Career Day 2014 @ Discovery Academy

Dear Parents,

First, I would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank you” to all of our volunteers.  We feel so blessed to have such a supportive community of parents and family members that made this day possible.

Below you will see pictures from our first Discovery Academy Career Day.  We had over 20 volunteers discuss their professions with our students.  In PreK students learned about being an audiologist, an engineer, a business owner, and computer programming.  In Kindergarten, students discovered what it is like to be a nurse, an engineer, and a designer.  In first grade, students learned about being an optometrist, an engineer, an author, and preparing for disasters.  In second grade we had engineers, a police office, a nurse, and more.

Yesterday was a day for students to see what their hard work can become.  Students were engaged with laser-like focus, asking question after question about what these amazing professionals do.  Let this school activity be a launching point for a family conversation that you can have over and over again:  “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Now the students here at Discovery Academy have some context when they give you an answer.

Thank you again to our volunteers.  We could not have done this without your generosity.

-Mr. Reed-Swale

 

Vegetable Planting

Have you ever been asked a question that was so good that you didn’t have an answer for it because neither the question or the answer had ever crossed your mind?  This happened to me the other weekend at Home Depot.  The second grade classes are working on their plants unit and I went to Home Depot to get some vegetable seeds and a mini-greenhouse for them to grow some vegetables. When I came to the check-out counter, I ran into a Discovery Academy family.  “Hey Mr. Reed-Swale, what are you doing here?” they asked.  “I’m just getting some planting supplies for the second grade.”  I replied.  To which I was hit with this unexpected follow-up.  “That’s great, are you doing it for all the classes?  I know that (my daughter) and her classmates would love that.”  At this point I face a smiling mother and a PreK student with eye wide as saucers at the idea of planting her own vegetables.  I had no real answer.  I hadn’t even thought of doing this activity for the whole school.  I was just so excited to get some supplies for the second graders.  I said something about how it was for their unit and went home still bothered by my answer to that question.

The next day I decided that my answer was not good enough, that the question deserved a better response.  So I picked up another 12 mini-greenhouses and a lot more seeds and have scheduled out times with nearly every teacher to plant all sorts of vegetables.  So far I have visited classes in PreK and in second grade and have another six classes on the schedule for this week.

Our goal is to plant them in enough time to have plants ready to take home over April vacation so that students can take care of a few plants and have them in the ground for Earth Day.  I’ve included a few pictures from our work so far.  I’ll keep posting more as I visit more rooms and as our plants grow.

-Mr. Reed-Swale