Archive for the ‘Campus’ Category
Garden Party
Save the date! We’re breaking ground for Villa’s new garden.
Villa Academy Garden Work Party
April 21, 2012
2:00 to 4:00 pm
The creation of a Garden Learning Center (near the garage on the east side of campus) will provide classroom teachers with an authentic outdoor laboratory for a variety of sustainable, hands-on learning projects. From developing seedlings to measuring perimeter and area to observing insect life, the variety of learning opportunities that a garden will provide for students is limitless. In addition to educational value generated by the project, produce from the garden will be harvested directly for use in the Villa kitchen. This will contribute fresh, organic food and install a sense of pride and appreciation for the fruits of hard work and God’s gifts of creation.
At the work party this Saturday, April 21st, we will be building six 3′x10′ raised beds. The garden layout was designed by students. The raised beds will form the letter V for Villa! We will also be tilling nearby soil for additional planting space.
Families and younger siblings are welcome. Please bring gloves. Tools will be provided. We will also provide snacks and water.
Meet up by the garage below the parking lot.
This is a great way for middle school students to earn 2 community service hours toward third trimester.
Spring is here and it’s time to plant! Please come help us get ready and enjoy some time outside with other members of the Villa community!
Jeannie Nichols and Roger Crafts
Teacher Coordinators
Fort Building in the Orchard
The 25 acres of green space at Villa Academy have many uses, perhaps the most visually interesting are the student-built forts in the orchard. Designed and built by the hands of our young future architects, negotiators, and project managers, the rustic forts, although only yards away from the adult manufactured play equipment, take students to a world all their own.
Branches, sticks and logs are transformed into a wonderland of student-run dwellings. Take a walk through the orchard forts during lower school recess you will see students wheeling-and-dealing, trading building materials and negotiating the terms of their property rights.
Nature faces tough competition (television, cell phones, computers, busy family schedules) for the attention of young learners, but that makes a sunny winter recess spent building forts at Villa Academy all the more special!
Fund-a-Need 2012: Reinvigoration of the Extended Day Program Classroom Space $75,000 Goal
Environment impacts learning – this is no surprise. The sensory impressions students absorb from their surroundings influence emotional life and consequently their ability to learn.
At Villa Academy we are fortunate to have spacious well lit classrooms, many with awe-inspiring views of Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains. Unfortunately, two of our busiest spaces, classroom 125 and classroom 133, home to our bustling Extended Day Program, show years of wear from countless cheerful children hard at play.
You might be surprised to know that 74% of Villa Academy families utilize EDP. The continued success of the program is a result of our EDP Director Shea Salyer’s committed effort to offer programs that appeal to a wide range of student interests. The following are all part of EDP: Green Team, the musical (“Beauty and the Beast” this year), piano lessons, Writing Club, Mandarin lessons, band and Villa Voices, Sewing, and the Villa Times newspaper.
With your support of this year’s Fund-A-Need, we can inject energy and inspiration back into the EDP space by redesigning the classrooms to better foster exploration, social engagement, and a desire to learn and gain confidence in their own potential.
Inspired by the beauty of our campus grounds and the views from many of our other classrooms, the new design will aim to “bring nature inside” by incorporating a living wall, fish tanks, and natural murals. The refresh will also include:
Fresh coats of paint- Durable laminate flooring
- New furniture
- Mobile room dividers to improve the functionality of the space
- Improved shelving countertops and cupboards
- New cubby storage system
- Gaming area (with new foosball, air hockey, and arcade style basketball tables)
- A custom built loft and stage area
- Craft sink station
- Updated reading and library sanctuary
These improvements will not only enhance the experience of the hundreds of children who participate in EDP, but will help us showcase our afterschool programs to potential families and bolster the program through higher attendance.
As you know, learning and development don’t stop at 3:00PM. Many of our students’ most memorable and influential experiences take place after class, within the walls of our EDP classrooms. Please help us recapture this space as a place of imagination and possibility by making a donation to the 2012 Fund-A-Need, online or at the Villa Auction on March 3, 2012.
2nd grade gives Mr. Milroy virtual tour
Mrs. O’Neil’s 2nd grade computer class gave Mr. Milroy a virtual tour of campus through the presentation of a collaboratively produced picture book, featuring digitally enhanced photographs of Villa’s historically rich architecture. Students photographed an assortment of images around campus before carefully narrowing their selection to the final collection of photos. Each student used the Pixie program to enhance the appearance of a photo, by modifying the color or applying a special effect. Every page included a letter to Mr. Milroy, composed by the students in Kidpsiration, explaining its historical or religious significances.
Watch: Students present Mr. Milroy with the finished project
Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood Documentary Screening
November 29 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the Parlor
It’s movie night and this one is free. This film throws light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that sells kids and their parents everything from junk food to the family car. Drawing on insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world.
This movie screening is free, open to the public and for parents with children of all ages.
Childcare will not be provided.
The Mysterious White Dome
Have you seen it?
Have you noticed the mysterious white dome that was recently erected below the parking lots?
What is it?
Where did it come from?
We are excited to announce the Garden Learning Center, a project funded by a Villa Parent Association Grant and recently assembled by the Villa Green Team. The green house will be used to sprout seeds for the adjacent garden beds and as an educational tool for multiple grade levels.
(We ask the curious to look but not touch the structure.)
Third and Sixth grade students in particular will use the new structure in their study of nutrition, digestion and sustainability. On Monday November 14th, both grade levels will venture to Old Chaser Farm on Vashon Island, an organic farm purchased by the Roberts Family as part of
Green Team Assembling the Garden Learning Center - a community service project funded by a Villa Parent Association grant
a sustainable farming project with a local Seattle restaurant.
Students will have the opportunity to tour the farm, meet farm manager, Pierre Monnat and restaurant owner, Matthew Dillon to discuss sustainability goals and learn hands-on farming practices that can be adopted at Villa Academy.
The field trip will encourage thought and planning for our joint garden community service project this winter and spring. This project is intended not only to teach nutrition and sustainability, but also to highlight the importance of giving back to our local and global community.
Catholic Social Teaching includes our responsibility to care for the world’s resources as stewards and trustees, rather than mere consumers and users. Meeting human needs today and in the future demands owners, managers, and regulators of all resources, especially those required for the production of food have an increased sense of stewardship and conservation.
