What exactly is “Fair” at HIS and why do we do it the way we do?
Fair has been a part of the school since its inception. It has changed somewhat over time but the essentials have remained the same. It performs several functions within our school and helps support some of our fundamental understandings about how people learn best.
Throughout their time at Halifax Independent students are encouraged to engage with the real world as they study and learn. Guest speakers and field trips are an integral aspect of academic life here. On these occasions students see that whatever they are studying in Theme, or Social Studies, Science or French in the Middle School, can be studied or be the basis of employment in the rest of the world. There is little divide between what we do here, and what is done in the world outside school.
People learn in a variety of ways. We each have a style which suits us best, and usually a back-up method which works in a pinch. As students at Halifax Independent study, they are offered a variety of approaches to help them understand and manipulate the subject matter and each approach is manifest during Fair. Students may make models, draw diagrams, write descriptions and stories, conduct experiments, write and present songs and/or plays. Both the process and the product of these activities help to entrench the concepts and skills that they are learning and make their presentations more engaging.
As they work and develop their interests and research skills, students learn to use a variety of methods for gathering information: books, the internet, interviews, documentaries and so on. They work alone and in groups to help develop their understanding of the material they have gathered and finally they learn to present their findings in a variety of formats; speeches, Power Point presentations, songs, plays, written material, graphics and so on. This last step, the Fair, allows them to build their confidence as public speakers as well as to hone their understanding of what makes an engaging presentation.
The Fair encourages a genuine interest in learning and is a motivational force like no other. The process helps foster a sense of pride and accomplishment in each student as well as a strong sense of community as the class gathers together, working at their best, to share their knowledge. They move together toward a common goal, in cooperation with their classmates. The students develop a sense of ownership of the process as well as the outcomes as they work toward Fair. They are involved in the timelines and checklists that are developed to help bring order to the process. This bears fruit in their individual work as they develop and use organizational skills.
Fair allows parents to see firsthand how their child is doing and affords them a very special window into their child’s world. It is an opportunity to watch them interact with their peers and their teacher, to present what they know and to truly give of their best. It is a time to watch them shine!
This is a topic that is very timely for me (Thanksgivingmom) right now, but is something that all of us in open adoption deal with at least once during the year: birthdays.
I know that birthdays can be an extremely emotional time, for everyone connected to adoption, not just those of us in open adoptions. So what is it that we do, as part of our open adoptions, during the “birthday season”?
Our experiences on this are so diverse, that I don’t want to limit your responses to one specific question. BUT, since some of us (like me!) sometimes like the specific questions, here are a few that have been rattling around in my brain as my daughter’s third birthday approaches:
• What do you/your family do to integrate open adoption and birthday celebrations?
• What do you wish you would see in future birthday celebrations re: involvement with your child’s adoptive parents/birth parents?
• Do you have an open adoption agreement that requires contact on/around birthdays?
• How does that agreement affect you? Do you wish it were different? Do you wish that you did have an agreement that requires such contact?
• If you do not have contact around birthdays, do you do something private to honor birthdays?
• If you’re an adoptee, how were birthdays celebrated in your family with regards to open adoption?
• How do you wish they would have been celebrated?
• And anything else you can think of!
I now officially work from home, full time! Hilary and I were leaning towards 3 days at home and 2 at the office, but work decided that if I was going to do it, I should make it permanent and take all my toys with me. So I packed up my huge 2 foot screen on Friday and came home.
This is what I was able to pick up from his bedroom floor. The rest has been swept away as it was rather widespread. He only tried 2 little areas and he is not bald (luckily!!). For the most part it's not even noticable (thus no picture of him).
You'll have to come back later to find out!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| No commute | No daily exercise from walking |
| Can walk Liam to school every day | |
| Don't have to talk to people at the office | No one to talk to |
| Can wear track pants | |
| Don't have to make a lunch ahead of time | Easy access to food |
| Can putter around the house will reports run | Need to stay motivated and actually do "work" |
| System is slower from home | |
| Increased cost for heating the house during the day | |
| Can listen to loud music while I work |
This package is focused on 2-digit Addition and Subtraction without exchanges and place value.WTF does that mean?
When we are working with manipulatives and dealing with numbers that have exchanges, we have to trade up our ones to get an additional ten. Clear as mud? Try using pencils as the tens and erasers as the ones and walk yourself through the explanation again. Or you could always ask your child to help you figure it out.Great.... my kid is supposed to know what this means, but I can't figure it out.
The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don't need to be part of the Open Adoption Bloggers list to participate, or even be in a traditional open adoption. If you're thinking about openness in adoption, you have a place at the table.Publish your response during the next two weeks--linking back here so we can all find one other--and leave a link to your post in the comments. If you don't blog, you can always leave your thoughts directly in the comments.
This round we're going to consider one critique of fully open adoptions. Have you ever heard--or perhaps even made--statements like these?"We have medical histories and can share the information we have about their birth parents with our children now. If they feel a need to initiate contact with their birth families when they are adults, we will fully support them.""The decision to have a relationship with her bio family should be hers when she is ready. Creating a relationship between them before she wants it might cause issues in the future.""Children deserve to have just one family during childhood and not to deal with anything adoption-related until they are more mature. A fully open adoption robs a child of a normal childhood."These statements are from people participating in closed and semi-open adoptions. I paraphrased them slightly, but left the meanings intact.
The writers share a certain point-of-view: that direct contact during early childhood between birth families and children placed for adoption may not be the best idea. Adopted persons should be free to initiate relationships with their first families--or not--on their own timetable. The parents (first and adoptive) in an adoption shouldn't make such an important and personal decision for them.
What is your response? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Being an independent school, they value hands on learning and recognize that kids all learn differently. Some are hands on and need manipulatives, like Cusienaire Rods, and some are visual learners that like to draw as the learn, and some learn best while the bounce on a trampoline (like Liam!)
