunt

4. Vegetation ABC's research project - each student has been assigned a letter to research a plant starting with that letter to be included in a class ABC book of vegetation.

It's very important all students get the supplies from the Supply Check List I created. We went through it today as a class and the kids should have brought it home. It's slightly different than the supply list provided by the school. Sorry about this, but there was some confusion and the office did not have the right supply list for our team. Please let me know if there's any confusion, or questions, or if help is needed to get any of the supplies.

The kids were great today. They were helpful, courteous, and eager to learn.

-Mr. Schwindt

Oregon's Beautiful Bounty - Lesson Plan

The following lesson is inspired by and includes pictures from various gardens throughout Oregon including, Lan Su Chinese Garden (Portland), Portland Japanese Garden, The Oregon Garden (Silverton), and the Mary Woodward Elementary School garden in Tigard. There are also a few pictures from the Portland Farmer's Market. Those ones should be obvious.

Vegetation ABC's

Objective: Each student will create an informative page (guidelines to follow) for a classroom ABC book on plants.

Standards addressed:

Reading: Read and locate information in specialized materials and a variety of informational texts. Use structural features to strengthen comprehension.

Writing: Focus on a central idea, excluding loosely related, extraneous, and repetitious information (main ideas).

Science: Observe physical characteristics of organisms.

Steps:

1. Students will choose a plant to research. The plant will begin with their assigned letter of the alphabet.Enlarged copy of Kingore’s “Alphaboxes” to be posted in the classroom throughout this project. We will meet as a class to fill in students’ choices of plants as the anticipatory set to the research portion of the assignment. As a class, we will work together to fill in any letters of the alphabet not assigned to students.These will serve as the examples/models throughout the project.

2. Students will access research using Grolier Encyclopedia online. Students will read and locate information while using a research graphic organizer to note take. Before students begin their individual research, we will do research as a class on one of the examples we chose during the class discussion.Teacher will go through graphic organizer with students to model note taking as we research one or more examples together.

3. Teacher and students will use plant page criteria to go over completed research organizers, checking for completeness and revising where necessary.

4. Students will use revised research organizer to create and design their plant’s page. Again, before students begin their individual projects, we will use one of our researched plants to do an example together. While completing the example, we will discuss visual aesthetics, layout, and formatting.Students will first complete a rough draft before receiving teacher approval to move on to final copy.

4. Students will present their completed pages to the class. Completed pages will be bound into one class book for the classroom library.

Plant Page Criteria

Name

Scientific name

Classification

Illustration

Habitat

Physical description

Facts

Rimu

Now This Kid From New Zealand Can Dance!

My Personal Interests...

There are a number of things that define my personal interests. Anything that is "typically Portland" can be found pretty high on my list of personal interests. Some of these things include running, cycling, hiking, eating locally, shopping at farmer's markets, and reveling in Portland's abundant and varied restaurant and cafe scene. Although I don't consider myself a "hipster-geek", which is very Portland, it did just dawn on me how stereotypically Portland I am. Beyond the obvious Portland overtures to my personality, I fancy myself a decent photographer, a seasoned traveler, a SCUBA diver, a dog lover, and a father-to-be in November. I'll expand on a few of these topics a bit further.

1. Portland

I've lived in Oregon nearly all my life. I spent my younger years growing up in Salem and Eugene. After graduating from Sprague High School (1994) in Salem I moved to Eugene to attend the University of Oregon. UofO is beautiful and I was surrounded by many friends - perhaps too many. My freshman year I witnessed "the pick" by Kenny Wheaton against the University of Washington, which sent us to the Rose Bowl and turned around the fortune and image of UofO football to this day. However, I decided to transfer to Portland State University in 1996 to focus more on academics and graduating. It was a decision that forever changed the course of my life.

Other than teaching English in South Korea and Singapore for a total of three years, I've lived in Portland ever since. I've come to absolutely adore this city. It has a culture that promotes and thrives on healthy, active living. Whether it's Nike, Oregon's track legacy, or simply in our blood, Portlanders love to run and I've certainly caught the buzz. Two of my favorite places to run are Forest Park and down around the waterfront. Although I've never taken on the full marathon bomber, I have raced in many 10K and half-marathons all over the greater metro area. My personal favorite is the Vernonia Half, which I've run twice and placed 13th overall this past April. The Forest Park Half Marathon is an insane trail run, which I placed 7th overall in the spring of 2009.

Great hiking is another luxury Portland has to offer. Whether it be locally in Forest Park (again!), or around Mt. Hood, or in the Columbia River Gorge, a national scenic area, there's something spiritually rejuvenating about getting out and hiking in nature. It's something I love to do with my wife, Karen, and our dog, Carter.

Every Saturday my wife and I head down to the Portland Farmer's Market to load up on produce for the week. Some people complain that the vendors are too expensive, but higher prices are something we're willing to deal with in order to get fresh, quality, local, tasty food in which to fuel ourselves with. Really, there's nothing more important in life than your health, and that starts with diet. With that in mind we're willing to spend more on food that's healthier for us, supports our local farmer, and tastes much more scrumptious.

Lastly, no mention of loving all things Portland would be complete without mentioning the restaurant and cafe scene. My wife and I have sampled just about every restaurant Portland has to offer. Some of our favorites include Laurelhurst Market, Ken's Pizza, Yuzu (Beaverton), and Beaker & Flask. One of the best websites to keep up with the restaurant scene is Portland Food & Drink. There is certainly no shortage of cafes and coffee houses in and around Portland. There seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, and most folks can tell you about Stumptown having some of the best locally brewed coffee in town. However, by far my favorite place to plunk down with a book, newspaper, or to catch a World Cup soccer match is easily Costello's Travel Caffe in NE Portland. It's run by a family of four, consisting of dad, mom, son, and daughter and it has a very European vibe to it.

2. Photography

I am by no means a "photographer." To this day, all of my pictures have been taken with a simple point and shoot digital Canon camera. But, I happen to think so much of photography lies behind the subject of the photo and practice, practice, practice. I've never taken a photography class, but I like to go to unique and beautiful places, which combined with a little bit of skill, timing, and iphoto work can make for a fantastic photograph. You can see some of them below or on the Flickr top left. Soon that Flickr link will have classroom photos as well.

3. Traveling

As I mentioned above, I spent three years living and teaching in South Korea and Singapore. I have many happy memories and lifetime friends from these two experiences. In addition, I have spent nearly a year of my life traveling throughout SE Asia. I met my lovely wife (pictured above) while waiting in the immigration line at the Kathmandu airport in Nepal. That chance encounter in the airport lead to six weeks of rafting, kayaking, and hiking through the Himalayas together, which in turn lead to three more months of traveling together in Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore.

On a previous trip to SE Asia I spent a month in Laos, including one week on a tiny island in the Mekong called Don Det (Don meaning island), three weeks in Cambodia, two weeks in Indonesia, and many months in Thailand SCUBA diving.

When Karen and I lived in Singapore we spent our vacations in either the Philippines or Indonesia diving some more. One of the best places we found in the area for SCUBA was Bunaken National Marine Park in Manado, Indonesia. The reefs and walls surrounding the island had an absolutely amazing array of sea life. The pictures below are some I've taken while scuba diving in the aforementioned locations.

Karen and I also spent two weeks in Peru for our honeymoon in August 2008. The picture at the top of the blog is from Machu Picchu. We're hoping to go to Costa Rica in March 2011 for a "babymoon."

4. Baby Girl On The Way

I've recently given up my motorcycle interest for strollers. Not entirely true, but the motorcycle is now gone and all sorts of baby gear is on the way. Who knew their was such an arsenal of baby-related products out there? Pretty much any parent, that's who. I've found myself researching and tinkering with all kinds of strollers, car seats, and cribs. Like most Portland folk, we're of course getting a B.O.B. so we can jog and get aggressive while walking with our baby girl, but the stroller link above shows my true favorite stroller. See how bad I've gotten? Luckily, Portland has a plethora of cute baby stores. Some of local favorites that help parents make sure their kids will grow-up to be hipster Portlandites are Posh Baby and Little Urbanites.

Okay...I think that's enough for one post.

Summer Course: Connecting Art & Math

Kids aren't the only ones who have to go to school. I took three classes this summer as part of a continuing education requirement to maintain my teaching credentials with the Teacher's Standards and Practices Commission. The goal is to keep teacher's up-to-date and excited about some of the topics, tools, and practices associated with quality education.

One of the classes I took was one day one credit class called Creating Better Writers. It was taught by a fourth grade teacher from Eugene with many years of experience and even more wonderful lessons and ideas to create motivated and successful young writers. 84% of her students past the state writing test last year, which is an amazing feat. I'm looking forward to implementing many of her suggestions and following her sequence of building skills in young writers throughout the year.

This blog is a product of a four credit course I'm taking this summer as well. I'm taking it online and it's uses for the classroom are exponential. I've enjoyed every aspect of the course so far and look forward to using with my class this upcoming school year.

The pictures above are a product of a three credit course I took a week ago called Connecting Art & Math. It was a week long course taught by a Portland artist/educator named Roger Kukes. He has come to Sexton Mountain before as a guest educator. All the pictures in this posting are of art work I completed in the class - with a torn ligament and splint on my right thumb! The class was invaluable and I came away from it with three-ring binder chalked full of lesson plans and ideas to help me continue to incorporate art into my classroom as much as possible. This course in particular focused on connecting art and math as the title suggests. The first picture is the culmination (final copy) of a lesson on geometric solids and the second and third pictures are final copies of polygon tessellations. I plan to do both of these lessons, as well as others, in my classroom next school year.