Mayfaire Saturday, May 20th 2017 10 AM - 1 PM
May 2017
Dear Friend,

Spring is upon us and Mayfaire is just around the corner! Tomorrow, Friday, May 5th is our annual Spring Concert at 6:30 PM at the Cold Springs Community Church in Placerville. Come out and hear our middle and upper grades strings and recorders perform, as well as a performance by the Eighth Grade class.

On Saturday, May 6th Monica Ness and Miss Christl will be at the Annual Kids Expo 10 AM - 1 PM at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds. Join them in making seed balls at our booth. This is a free event. Come out, stop in, and see us! Parents, would you like to help? Sign up here. or contact Monica Ness.

The 2nd Annual CSWS Golf Event at Cold Springs Golf and Country Club is right around the corner and it's not too late to register! This will be our second year hosting a four-person scramble with all kinds of fun contests, BBQ, raffles, and extras. We hope you'll consider joining us and bring your golf friends and family along.  More information below.

The AWSNA website, waldorfeducation.org is an incredible resource for education articles and monthly news regarding Waldorf Education. This month I am including two articles by Beverly Amico, Executive Director of Advancement at AWSNA that she has published on the Essentials in Education Blog located on that website. Both articles are relevant to our school and the education we provide our students; K-8 Comeback: Clear Merits over Middle School Model and Experiential Education: Why Students Should Learn by Doing.

Mark your calendar for Mayfaire, Saturday, May 20th 10 AM - 1 PM. Friends and family are welcome to join us for this outdoor celebration of spring. Admission is free. Bring your water canteens and sun hats to enjoy the beautiful springtime. Family picnics are welcome. Food concessions are available for breakfast and lunch.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Bumgarner
Director of Community Development

Inspiring our students to reach their highest potential as free-thinking, creative human beings who have a life-long love of learning, Cedar Springs offers a Waldorf Education to families and their children, infants through Eighth grade.  - CSWS Mission Statement
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mayfaire

 
A Moment to Honor Teacher Dedication
By Paula ThompSon, Pedagogical Chair

While each of us carries in our heart a commitment to Waldorf Education, as we approach the year's end, a special acknowledgement of our teachers is always appropriate.  Being a Waldorf teacher is a vocation - a calling, if you will.  Each teacher makes a conscious decision to work on behalf of your child's physical, emotional, intellectual, and moral development.  For them to be successful, strong partnership with parents is key.  These last weeks of each school year are full to overflowing.  Please take any opportunity that arises to anticipate your teacher's needs and offer your support.
Soon we will be turning our gaze into summer and then toward the new school year that follows. In anticipation of what lies ahead, I want to acknowledge some important transitions.  This year we were blessed by the addition of two new colleagues - Mrs. Wares, our Eighth Grade teacher and Ms. Zocklein, our new Sixth Grade teacher.  Both have worked with love and focus as they led their students through the year.  As Mrs. Wares graduates the Class of 2017, it is our pleasure to announce that she will be returning next year to take on our rising First Grade.  If you haven't met Mrs. Wares yet, look for her as our May Queen at Mayfaire.
On a more heartfelt note, we will be saying goodbye and good luck to our much beloved Mr. Taylor, current Third Grade teacher.  Mr. Taylor has been a respected member of our faculty for 17 years: first as our upper grades math teacher and then, after receiving his Waldorf training, as a beloved class teacher.  His next adventure remains undefined at this time, but he is looking forward to applying all the talents he has honed here at Cedar Springs to something new. 
His Third Grade class is a strong one and they will be lead into the Fourth Grade by a returning teacher, Ms. Keri Cavin (known to many of us as Ms. Cummings!).  Keri carried a class First through Fifth Grades and then stepped away to have a family of her own.  With her oldest son in Morning Glory and her youngest son not far behind, we are excited to welcome Ms. Cavin back into the classroom in September.
In gratitude to all our teachers,
Paula ThompSon, Pedagogical Chair
golf 2nd Annual CSWS Golf Tournament
Monday, May 15th 12 PM at Cold Springs Golf and Country Club 

Registration still open, don't miss this fun day on the green! 
Come join us for a fun day of Golf, BBQ, and Prizes. A great way to support Cedar Springs Waldorf School and have fun with family and friends!

Sponsorships are still available. Click the link below to register as an individual or your whole team!


If you have any questions about the event, sponsorships or how to register, please feel free to contact Ray Sarlatte (530) 409-4005 or email cswsgolf@att.net All proceeds benefitting the CSWS Class of 2018.
K8

K-8 Comeback: Clear Merits over Middle School Model

Essentials in Education Blog
By Beverly Amico
January 10, 2017

Photo Credit: San Francisco Waldorf School
Middle school has a particular reputation, and it's not necessarily a good one. Children often approach these years of schooling (6-8 or 7-8) anxiously - concerned about cliques, closed-off cafeteria tables and bullies roaming the halls. Parents send children into these schools with trepidation as well. But, for some, it may come as a surprise to learn that educators are also regarding middle school environments with increasing criticism.  Read full article here.
doing
Essentials in Education Blog
By Beverly Amico
March 30, 2017

"Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves." - Rudolf Steiner,  
Human Values in Education

The best approach to learning cannot be considered before asking these essential questions: "What is learning? How do we learn? Why do we learn?"
Experiential learning, in a general sense, is the process of learning through experience. But more specifically, experiential learning looks at optimizing the learning process itself by focusing on the individual's involvement (experience) with the learning material. This is an important distinction between other types of experience learning - such as action learning, free choice learning, cooperative, or service learning - which focus on the experience  around learning vs. the experience  with learning.
Experiential learning is an active approach to a subject's lesson; "active" meaning an approach to material which uses different senses, tactics, and manipulatives to stimulate multiple forms of intelligence, as defined by Harvard researcher and professor Howard Gardner. At its heart, experiential learning is a very natural and intuitive way to learn vs. the passive, lecture-and-note style of learning most children experience. Simply look at how lifelong learning happens everyday for those not in a classroom. They learn in workplaces and at home by doing; and the learning is always directed towards something. 
AWSNA Community Newsletter

Read this month's AWSNA  Community Newsletter   INFORM here.


 

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