Golden Bridges School

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Winter 2017 Newsletter

This Season...

Our Mission
Upcoming Events
Annual Fund
The Children
Enrollment Season
Plant a Party
Winter Parent Child Class

Golden Bridges School offers an innovative, place-based education steeped in the urban outdoors of the southern neighborhoods of San Francisco. With a passionate commitment to the development of the whole human being, we strive to harmonize the physical, emotional, and intellectual life of each child. By bringing developmentally appropriate academic rigor through hands-on experience, nourishment of the imagination, care for the earth, and a commitment to social justice, we equip our students with the tools to become free-thinking, moral human beings.

2nd grade math word problems

3rd grade work

1st Grade farmers

Kinder Friends

Upcoming Events

Winter Break - December 16 - January 1. Classes Resume January 2

Tuesday January 9 - Last Open House, 9:15-10:45

Tuesday January 16 - First Winter Parent-Child Class (more info below)

Christiaan Boele Singing Workshop - Tuesday February 6, 6:30-8:00

"Plant a Party" Annual Auction Fundraiser - Saturday March 24

Annual Fund

Golden Bridges was created with a guiding philosophy - to make an outdoor focused, independent Waldorf-inspired education accessible to families who may not otherwise be able to afford it. As we grow our little school, we are committed to that principle. This year our Annual Fund has the goal of raising $75,000 with 100% participation from our families and Board! Donations to the Annual Fund contribute to our operating budget including programming, teacher salaries, tuition assistance, outdoor education, farm costs, the organic food program, and the general administration of running a school.

Thank you for all your support!

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

The Children at School:

Preschool

As the leaves slowly fall from our persimmon tree we settle into autumn. Lady Fall leaves clues and traces everywhere that she has passed by, bringing beauty with her magic paintbrush.
We have settled cozily into the rhythm of our Dandelion days, saying goodbye to our parents with greater ease and hello to our friends with excitement, enthusiasm and plans. Work and play seem to roll from us organically now. Every morning we greet Father Sky, and help brush some of the smoke away with our welcoming waves. We bow to Mother Earth and the wonders that she nurtures and offers us, like tall, tall cornstalks and jolly round pumpkins. We paint with blue these last weeks, also to help cleanse our smoky skies and bring cooling freshness. We celebrate the transformation of the pumpkin into the jack o'lantern as it appears in songs and in our puppet show. At playtime, in a flurry of activity the children move rhythmically between being a hive of bees and explorers on the high seas, while in the garden we decorate our friends, our pathways, our table, with the abundance of the beautiful painted leaves.

Kindergarten

Kindergarten welcomed Lady Autumn and her friends with many songs and poems. We greet the wind and colorful leaves, the pumpkins and apples, scarecrows and creatures like Whisky Frisky with joy and gratitude. At Halloween time we danced and sang about jack-o-lanterns and witches' brews!

Teachers are taking special care to form the classes, observing new friendships being made every day. We are learning the ethos of kindergarten where everything can be made right; where our fingers as 'quiet candles' show we have something to share with the class, and we serve our snack and tea to everyone at the table. What is needed for one is needed and done for all.

Our bodies are moving, navigating play structures and using our helpful and nimble hands -- whether it's to heal a friend, finger knit a belt for a knight, wind string around a sage bundle or build a grape-vine fence for our vegetable patch.

We are finding more and more comfort in our rhythm of the week and day. We especially love our farm days with Jenna! We have been exploring Glen Canyon, greeting "fellow travelers" we meet on the way to Owl Kingdom, Pinecone Hill and Falcon Sky.

Our stories bring images of courageous hearts and noble deeds that tame dragons, of caretakers for the earth and for the creatures, and of Mother Earth weaving an Autumn blanket for the children complete with star light for the winter days to come.
Life is full of adventure and magic in our kindergarten family.

Happy Diwali in 1st grade

First Grade

First grade is preparing to go into the darkness of this season by making lanterns, singing lantern songs and finding our inner light. They have entered the land of numbers and like the main characters of the math story, the children will learn to calculate so that in the "Land of Confusion" all of the people and creatures of the earth can have what they need. We ask, "If there is enough food and resources for everyone but some people are getting more than they need and some not enough, how can we use math to help?" They have met "King Counting", "Queen Equals", a bright star "Number 1", his sister "Number 2", and a rhythmic star "Number 3". "Professor Plus" and many more are on their way to help advise us in our calculations.

Second Grade

Second grade just had a wonderful performance for the other grades students and their own families of all that they've done so far this year. Singing songs, reciting poems, playing the flutes, and singing the multiplication tables. It's impressive the breadth of material that is covered in a short period of time!
The children are making skip counting boards, exploring place value, writing numbers in expanded form, and solving two digit addition and subtraction problems. Earlier this Fall the students enjoyed walking with their glowing lanterns and singing around the farm neighborhood before Thanksgiving break. Santa Lucia Day will be celebrated next week and they students will feed the school with their bounty!

Third Grade

The third grade has been learning a lot about measuring! Using body parts and tape measurers to measure materials for shelter projects, crafts and space. Now we are measuring time, from seasons to the months, weeks and days in a year. We're starting to further narrow time down to hours and minutes in a day. Every week we use volume measurements for cooking projects.
Along with the other grades classes they're loving weekly subject classes in Handwork, Spanish, farming, Eurythmy and crafting.
Third grade had their first class camping trip earlier in the Fall down south in the Santa Cruz mountains. They are preparing for a Spring farming trip by making and selling jams, teas and more from our farm.

Grades Spanish song written by Maestra Maica:

Poco a poco
Fila a fila
Voy a plantar tus semillas
Tu ayuda es preferida
con la lluvia y con el sol

Fruta y grano
Sol y lluvia
Celebramos la agricultura
Celebramos y cantamos
Y asi todo crece bien

Hay tomates y cebollas,
Tambien tenemos lechugas
Zanahorias para tortugas
y las gallinas en su corral

En la huerta de mi escuela
Hago compost con las manos
Doy de comer a los gusanos
y los vegetales crecen sanos!

Poco a poco
Fila a fila
Voy a hacer este jardin
Solo te necesito a ti
Y un poco de tu amor

Farm

Our students have welcomed fall by planting many cool season crops, sheet mulching in our perpetual battle against the weeds, tending to our summer crops, collecting seeds for next season, and using our senses to notice all that is perpetually changing around us! Moving like potatoes in the ground and thanking our “buddy” plants for deterring pests, we have truly embodied how our vegetables grow. From turning, building, and applying compost, to inspecting sick plants and caring for the chickens, all of the children have been making invaluable contributions to the interdependent and interconnected systems on the farm. In addition to our 3 veteran chickens we now have 2 bunnies and are adding 7 more chickens and a couple ducks to our growing urban farm! We are so excited to welcome cooler days and see how our farm changes with the seasons.

Preschool work and play

Enrollment Season

We've had a Fall full of open houses at our 65 Ocean campus!

We have two open houses left - Dec 14 and Jan 9 for families interested in Kindergarten - 4th grade for the 2018-2019 school year. More info here.

Dandelion Preschool is fully enrolled for the 2018-2019 school year.

We are still accepting applications for mid-year enrollment in Kindergarten, 2nd and 3rd grades.

Contact Jessie Elliot with enrollment questions.

Plant a Party

Mark your calendars! Our 4th Annual Plant a Party fundraiser will be held on Saturday, March 24th 2018 at the Italian American Social Club!

Check your mailboxes for invitations later this year and be sure to invite family and friends.

We'll have a wide range of donated items on our online auction leading up to the event and dozens of handmade, one-of-a-kind items created by members of our talented community in our silent auction.

It all goes to support our robust scholarship program, organic food program, farm education, social justice education, and array of subject teachers.

PARENT CHILD CLASS

The wonderful Noe Venable has been leading beautiful outdoor parent child classes in Glen Canyon, enriching the lives of families throughout San Francisco. We are excited to move her class indoors for the winter.

Tuesdays from 9:15-10:45 1/16-2/20.

More information here; come explore and nurture your young child in community with others!

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