The Wave The WSSD Community Newsletter
April /May2011 |
| The healthy social life is found when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community finds its reflection. And when in the community the virtue of each one is living. ~Rudolf Steiner |
| | | | Upcoming Events | April 4 - 15 Grade 11 Social Justice Trip to Guatemala April 11 - 15 9th & 10th Grade Farming Trip Friday, April 15 3rd Grade Play; 6pm "Joseph and His Brethren" Altadena Campus April 18 - 29 - NO SCHOOL Spring Break Wednesday, May 4 Grade 8 Projects 6-8pm Thursday, May 5 Grade 8 Projects 6-8pm Saturday, May 7 May Faire 11am-5pm May 8-21 Grade 8 Class Trip to East Coast Monday, May 16 6th Grade Play; 6pm "Roma Amor" Altadena Campus Tuesday, May 17 6th Grade Play; 11am "Roma Amor" Altadena Campus Wednesday, May 18 "A Day the Waldorf School"Tour 7:45am sharp; RSVP please Current parents are welcome to attend! Thursday, May 19 Film Screening "A Race to Nowhere" 6pm Altadena Campus Thursday, May 20 Film Screening "A Race to Nowhere" 8:30am Altadena Campus Thursday, May 26 4th Grade Play; 11:05am "Thor and the Giants" Altadena Campus Friday, May 27 4th Grade Play; 6pm "Thor and the Giants" Altadena Campus Monday, May 30 School Closed in honor of Memorial Day |
| | | Dear Simona, | Welcome Spring! Spring is a bustling and energetic time of the year at WSSD. The community looks forward to the upcoming celebration of spring with the Annual May Faire on May 7. There is always a lot to do before the campus welcomes over 1,000 vistors to enjoy the maypole dancing and various games, crafts, music and more! A few upcoming highlights.......we have not one, but  | Grade 1 Garden in Bloom |
two, upcoming class plays to offer you. Grade 6 will be performing, Roma Amor and Grade 4 will be performing, Thor and the Giants. 8th Grade Projects are also coming in the first week of May. These projects are always quite interesting and informative. We will be finishing off the month of May with a showing of the documentary, Race to Nowhere, at the Altadena Campus. For more specifics check out the Upcoming Events on the left side of this newsletter. More spring fun might include spring cleaning ....how about some electronic clean up in your and your family's life? Read the articles below for some insights and suggestions to improve the quality of your families' lives. |
WSSD Welcome Recipient of Vans from South Bay Volkswagen by Tony Cirone, Development Director |
Thank you Rudy Erm & South Bay Volkswagen! Generosity comes in many wonderful and interesting forms. Whether it is underwriting a four year high school scholarship, planting a first grade garden (currently in full bloom), volunteering your time on a committee, contributing to a new playground, driving on a field trip, making a stretch gift to annual giving or donating a good or service to the Gala, you are greatly appreciated by our faculty, administration, board of trustees, and, of course, the students.  | Left to Right: Johannes Lasthaus, Admin Chair & Rudy Erm, South Bay Volkswagen Picking up the new vans! |
Last month's wonderful act of kindness came with wheels and enough seats to transport up to 6 children per vehicle. By now many of you have noticed the 4 new VW Routan mini vans that were generously donated by Rudy Erm, second grade parent, and owner of South Bay Volkswagen. As if that weren't generous enough, he had the vans wrapped (detailed) with the school logo as part of the package.  Third grade students filed in for the maiden voyage to Home Depot, in which I had the pleasure of driving, to drop off pictures and a cake to thank the store manager for her generosity; over $400 in materials were donated by various Home Depots for the school's new gardening shed. Our administrative staff used all four vehicles to drive to a conference where other administrators from Southern California Waldorf Schools couldn't ask enough questions on how we received them. That was easy to answer - one incredibly thoughtful and kind parent approached the school and simply made it happen. 
Whether the vans are being used on a field trip, for community service, for picking up visiting faculty, or for driving to Pentathlon, Medieval Games or track and field meets, students for many years to come can look back to that time in the fall when Rudy Erm said he had an idea that he thought the school might be interested in; he sure was right.
On behalf of every student who will benefit, every parent who does not have to drive in order for the trip to occur, and from the faculty, board and administration THANK YOU Rudy Erm for choosing to share your generosity with The Waldorf School of San Diego.
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Grade 6 Earning Money for their 8th Grade Trip |  | Playing their hearts out! Right to left: Ruby Marrujo, Kesar Patel, Brittany Wais, and Jason Hurlbut. |
Waldorf strings classes, orchestra rehearsals, and private lessons pay off for Grade 6! The Waldorf School's 8th Grade Trip is one of several culminating experiences that brings our students' elementary and middle school world to a close, readying them for the big leap into high school. This year, one Grade 6 student was inspired to obtain a permit for 5 to play their instruments for money in Balboa Park. Last Friday afternoon a  | Catching the crowd near the Old Globe Theatre! |
group of 6th Graders were very excited to have made $174. The next day they jumped for joy upon learning that their hard work had more than doubled their earnings. On Sunday, students, parents, and teachers were astounded to learn that these hard-working, enthusiastic musicians had brought in over $500, bringing their total earnings for the weekend to $1,047.
Music is just one of many inspirations that arise for fundraising for this important trip. We enthusiastically encourage our Waldorf students to share their many and vast talents to accomplish these goals that benefit us all.
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| | | | Annual May Faire May 7 11 - 5 pm |  |
What's Happening in the Grades? Morning Lesson Blocks and High School Seminars in April/May | Here are some glimpses into what is happening in the classrooms here at WSSD....we hope you will enjoy them!
Grade One: Language Arts 3/28 - 4/15; Form Drawing 5/2 - 5/6
Grade Two: Letters/Saints 3/28 - 5/6; Numbers/Saints 5/9 - 6/3; Review 6/6 - 6-17 Grade Three: Old Testament/Language Arts/Play 3/21 - 4/15; Farming/Animal/Fibers with Jennifer Hedin 5/2 - 5/27 Grade Four: Local Geography II 3/28 - 4/15; Man and Animal II 5/2 - 5/27 Grade Five: North American Geography and Language Arts 3/28 - 4/15; Botany and Language Arts 5/2 - 5/27 Grade Six: Class Play 3/28 - 4/15; Latin America 5/2 - 5/20 Grade Seven: Creative Writing and Africa- History and Geography 5/2 Grade Eight: Physics 3/28 - 4/15; Math Review & Class Projects 5/2 - 5/6; Class Trip 5/9 - 5/20 Grade Nine Morning High School Seminar: Sustainable Agriculture Field Trip at Camp Stevens 4/11 - 4/15; History of Art with Ms. Ansel 5/2 - 5/27 Grade Ten Morning High School Seminar: Sustainable Agriculture Field Trip at Camp Stevens 4/11 - 4/15; Physiology with Mrs. Rocha 5/2 - 5/27 Grade Eleven Morning High School Seminar: Social Justice Service Trip to Guatemala 4/4 - 4/15; Atomic Chemistry with Ms. Boynton 5/2 |
| Building with Grade 3 | If you have not had a chance to visit the South Orchard, please take a moment and look at the  | Cutting Wood |
beautiful garden shed the Third Graders built during their Housebuilding Block. During this block, the children learned about the interdependencies of individual professionals (how a mason, plumber, framer, electrician, etc., all depend upon one another to create a building). The children had the opportunity to experience, hands on, how to prepare the land for a building site, mix cement, lay a foundation, and create walls, a roof and a door. This parallels the same development that the children are going through as they are now aware of the building up of their own homes (bodies). They come to realize that they could not even live on earth if their parents had not given them a body to inhabit, for the first and most wonderful house that was ever built was the house of the body, and the birth of the body was the crowning act of the creation of the world. During conversations in class the children described this house; the dome of the forehead; the firm foundation of the bones; the legs which stand like pillars; the windo  | Building Walls |
ws through which the soul looks out into the world, and the doors where the world can enter in. Then they recognized that a house must be inhabited, someone must be able to look through the windows and open the doors in love to the world outside. As the nine year old child begins to dwell more and more strongly within the "house" of his/her physical body he/she begins to see himself/herself as separate from the external world. The experience of working together to build the garden shed provided the children with the opportunity of feeling that they are not alone in this world; they were all in this together. It helped to strengthen bonds between them and it increased their confidence in themselves. After the children finished their shed, they made thank you cards and baked cakes for the seven different Home Depots that donated materials for the shed. Then they took a field  | Decomposed Granite |
trip and delivered their 'Thanks' in person. The children had a great time and learned a valuable lesson as well. When a child can truly learn how to say thank you, it is a wonderful gift that will serve them the rest of their lives. Third graders would like to give a great big thank you to Josh McKinney. He is a general contractor and parent of Autumn in the 6th grade. He helped oversee the project throughout the month that the children created this wonderful shed. Not only did Josh  | Thanks Home Depot! |
donate a large amount of his time, but his business, Vision Builders, also donated some materials for our shed. We are so appreciative of all that you did. Thank You! Third Graders would also like to thank Greg Cruz and Kathleen Margolin. They both spent many hours helping the children carry out all the tasks Josh set for them. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your time and flexibility. Ms. Walker and Grade Three  | It's finished! Class photo with Ms. Walker and parent volunteer, Josh Mckinney |
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| Grade 8 Projects Wednesday, May 4 6-8pm and Thursday, May 5 6-8pm | Be sure to come and see our Grade 8 projects. Everyone is welcome! Students have worked independently on projects of their choosing. This year's array includes: Making: a surfboard, a go-cart, a lacrosse stick, a 18-19th century rifle. Researching: modern day Japanese culture; Alice in Wonderland through the ages with costuming; Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies including monologue and costume; the generation of bass tones with history and demonstrations; the biography of John Woden; Indian heritage and history; the history of animation with demonstrations; the history of denim with sample clothing. Completing: dolphin training. |
| Screen Free Week |  Children Around the World Will Celebrate Screen-Free Week On April 18-24, children around the world will celebrate Screen-Free Week (formerly TV-Turnoff) by turning off televisions, computers, and video games and turning on the world around them. Waldorf school communities are ideal partners in this global effort to eliminate screens for a week from the lives of children. In the curriculum at Waldorf schools, the human voice and human speech are cultivated through recitation and storytelling; imaginative play is a pillar of the work at school from early childhood on, transformed into drama through twelfth grade; and current brain research indicates that the curriculum in a Waldorf school supports development of the whole mind through play, the arts, and rigorous academics. Waldorf school communities already know the benefits of a week with no screens, but we can all do a bit more to focus away from the distractions of electronics that are so enmeshed in our complex and beautiful world. Join with us in working to have a completely free-of-screens week to emphasize the importance of this effort. |
| I Can't Think! by Sharon Begley | The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence-our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions.  Imagine the most mind-numbing choice you've faced lately, one in which the possibilities almost paralyzed you: buying a car, choosing a health-care plan, figuring out what to do with your 401(k). The anxiety you felt might have been just the well-known consequence of information overload, but Angelika Dimoka, director of the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University, suspects that a more complicated biological phenomenon is at work. Click here to read the full article. |
| Why Children Shouldn't Have The World At Their Fingertips by Lowell Monke | Thomas Edison was a great inventor but a lousy prognosticator. When he proclaimed in 1922 that the motion picture would replace textbooks in schools, he began a long string of spectacularly wrong predictions regarding the capacity of various technologies to revolutionize teaching. To date, none of them-from film to television-has lived up to the hype. Even the computer has not been able to show a consistent record of improving education.
"There have been no advances over the past decade that can be confidently attributed to broader access to computers," said Stanford University professor of education Larry Cuban in 2001, summarizing the existing research on educational computing. "The link between test-score improvements and computer availability and use is even more contested." Recent research, including a University of Munich study of 174,000 students in thirty-one countries, indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all.
Click here to read the full article. |
| Race to Nowhere to play at WSSD | The Waldorf School of San Diego is pleased to announce that we will be screening the movi e, Race to Nowhere, on Thursday, May 19th at 6:00 and on Friday, May 20th at 8:30 a.m.
The filmmaker is a concerned mother who was inspired to make Race to Nowhere when she saw how today's high-pressure culture has invaded our schools and our children's lives. The movie points to the "silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace; students are disengaged; stress-related illness and depression are rampant; and many young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired."
We feel that this film is a very important look at the state of mainstream education in America and that it will reaffirm why Waldorf education is so valued in our high pressure culture.
Please visit the following links for more information and tickets:
Tickets for Thursday, May 19th at 6:00 p.m.
http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/4814
Tickets for Friday, May 20th at 8:30 a.m.
http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/4878
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| Summer Camps at WSSD | | 
Kindergarten Camps
Please click here for the flyer with details.
June 27 - July 1 Feathered Friends July 5 - July 8 Outdoor Fun July 11 - July 15 Down by the Sea July 18 - July 22 Latin Celebration
Grades Camps
Please click here for the flyer with details.
June 27 - July 1 Games & Sports Camp
July 5 - July 8 Tales of Nature Camp July 11 - July 15 Puppetry & Theatre Camp July 18 - July 22 Handwork Camp July 18 - July 22 Football Camp
Please click here for the Summer Camp Registration Form
**Placement is first-come-first-served. WSSD students enrolled for September 2011 will receive priority until May 1, 2011. Summer camp is strictly limited to the grade student is entering. Early Childhood summer camp is for children between the ages of 4 years, 6 months and 7 years old by June 1st. Please see Registration Form for complete details.
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| | Recipe of the Month: Nut-Topped Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins | 8 ServingsPrep: 25 min. Bake: 20 min. Ingredients
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/3 cups packed brown sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
3/4 cup diced fresh or frozen rhubarb
TOPPING:
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cold butter
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. In another bowl, whisk the egg, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in strawberries and rhubarb. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
In a small bowl, combine the pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over batter.
Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Serve warm. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.
Editor's Note: If using frozen rhubarb, measure rhubarb while still frozen, then thaw completely. Drain in a colander, but do not press liquid out.
Nutrition Facts: 1 muffin equals 243 calories, 10 g fat (2 g saturated fat), 14 mg cholesterol, 155 mg sodium, 37 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 3 g protein. |
| Newsletter Submission Guidelines | | Do you have a fun or interesting story about what's happening in your child's class? A beautiful photo of a class activity or children? A review of an event or a thoughtful comment? Alumni Updates? A question about The Wave Newsletter? We invite readers to submit articles, questions, etc., for consideration which relate to school activities and events in the monthly articles of the newsletter. Guidelines for The Wave submissions: All submissions are due by the deadline date at 12:00 pm via e-mail to office@waldorfsandiego.org. We will do our best to include your submission; however, due to space constraints, we may not always be able to include all items. WSSD reserves all editorial rights, including the right to reject any material. The next issue will come out in June. The deadline for submissions is May 18. Thank You! |
Wishing you joy in the spring season! |
Anja Lasthaus
Administrative Coordinator
The Waldorf School of San Diego |
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