Public

I have recently purchased a Savannah Monitor to add to our many reptiles here at KES.  She is very sweet, shy and sometimes a bit too curious. She will be the first pet in our class this '08-'09 school year. Our class will try to earn her letters (Savannah Monitor)by following new class rules/procedures/ ect. by the end of the first week. Once  they get all the letters we will observe her characteristics/behaviors/ect. and vote on a name. What I am looking forward to is watching her grow and change during  the school year and years beyond.  Her full size can reach 2 feet in length and 6-10 in. high. Monitors can be leashed trained like a dog. :) This reptile will be researched/observed/ and used in many other ways to enhance instruction in our class along with many other class pets that will be earned and shared with other classes.  She reminds me of a small dinosaur at times the way she walks.  Feel free to check her out after a month in our class.

Workday 9 on May 24 helped us to put the finishing touches on the courtyard. We had a large turnout of parents and students. We finished staining the benches and lattices and moved them back into the courtyard. Students helped sweep, pull weeds and water. Shelly Pruitt took some students in to complete artwork to be displayed in the courtyard.

Today was our Open House and although we did not get as many people to visit as I hoped, we did get some new visitors to see what our project was all about. Dr. Kirk London, our Superintendent visited as well as board member Mark Jones. Angie Mendez from the Hays Education Foundation attended to see what we had accomplished so far with the money from our Foundation grant. We had a visitor from the Water Conservation District visit and share with us a teacher workshop opportunity this summer to which we hope to get some representation from our campus. We really want to visit with this group to share what we have learned during our project and to network with others for future development and learning opportunities. The HEB Plus Garden Center manager came to see what our project is about and was very excited to explore possible support from the Kyle HEB. This day marked a completion of one phase and the beginning of the next phase of our implementation. I will continue to document our progress on this blog site and welcome feedback from our constituents!

This was a fantastic day! We had a lot of volunteers show up and enough wheel barrows to get the job done efficiently! We had to lay weed barrier and move in 8 yards of crushed granite, 1 yard of large river rock and 1 yard of small river rock. We also got most of the lattice and benches stained and the white board hung. The transformation is amazing! Monday morning when I can down the hall, there was a row of kids with their faces pressed against the windows and lots of positive comments. When I saw some students in the courtyard in the afternoon, I stuck my head out and asked them what they thought. They said it was beautiful and they loved it! We are having an open house Tuesday May 27th to share it with the public. 

Classes have been going out to use the courtyard more now that is is looking great. In fact Mrs. Jones asked me to create a sign up calendar so that we would not have so many kids out there at the same time. She went to take her kids out the other day and there was already 2 classes out there! That is a very good thing! Mrs. Swindle and Ms. Magnesio have set up the courtyard as one of their center stations. Kids are going out on a daily rotating schedule to water, sweep, weed and clean rocks to relay in some of the bed areas. The kids are really excited about being a part of the project. They love how when they go out the chickens run up to them to see if they have food with them! We are trying to instill in the kids a sense of pride and community spirit and an understanding that this is their courtyard.

This workday was comprised of the Mulligan family and the Jones family. We were disappointed but understand that it is mother's day weekend which, we are hoping, is the reason nobody came. Despite the zero turnout we actually got a lot done. Paul Mulligan set up a new Rubbermaid storage shed for holding our equipment. He also went to the church construction site and got more limestone rock from their trash pile to complete the edging. Mark Jones put his muscles to work with the wheel barrow and brought in the loads of rock and mulch. Kerri Jones and myself laid weed barrier in the cactus garden and spread the mulch.

This is our final workday this school year. We will be adding finishing touches to the courtyard.

Please bring wheel barrows! We will need to move in crushed granite.

Despite a rainy evening last night, today was a fantastic workday. The weather was cool and the ground was soft but not soaking. We didn't have many turn up to help but those who did worked very hard! We had a student volunteer from Lehman High School working on some community service hours for church. Kerri Jones completely cleaned the pond which had become overgrown with algae. Stacey Magnesio worked hard at building out the rock edging around the cactus area and it is looking fantastic. Art Sedillo from 4 A's told Kerri that we could come help ourselves to what we needed at his business and we could have whatever we could load in her truck.