Behind the Scenes: Monthly All School Meeting

Monday morning began with our monthly All School Meeting.  The meeting is modeled after the daily morning meetings that take place in every classroom.  This month’s meeting was led by some very enthusiastic members of the fourth grade class.

The Greeting - the pinky shake! Everyone turned towards their neighbors and extended a greeting...and a pinky.

As this was the first meeting of the school year, several students taught the "All School Signal" to the four hundred students assembled. This signal is to help quiet everyone and to prepare them to be attentive listeners:

• Hands Up
• Eyes on Speaker
• Voices Off

The Share - A skit was preformed about the "Book Diet"

"What's a 'book diet'?"

"It's like a regular diet. What's your favorite food?"

"Watermelon."

"What if you ate watermelon for breakfast, lunch and dinner?"

"You wouldn't be healthy!"

"You need to try lots of different foods to get vitamins. You need to read lots of genres to be a healthy reader."

"What's a genre?"

Students came up on stage in groups of two, hoisting aloft a poster and announcing their genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Traditional Literature, Poetry, Science Fiction, Auto Biography, Realistic Fiction, Informational Text, Biography and Mystery.

The Activity - led by the fourth grade, the entire school participated in a rousing version of "Boom Chicka Boom" starting with indoor voices, then whispers and finally the underwater version!

Happy Birthday - all students with September birthdays stood up, Ms. Mustachio played the piano and everyone sang a harmonious Cha-Cha-Cha version of "Happy Birthday".

The meeting closed with an update by Ms. Lefever regarding Fantastic Fridays for 5th graders beginning on October 17th.  

Led by the Kindergarten, students and teachers filed back to their classrooms with a sense of energy and community to kick off the day.

We've Got Spirit!

On Friday, students could be seen wearing every hue of green imaginable!  Unless St. Patrick's Day has been moved to September, this can only mean one thing - Franklin Day!

Every month at the Franklin, there is an opportunity to dress up and show your spirit:

October 31: Orange and Black Day - dress in as much orange and black as you can
November 26: Fancy day - dress up in fancy clothes
December 23: Pajama Day - wear your pajamas to school
January 16: Crazy Hat or Crazy Hair Day
February 13: Mixed Up Day - wear mismatched or backwards clothes
March 2: Dr. Seuss's Birthday - dress as your favorite book character
April 17: Sports Day - wear your favorite sports attire
May 22: Favorite T-shirt Day - wear your favorite T-shirt

Look for our "Roving Reporter" and you could be featured in Principal Kelly's next post!

Duckling in the Blue Zone

Some of you may have heard about the duck at Franklin School.  During April vacation, a duck laid her eggs in the faculty parking lot in the back of the school. Fearing for the duck's safety, we called animal control and were told to leave the duck alone.  The teachers and staff have been observing the duck as we enter and leave school each day.  Some have even provided food and water and we blocked off one of the parking spots with cones to protect the nest.

This past Friday, the eggs finally hatched and 9 little duckings were born.  As you might imagine, we were concerned about how these duckings would make it from the Franklin School parking lot to water. After calling several wildlife agencies, I was assured that they would definitely find their way to water.  I wondered if there were any ponds close to the Franklin School.

When I arrived at school this morning and saw the empty nest, I hoped that they had all made it safely to water.  About 20 minutes after getting to school, two students arrived in my office holding.... a duckling!  They had found the tenth duckling waddling through the blue zone.  Several teachers and I prepared a makeshift nest in the office.  We got a box, a warming lamp from the kindergarten, a water vessel and some oatmeal flakes.

Then, we searched the grounds of the school for the mother and the other ducklings.  Unfortunately, they were not to be found.  Just then, a 4th grade student told me that he knew where the duck family had gone.  In fact, on Saturday, he and his family had followed the duckling parade to Cheesecake Brook at Albemarle.  I wondered if the ducks were still there and knew we had to check.

Once the duckling seemed a bit stronger, I put the "nest" in the back seat of my car and headed to Cheesecake Brook.  As I drove down Albemarle, I noticed that my daughter's second grade class was at recess on the Horace Mann playground.  Since we call her "the noticer" at home, I knew she would be the perfect assistant. Lucia walked along the side of the brook while the duckling and I rode in the car beside her.  We crossed Crafts Street and then North Street, and I was beginning to lose hope that we would reunite the duckling with her family.  Lucia was gaining hope that we would have a new pet.  As we neared the end of the brook, Lucia began pointing and jumping up and down.  She had spotted the duckling's family swimming down the brook towards the river.  After wishing the duckling well, we placed it in the water and it quickly swam to join the others.

The happy mother duck rounded up all the ducklings.

And they all swam off together.

Multicultural Night Photos

Thank you to all who made Multicultural Night a great success! I'd like to give a special thanks to Gail Guerrero for organizing the event, to Sharon Foster for teaching our students the dances and to Deanna Mustachio for teaching our students the songs.  Here are some wonderful pictures (courtesy of Manu Madhav, Nethan's dad) of many of the amazing country booths:

Read Across America Day

We had many special visitors last week for Read Across America Day in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. 
                                                      Mayor Setti Warren

                                    Angela Pitter-Wright, School Committee

Brian Turner, Day Middle School Principal

Lieutenant Bruce Apotheker, Newton PD

Jen Price, Newton North Principal

David Kelly, Author

 "You're never too old, too wacky, or too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child." 

Ask your child who read to his or her class.

Franklin's Amazing Art Program

March is Youth Arts Month.  This is an opportunity to emphasize the value of art and art 
education for all children and to encourage public support for quality school art programs. Speaking of quality art programs, we are fortunate to have an exceptional art program at Franklin.  Some of you may know that Diane Jaquith, our art teacher, is an expert in the field of art education.  She is the co-founder of Teaching for Artistic Behavior and the co-author of The Learner-Directed Classroom: Developing Creative Thinking Skills Through Art (2012) and Engaging Learners Through Artmaking (2009).  In fact, Ms. Jaquith has been invited to present at the National Learning and the Brain Conference in New York City this May (http://www.learningandthebrain.com/Event-271/The-Science-of-Smarter-Minds/Program).  We are incredibly fortunate that our students get to learn with Ms. Jaquith every week.  Franklin students engage in art making through a choice-based learning model offering multiple studio centers. After whole-group instruction, students continue working on an existing artwork or make a new choice. Emphasis is placed on artistic process and developing studio habits (from Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education). These habits are being piloted across the district and help to frame learning through the arts. This year’s studio habits include Envisioning, Engaging and Persisting, Developing Craft and Reflecting. Students use these habits to guide their self-directed work during art class each week. To see more great artwork emerging from Franklin's Creativity Studio, visit our Artsonia gallery: 

 https://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=38943

January All School Meeting

Approximately 400 students and 75 faculty members gather in the cafeteria for our All School Meetings.  It's a wonderful time for the whole school to come together as a community and celebrate our learning together.  The 5th graders facilitate the All School Meetings.  We begin the meeting with a greeting where everyone greets someone nearby.  We often get updates on Green Team initiatives or faculty announcements.  Then we have many groups share their learning.  For example, at our January meeting, the Kindergartners shared a snow song.