Mid-Autumn Moon Festival Luncheon

Thank you to all who attended and helped with set up and clean up of our first ever Mid-Autumn Moon Festival lunch at Fayston School!  Thank you to Cheryl for a delicious meal! 

What a day for the Bridge Street Art Fair!

The Second Annual Bridge Street Art Fair was a blast last weekend!  Thanks to all who attended and helped make this event a huge success.

The Abominables close down the day

Welcome! 

Latin Dancing with Constancia Gomez... So much fun! 

Paintings by Candy Barr

Making Mindfulness Charms

Artist vendor tents

Lunch by the Mad River from the Butchery

"Make One, Take One" with Alex 

"Make One, Take One"

Hanna Tattoos 

Gifts from the heART bowl raffle to support Vermont FoodBank

Win one one these two beautiful hand painted bowls, filled with local and handmade goodies AND support the Vermont FoodBank at the same time!  Email me if you are interested in tickets-  $5/each or 5/$20.  Nmcdonough@wwsu.org 

Pattern, lines, printmaking, watercolor resist

Kindergarten, first and second grade students helped make last weekend's "Country Christmas" festive with these colorful decorations. We practiced making different types of lines and patterns and experimented  with the watercolor resist technique. We also explored printmaking using a muffin tin and shiny tempera paint. 

Getting ready for our Community Thanksgiving Luncheon

Kindergarten, first and second grade artists made leaf and turnkey table runners for our annual Thanksgiving lunch. We used Sharpie markers to practice drawing with simple shapes and lines, then painted with liquid watercolor paints. 

Building citizenship

I believe that it is essential for our schools to prepare students to be engaged and active citizens. We are lucky enough to live in a tightly-knit community that thrives on community involvement and strong support for our neighbors. One of the main focal points of our art program is guiding students toward active citizenship. Check out this great article about ways to promote community involvement. Are there any items on this list that your family already has done?  

Click here to read about the Building Blocks of Citizenship

Empty Bowls Service Learning Project

Empty Bowls at Fayston School

Empty Bowls is an international grassroots effort created to help fight hunger and spread awareness about food insecurity.  Although each group’s Empty Bowls project looks a bit different, the basic premise is simple.  Participants work with potters to create handcrafted ceramic bowls.  The community is invited to a simple meal and in exchange for a cash donation, guests may keep a ceramic bowl as a reminder of the many empty bowls in the world.  Funds raised from the event are donated to an organization that works to alleviate hunger. 

Fayston Elementary School has received a grant from the Vermont Principals Association to implement an Empty Bowls Service Learning project in the early part of 2012.  Fayston students will work with local potter Leslie Montalto to create ceramic bowls with handbuilding and on the potter’s wheel.  Additionally, they will learn about many aspects of food insecurity and hunger prevention efforts in their community and beyond.  Over the course of the project, students will work to create products that demonstrate their knowledge, specifically drawing upon the many technology resources that are available and incorporating learning in many disciplines. 

In order for this school-wide project to truly succeed, support from parents and our surrounding community is essential.  If you are interested in being a coordinator for the Empty Bowls project for your child’s classroom, please contact your child’s teacher or Nora McDonough at Nora@madriver.com.  As a classroom coordinator, you may help put together a learning activity, join the planning committee for meetings, participate with the bowl making process, or help organize donations for the final event.  This is an exciting opportunity for the Fayston School and your support and involvement is greatly appreciated! 

For more information about the Empty Bowls project, visit the Empty Bowls page on the Fayston School web site http://faystonelementary.org/empty-bowls-project or contact Nora McDonough at Nora@madriver.com. 

Helping Hands

In the days following the destruction of Hurricane Irene, we saw something beautiful happen within our community:  Many folks lent a hand to neighbors and friends to help them clean up and get back in business after the flood.  Students reflected on ways that they had helped their community recover and how they can "lend a hand" whenever it is needed.  We used markers and colored pencils to create hands that express each student's individuality and creativity.