It's Showtime...PNA Style!
11/29/2017
Every year Pacific Northern Academy presents a number of shows...a winter concert, 2 spring musicals, a Martin Luther King Assembly, Graduation...WHEW!!! Thinking about it at the beginning of every year just makes my head spin. My goal is to find things that will not only interest and engage each student, but make them look back when the show is over and say "I DID THAT!" I am amazed how these students rise to the occasion each and every year, put themselves in front of an audience and perform. I love to joke with them the week after a big show and say "Ok, did we lose anyone? We're all still here! WE SURVIVED!" And somehow idea creeps into each students head and VOILA! Self-confidence blooms! I thought it would be fun to hear from some of the students what their experiences have been like doing the shows at PNA. Some of these students have been doing the shows for quite sometime and for others this was their first experience!
One of the most exciting things for me is when a student shares their talents with the Anchorage community. Right now, THREE PNA students are performing with local theatrical productions! I couldn't be more proud!
Fine Art and More at PNA!
11/27/2017
It was a busy time before, during, and now after Thanksgiving Break! The Art Classroom is filled with canvasses from all in the school--Beginners through Eighth Grades. Included in the lessons of design/composition, are the nuts-and-bolts of wiring the canvas itself, and thoughts on effective display. What works and what do we want to refine? What do you see, and how do you feel about it? These are areas artists deal with daily. At PNA, we want to be ready for our future. Being a working artist will add one more tool to being a resourceful person in our ever-changing world. The First Grade painted an animal for the subject matter of their first canvas. Ms. Leah shows her painting in progress, along with the EK Class.
The Second Grade selected various construction machinery for the subject matter of their first canvas. We have been watching the construction from outside our windows.
---------------------------------------- Where to Find Ms. Jaeger's Artwork This Month: Brenda Jaeger's Artwork will be part of this week's First Friday at the blue.hollomon gallery, Anchorage, Alaska; she will continue to exhibit at Randy Parsons Galleries, Ventura, California; and her work will continue in the group Holiday Show at the Dayton Visual Arts Center through December. She just brought out a second series of guitar-themed notecards, Guitars II. This is in addition to Alaska Landscapes, and Guitar I notecards. Spooky Spanish!
11/6/2017
Pacific Northern Academy 7th and 8th graders have Spanish class four times weekly - the most of any students in the school. This more frequent contact allows for students to get regular repetitions of comprehensible input that put them on the path to fluency.
Language fluency comes in four areas:
A student of a language must have heavy doses of the first two, or the receptive, before they can move into the second two, or the productive. At this point in the year, PNA Spanish students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades have heard multiple classroom stories, read varying versions of those and other stories, and done a fair bit of speaking, both extemporaneous and scripted. This leads students to their first big productive project on paper - the "Cuento de Terror" - Spooky Stories! Halloween time is a natural motivator for students to engage with classroom material that is creepy and scary. After creating a classroom story that was scary, as well as Spanish discussions on what things we were afraid of or not, students got an opportunity to exercise their creative powers of terror in a written story. This story was to utilize a limited set of classroom vocabulary to maximize repetitions on high-frequency terms used in class. The story would then be presented orally with a visual element - students would use pictures as well as physical movement while they told their stories to the class in order to promote understanding. As usual, the students did not fail to impress. Please follow the link below to view the presentation of one story which was above-and-beyond the expectations. Above-and-beyond is almost the commonplace at Pacific Northern Academy. http://bit.ly/2zH05mr |
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February 2021
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