This year in K/1, our unit of study will be Social Studies, focusing first on our individual families and homes, their make-up, and how they are similar/different from each other. We will then explore our community, mainly looking at the community of Inman Park and surrounding neighborhoods. We will explore the different components of the neighborhood and why they are important. Lastly, we will study the United States, with most of the focus being on the states that the children are familiar with, have traveled to, or have lived in.

Since school has started, the K/1 class has been busy making paste paper books in art class.  The books are about themselves and is a representation of how they see themselves in this world.  We have also put together a classromm address book that contains the children’s addresses and pictures of their homes.

In Science class, the K/1 has been studying botany.  They have planted sunflower seeds and have been charting their growth.  They have also been experimenting with different types of soil and learning about what type of soil provides the best conditions for plant growth.  We recently took a trip to the State Farmer’s Market after reading the book Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.  At the farmer’s market, we picked out some of the vegetables mentioned in the book and brought them back to school to make vegetable soup!  It was quite an adventure for our first field trip of the school year!

This week we made butter and ate it on Johnny cakes made by Taria.  We started work on machine collage books by studying Romare Bearden’s art work.  We are also writing books, Tools and Machines the Pioneers Used, using multimedia.  During our writing workshop, we are very involved in writing cartoons and cartoon books.  We finished reading Jesse Adams’ journal, How I Survived the Oregon Trail.  We started building a shoebox wagon train.  Look for it in the entrance hall.  We went to Stone Mountain and saw lots of antebellum homes with period furnishings.  In art with Ana we primed the chair we are going to paint for the auction.

Next week we’re going to keep working on these projects and we will read Dandelions, a book of Sabrina’s about two little girls traveling West in a covered wagon.

Don’t forget next Thursday we will spend the day at Max’s woods.

Joy and Mindy

     Last Friday, The Atlanta School Junior High volunteered at Project Open Hand, a non-profit organization the prepares and delivers food to people who cannot leave their homes.  Volunteering at places such as this is a very important part of our curriculum.  Helping our community is a great way to learn in an expansive environment, and every Friday we take part in volunteer services such as this.  When we arrived, a man greeted us and took us into a conference room to watch an educational video while we registered.  After the registration, he took us to the Break Room to put on aprons and hairnets.  The hairnets were not favored by the students!  We went into the kitchen to prepare food in many different ways from packaging cakes to scooping chili into a bowl!  We had a great time helping the community!

The Atlanta School is offering a summer camp to hone both expository and creative writing skills for Middle and Junior High School students from July 7 through July 18, 2008.  We will be focusing on basic grammar skills, writing essays based on summer reading assignments, and exploring approaches and techniques for creative writing projects.  During the afternoons, we will be watching movies and writing reviews, going on field trips with the goal of inspiring creative writing, and perhaps going for a swim or two.  From July 7 through July 15, the camp will run from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Those participants who have not been picked up by 3:15 p.m. will be in aftercare in the main TAS building until 5:00 p.m.  On Wednesday, July 16, we will be leaving for a two-night camping trip in the north Georgia mountains where we will read our creative writing projects around a camp-fire and play in the woods!  The cost of the Quill Camp is $450.00.  It’s not too late to register!  Call Paulette at (404)688-9550.

Whew!  We’ve done it!  The AT, baby!  Just a walk in the woods.  For six days, Doug and Jennifer led eight intrepid TAS Junior High students and alumni from Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, to Hog Pen Gap – a 40-mile trek that included the summit of no less than 10 named mountains.  There are too many tales to tell, but suffice it to say that our hikers’ collective sense of accomplishment is well-deserved and the spirit of adventure is alive and well.  We are planning on hiking from Hog Pen Gap to Unicoi Gap over a long weekend in the fall, and we are planning on hiking from Unicoi Gap into North Carolina next spring.  Newcomers are welcome!  Keep checking the TAS webpage.  For that matter, check the page in the near future for photographs.