“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine

flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while

cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”

-John Muir John Muir School

November 2012 Newsletter

Dear Families, Every autumn I make time in the evenings and on weekends to be outdoors, breathe the crisp air, and savor the vibrant autumn colors. Our John Muir School students were incredibly lucky to have time to do this during the school day during October’s trips to Lithia Park, Earth Teach, North Mountain Park, and the Oregon Caves. October was a busy month here at school as well. Our Halloween celebration was a wonderful gathering of art, costume, and play for our students and families alike. Earlier in October we were blessed with a visit from William Greene, an education professor from SOU. William brought his students to observe some of our classes, and afterwards the teachers and I met with the SOU class for a question and answer session. I left school that day feeling heartened and full of pride for the many ways that our John Muir community works together to grow students through the outdoors, the arts, and our constructivist approach to educating the whole child. As part of our constructivist approach we teach school-wide units of study. This month we will begin a new school-wide unit on simple machines. Shannon's class will be experimenting with simple machines and working as a team to build one. The third and fourth graders in Camille's class will work in small groups to build a compound machine using three or more simple machines. Jim's class will apply knowledge of simple machines to design and build individual machines that serve a useful function. Marcia has given her class the choice to work alone or with a partner to create a Rube Goldberg project that must accomplish a task and includes at least four simple machines. All of the simple machines will be on display at the Parent Night and Winter Fair on December 14th. I am very thankful to our students, staff, and parents for such a lovely beginning to a lovely season, and I hope you are all able to find time to enjoy the outdoors with your families this November. Sincerely, Tiffany Burns Principal

New P.E. Teacher at John Muir

Please welcome Jeff Multanen, our new physical education teacher! Jeff also works at AMS as a P.E. and Health teacher, and as a Youth Sports Coordinator for Medford Parks and Recreation. Before he joined the Ashland School District Jeff was a Heath and P.E. teacher and a basketball coach in the Salem Keizer School District, and he worked in a residential youth treatment center in Idaho. In his spare time you might find Jeff doing anything sports related, hiking, camping, and spending time with his family.

New Educational Assistant

Please welcome Suzy Quilter as a new Educational Assistant at JMS! Her son, Evan, is a kindergarten student in Shannon's class. Suzy is also working on her Masters in Teaching at SOU. Her love for the foothills and strong family ties have drawn her to Ashland. She taught textile based arts in California over the last nine summers, and

has enjoyed working at AMS and JMS since moving here last September. The area's phenomenal mountain biking, and cross country skiing (when the snow flies), are what fill her spare time, along with gardening, sewing and playing music. Suzy says, "Growing to be a part of John Muir School's vibrant, sustainability-minded community is a joy, and I am looking forward to raising my son in beautiful southern Oregon."

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Girls busy at work in Jim’s class

News From The End of the Hall

There's so much going on! The 7th/8th graders are beginning their stewardship with both The Nature Conservancy and Lomakatsi this month. Families will proudly see our JMS "Adopt-a-Trail" sign up in the Oredson-Todd woods soon! We'll also be collaborating with the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project for the third year, which includes tree surveying, slope studies, fuels reduction within the watershed, trail maintenance, and studying the science behind it all.

The 7th/8th graders have also been learning some wonderful leadership skills through their work with SOU's Outdoor Adventure Leadership Program.

In math, students are learning how to find unit price (price per ounce, for example), graph inequalities, and create equations from input/output tables, to also be used with graphing linear equations. Phew!

Drivers are needed almost every Friday to ensure that students continue to have these powerfully memorable learning opportunities. Drivers/chaperones from all grade levels are invited to join us!

John Muir Site Council and

PTC Meetings

The first Site Council Meeting of the year is Tuesday, November 6th at 3 pm in the John Muir Music Room. All parents are welcome to attend these meetings that focus on school improvement. Mark your calendar with this year’s meetings: Dec 4, Jan 15, Feb 5, Mar 5, Apr 2, May 7.

The next John Muir Parent-Teacher Collective Meeting is Tuesday, November 13, 3 pm in the John Muir Music Room. Other meetings this year are on Dec 11, Jan 8, Feb 12, Mar 12, Apr 9, May 14. Hope to see you there! Check out the John Muir PTC Website at: www.thejohnmuirschool.com

Boys in Art Focus show off their fly tying skills

**Combined Winter Fair and Parent Night**

On Friday, December 14th from 6:30 – 8:30 pm in the AMS Commons we will have our Winter Fair and a Parent Night. First off Sage

Meadows will lead us in community-wide songs, each class will sing a winter song they are working on in music class with Nancy Martin, and Rock Band will perform. After the performances, hot drinks and baked items will be for sale, as well as tickets to the Re-Gifting Room. Board games and crafts will take place while families spend time together visiting. Student work samples and our simple machines will be on display throughout the night.

Please help the success of our Re-Gifting Room by dropping off donations of recycled trinkets, small home items, toys, and anything else that can be regifted to family and friends in the Reading Room any time after December 5th. We also need lots of wrapping paper and ribbon.

The Re-Gifting Room allows our students to go “shopping” and “buy” gifts for their family members and friends. For $1 per ticket students can enter the Re-Gifting Room, pick out a present, wrap it up and give it away.

Art Focus Volunteers Needed For Winter Classes John Muir will be starting a new session of Art Focus after our winter vacation. We are looking for parents, grandparents and community members willing to volunteer their talents and time for the winter trimester classes held each Wednesday morning, beginning in January 2013. We are looking for volunteers to teach classes in any type of fine art, dance, crafts, games, foreign language or any type of enrichment activity.

Specifically we are also looking for: • Two “co-teachers” willing to help teach a cooking class • Additional parent teachers for a soap box/go-kart building class (race, too!) • Donations of materials for both the cooking and go-kart classes • Ed Hirsch, our chess volunteer is asking for donations of extra chess games.

Please help the success of our program and contact me with your ideas. Joyce Feigner, Ed. Asst./ Art Focus Coordinator Joycefeigner@ashland.k12.or.us

John Muir November Calendar Sun Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 Mondays Wednesdays Thursdays 5th-6th Morning Morning All School Earth Teach Music Music Sharing 7th-8th 8:15-8:45 8:15-8:45 8:15-8:45 Oredson Todd

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Site 7th-8th K-4th Council SOU Lithia Park Meeting 5th-8th 3-4 pm Earth Teach

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 No PTC K-4th School Meeting Lithia Park Veteran’s 3-4 pm 5th-6th TBA Day 7

th-8th Earth Teach

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Early No No Release School School 12:30 Thanksgiving

25 26 27 28 29 30 7th-8th 5th-8th

SOU Rock Earth Climbing Teach

Dolphins A Vignette By Malia Lucero, 4th Grade, Camille’s Class

“Come on Kinsey,” I said in joy. My mom and I and her friend and her daughter were all in San Diego at the beach. Finally we walked down to the water. We walked until it was about to my waist. I thought the water was as cold as an ice bath. Suddenly I saw a fin come up from the water. “Kinsey we have to get out of the water!” I said in fear. “It is O.K,” Kinsey said. She did not look worried at all so I decided to go back in the water. Then three dolphins jumped up and did a flip and slapped their tails on the water. “That is so cool,” I said in excitement. I ran back like a cheetah because I did not want to miss anything. For the next two hours we watched the dolphins but it seemed like two minutes.

Phew, Wizz, Bang And Ow! A Vignette By Gabe Ruiz, 8th Grade, Marcia’s Class

Here I am at the Paintball field with my gun, mask and gun cover.

“Remove your covers!” shouted the Referee. I removed my gun cover and waited at the start point for the blue team. “Ready!” I switched off my safety “Set!” I got into sprinting position, and… “BEEP!” the horn blew, I didn’t have a second to waste I ran to the left flank and slid into position. Immediately I popped my head out of my fortified position and targeted my first victims I pulled the trigger and, pow the sound of a projectile leaving a gun at 240 miles an hour was awesome but the sound of the projectile contacting with the target was beyond satisfactory.

I had no time for celebration for I was at war and in war you will get shot at too. The sound of paint splattering on my cover point just inches from my face forced me back into my position I couldn’t pin point the location of the threat but I knew he was out for blood. I made a mental map of the field and I knew that right in front of me was a long 4 foot tall plank that he could be located at, but than I thought of how the paint splattered, it had hit and brushed by my face so if I stuck my head out the right side he must be on the left. I thought about the cover positions and I figured it out. I popped out and pow, pow, pow! Bam, bam, ow! Got him I thought out loud as I sprinted for his position. However as I ran I heard the sound of a gun firing and felt my knee give out from under me as I fell I felt a paintball hit my chest and I collided with the ground with a thud. I got back up and put my hands above my head and headed back to the spawn point. When I got back I checked my leg and chest and found that the opponent had managed to score a three-rig witch is three colors in the same shot. The bruise was purple on the outside, yellow in the middle and red on the inside.

I raced back to into the game, and headed to my original position, and found there was an enemy one bunker ahead. So I assaulted their bunker and managed to get them out. The horn blew and I looked over to the flag area and found out that my team had won! We went back to the main camp to reload and then went to the woods part of the arena. The teams went to their starting spots and waited for the horn. The horn blew and I headed up to the metal triangle, which is a fortress that over looks the whole battlefield. Its only weakness is that it has no roof so its vulnerable from the top and it just so happens so that there is a sniping tower on the high ground in the direction of the enemy camp. The only way to take the sniping tower is from behind, because it has no defenses and the back would leave the opponents butts in the open. When I got to the metal triangle the first thing I did was calling out enemy positions, but after a few minutes the other team must have gotten annoyed because they sent three kinds to the sniping tower. From there they prevented me from calling out positions. I managed to rush the tower and take it, but the other team had sent more people to check in to see how it was going. To make a long story short I won and lost in a 20 second time frame, which was disappointing. I heard the horn blow and knew the game was over. We did the same thing 3 times for 2 days, which was plenty. But the sounds I still remember are Phew, Wizz, Bang and Ow!