We have a new website and a new name!

Hello y'all! We are pleased to announce that we've grown out of our original 9th Street location! Our new name is Radicle Roots Community Schoolhouse. We are now located at 3310 Red River 78705. You can find us at our new and improved website:

http://schoolhouseruckus.org
 
Please visit us there for all the current happenings and schoolhouse information.

See you there!

New classes and Sharing Valentines

It's been an interesting few weeks at the schoolhouse due to weather delays, but we are making the most of our time together with new classes and new students. We welcomed three new students in the past two weeks! Our community is growing and its so exciting to see.

Our lunch table is almost at capacity.

We started cooking classes with Julia. Our first dish was a potato and egg frittata pancake. 

We also started Awareness Through the Body aka Jedi Training with the amazing Margo as our instructor.

Finding our quiet and calm bodies at the end of class.

We are learning about notes and singing in rounds with Laura Freeman in music class. 

Thursday theme: Crazy sock day

To celebrate Valentine's we decorated boxes and made cards to pass out to each other. 

A great start to the new year

January is flying by and we are enjoying the ride. Our nature field trip for the month was requested by our students. We packed our lunches, hopped on the Metro, and headed to Zilker Park. The sun came shining out and we even got to put our feet in the water. 

On our way!

Caleb getting a close look. 

Marina and the ducks. 

Max on the walk to the water. 

There was a log see-saw and it was fun to bounce up and down. 

Caleb

We brought our nature notebooks and found a sit-spot to observe nature and did some sketching. 

Laura's class is studying biographies of Amelia Earhart, Charles Darwin, Frida Kahlo, and Jacques Cousteau. 

 

For art class this week, we investigated Egyptian hieroglyphics from 3100-30 BC and wrote our name on cartouches. 

 Jack and his bagel face.

 Marina

 Amelia

Our Thursday Theme this week was show and tell. Everyone brought something special to share. 

January tour day is this week!

Now enrolling for the 2014-2015 school year!

Wednesday, January 8th is our next monthly tour day where parents and students can meet Caitlin and Laura and check out the schoolhouse. There are a few spots open for this tour so come on down! 

Our tour days are January 8th, February 5th, and March 5th from 4:30-5:30pm. 

To hold a spot email Caitlin at caitlin@microschools.org 

Enrollment deadline is March 7th. There are only a couple of tour days left so reserve your spot asap! 

Amelia and Marina under Mopac bridge on a field trip. 

December at the Schoolhouse

We had a beautiful and chilly December in Austin and we enjoyed going outdoors to celebrate the refreshing season. One of our Thursday theme days was bike and scooter day. We bundled up and rode around the neighborhood practicing our biking and safety skills. 

One of our field trips was to the UT campus to visit Gully an expert astronomer. We learned about spectrum and diffraction grating. A special treat was seeing the sun through the solar telescope and going up to see the observatory.

Laura's class opened a store and each student ran their own business. Caleb had a toy store and researched what the market price was for each item. They enjoyed the project and we plan on opening it up again with bigger aspirations. 

We used different resources for our solar system inquiry unit. The kids agreed to integrate technology into our project so we learned how to research on the internet and practiced typing. 

Liam's uncle and aunt, Maria and Nate, came to visit one afternoon to share their expertise on nuts and mushrooms. They were visiting from Brazil and the kids were eager to meet them and had great questions on mushroom identification and toxicity.

Caitlin's class each picked Fantasy books to read and did a book project.  

Laura's class made mobiles over our solar system unit. 

Our last day in December was our showcase. All of our schoolhouse community was invited to come see our final presentations and projects and to wrap up our fall semester. 

Hope everyone had a great winter break! We are already revving up for the spring! 

Staying Close to the Fire

Our older class has launched a new unit this week: we are recording burning questions in our individual Book of Wonderings and then collaboratively searching for the answers. Please head over to the illustrious Alt-Ed Austin blog to read all about this open-ended research project and the design inspiration behind it! We will update you here about the process and progress of this unit, and we hope you attend our Showcase at the end of our semester. Email Caitlin for more info!

Kid Art Oasis

For the past two weekends, the schoolhouse community has been hard at work making our kid art oasis the best it could be for the East Austin Studio Tour.  Out of 160+ sites, we were one of the only stops dedicated to art made by kids. Our circle painting panels tuned out beautifully and the bike powered spin art was a hit! The cardboard station was filled with creativity and the kid art was proudly on display. It was great to have so many families come to enjoy the event. Thanks to all our volunteers and the Tinkering school for making it all possible. 

To learn more about East Austin Studio Tour, visit the site! E.A.S.T.