Welcome Sunshine!

The sun feels good today, especially after all that we have gone through lately - two major snow storms. The weather reports called them winter storms, but shouldn't they be called Spring Snow Storms ? I guess that might remind us too much of the fact that indeed Spring started two weeks ago but winter is still holding on tight, at least for another week...

To take advantage of being forced to be indoors more than our students would have liked, our enrichment teachers created fun and educational activities. During Paper Engineering program with Anne Stiebing, children created their own playgrounds, models of imaginary house rooms (I could see a potential for future interior designers there!) and backyards with swimming pools and more. 

Lego League Jr. has been a great success - no surprise there! It never amazes me how the kids whom I think I know pretty well come up with new designs and how focused they are when building their creations with whatever materials they are being handed in. 

And finally, Spring has been on our minds while students with the help of Mrs. Carroll painted signs for the vegetable garden they will be working on and even already planted some seeds today with more to come once the temperatures go up and the sun shines more often. Can't wait!

In the meantime, while we still have lots of snow on the ground, our students joined Stockbridge to visit Rochester Forest Ranger Station. We cannot thank the Rangers enough for how kind and patient they were when teaching our students survival skills, the art of snowshoeing, showing them different kind of animal skins (they could touch and try to tell), meeting rescue dogs and of course Smokey the Bear. It was a perfect day to (hopefully) say good-bye to Winter.

Wishing everyone lots of sunshine,

Jolanta Labejsza, Rochester OnePlanet Site Coordinator