News from Lisa
Never a Dull Moment!
Here at The GSA, we make significant use of the cultural, artistic, and educational resources across Austin. The weather in the fall, in particular, is so nice that field trips are especially popular. Here's a sampling of the trips we've taken in just the past few weeks: the kindergarteners have been to the Austin Zoo; the first grade went to Howson Library to see a puppet show, Strega Nona and to Austin Nature and Science Center for a "bat buddies" program; the second grade traveled to Zach Scott to see Mariposa's Journey, and to Sweet Berry Farm to enjoy a "fall experience;" the third graders have been to Inner Space Cavern and Pease Park as park of their rocks and minerals unit; the fourth and seventh grades went to the San Antonio Zoo; the fifth grade walked in a short grass prairie; the fifth and sixth grades went to the Redbud Center for a program on water; the sixth grade has been to Mayfield Park (they are working on a trail guide there); the eighth grade visited Andersson-Wise Architects to learn out how to create a 3-D model (the girls are creating their own campus master plans); and, all of our middle school girls have been making good use of local parks for expanded physical education opportunities.
In addition to off-campus field trips, we have had speakers come to us. Author Jacqueline Kelly was on campus this month. Ms. Kelly wrote The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate – one of the assigned summer reading books of the sixth grade this past year. While that was certainly exciting, we also had visitors from Mad Science, a geologist, a team from Paramount Theater, students from UT (teaching a class on nutrition) and last, but certainly not least, the Capital of Texas Zoo paid us their annual visit.
We've held two special Saturday workshops for middle school girls—a "Masterpiece in a Day" painting class with Nancy Hoover, and a cooking class with Elizabeth Winslow of Farmhouse Delivery. The latter provided an opportunity to test out the Windsor House kitchen, and we can report that everything worked well and the homemade pizza and stir fry—both using vegetables that we purchased at Boggy Creek Farm that morning—were excellent. We are looking into hosting additional Saturday workshops, so if you have ideas, let me know!
In another first for us this year, we had a tremendous turnout for Science Night. The idea for this event was brought to us by Dana Burke and Liberty Heise after they attended a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) conference at UT Austin. In addition to K-8 science teachers hosting an event in their classrooms, we also had two parents with telescopes and representative from GirlStart on campus. It was so popular that we had to turn the lights off to nudge people to leave!
The parent education session with Claire Flynn of For Kids' Sake on the "ages and stages" of child development was well attended, and we hope to see many of you at Howson Library for the book group discussion of Gail Collins' When Everything Changed on November 2. Yes, it is election night, and that might be the perfect night to discuss this book, which has to do with the changes that occurred in the 1960s, particularly with regard to the opportunities available to women in the United States.
And that's a snapshot of just a few of the activities we've been involved in the past few weeks. If you have been thinking lately that it is difficult to keep up with everything that is going on at The GSA, it is not your imagination. This is one busy place!
Lisa K. Schmitt
Head of School
(10/2010)