Reading around the World

Dear GSP families,
Why are YOU reading?
Is it to gain information, for enjoyment, to be close to the person you are reading to?
Especially when reading with children we can experience all three reasons at once - and now that the days get shorter and sports schedules hopefully less crazy, why not find a cozy spot at home and read together? Our students have many opportunities throughout the week to read in class and in the library. When I walk by our library and see our students reading, I often pause what I'm doing for just a moment. The highlight for many 5th graders and kindergartners, for example, is to read together on Fridays. They often form a lasting bond beyond their years here at GSP. Steve McCurry's pictures reminded me of that magical power of reading. Here is the link to his picture gallery: people-reading-around-the-world 

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Stefanie Amann

"No matter where I go in the world, I see people immersed in books.  It doesn’t matter if they are rich or poor, young or old, they find comfort, information, distraction, and inspiration between the covers of their books."
Steve McCurry

German Music

Today I would like to share something on the lighter side. Music and singing is such a big part of our education here at GSP. Especially this time of the year, there is not a day where I don't get to listen to St. Martin songs or even an early Holiday song. As our students get older they are more and more immersed in pop culture and unfortunately it is not that easy to find German pop music that speaks to a tween/teen - and is appropriate. That's why I get really excited when I find a song that is contemporary enough to resonate with them.
I hope you enjoy the following video and I can assure you that it does bear a deeper cultural message, because German grandma's do have that drawer full of chocolate!
Enjoy! Schokolade

Stefanie Amann

Facing an Obstacle - and Managing Through

Our fifth grade class traditionally embarks on an adventure at the end of the school year. This year we changed things up and sent our students on an early challenge. I have written about the importance of facing and overcoming obstacles here a few times and this topic is at the center of many discussions on NPR, education blogs and TED talks.
We believed there is no better way than to have students face these obstacles quite literally - by visiting an aerial obstacle course. Our fifth graders were excited, but when it came to facing the obstacles it did take encouragement by the group, bravery, believe in themselves and resilience to successfully manage the course!
We plan to refer back to this experience throughout the year with the students to encourage these traits in all kinds of situations. Not to give up if things seem difficult and working hard on managing through a tough situation are important qualities necessary to be successful. The following link describes how the right attitude can make a significant difference even in math.
persistence
It does not take a trip to the aerial obstacle course to develop these skills (but it surely is fun!), our lives are full of small and save challenges where we as educators and parents can take a step back, or just wait a little longer before we help a child. Many times you may be surprised how much they can do, if we give them the encouragement to try one more time!

Transformation Tuesday!

Good Morning,
if you have visited our PE room over the last 2 weeks you witnessed its transformation.
When entering the room you are now transported into the Mt Hood wilderness!
Students loved to check the progress and were truly amazed by the transformation.
We would like to thank Katja Grossmann for channeling her creative energy into making this happen while visiting one of our preschool families here in Portland.
Here are some pictures in case you missed the transformation. Enjoy and I hope you can come and see for yourself!

Thank you Katja!

German High School Visit

I hope your children had a lot to talk about last night!
We were fortunate enough to have 25 high school students visiting from Germany for the morning. In preparation for their visit they had prepared short presentations and activities for the grade school students. We learned about a typical day in school, the police and fire department, a village, bikes and of course soccer. Our GSP students had a lot of questions to ask and did a great job being good learners by being curious and respectful. I am very proud of them!
Here are a few pictures from the morning. I hope you enjoy the sunshine this weekend!

Second Step

If your child started here at GSP in the last few years you are surely familiar with some of the skills our students learn during Second Step class. During recess time I see students working on conflict resolution by using their Second Step skills. It is fascinating to see how even our younger children put their hands on their tummy, count to 3 and try to calm down.This is probably one of the skills you have seen at home quite a bit, too. 
Second Step is much more than an anger management tool. During Second Step we work with students to focus on the development of their social skills and academic skills through videos, activities and practice. We are selecting a monthly theme to emphasize and reinforce across the grade school.  In September we focused on being a "respectful learner" and in October we will look at what it means to show empathy.  Students have been thinking about how to recognize others' feelings and respond appropriately. As a learning community we are committed to apply these skills in our daily interactions.

How to deal with big numbers?

First a big thank you to all of you who made it to parent nights over the last two weeks. I hope many of your questions were answered and you got a first glimpse of what this school year will look like.

Students are involved in so many learning activities already! I want to share what 3rd grade worked on when I visited yesterday. Students are learning about numbers up to 1000 and had brought bigger amounts of objects to class. They worked on sorting these objects in a way that would make estimating and counting easier. Here are a few models students came up with.

At the end of class students visited the stations to compare the various approaches. There is actually not one right way to do this activity and students engaged in discussions about why they chose a certain approach.
This activity is a good example for how we do math here at GSP. We believe that all students can be successful if we offer them a variety of entryways into a topic and allow them to experiment. 
Happy learning!