We've moved

Harrison set up a new website for us using WordPress, so from now on we'll be reporting what's going on and what's being planned from that site. All you need to do is go to www.kinoschool.org and scroll down to see the links to recent news and coming events.

Baby Goat!

We have a brand new baby goat in the Animal Center! In this picture, he's not much older than one day and he's already clambering and gamboling.

Green house raising

The construction on the greenhouse has been slow and steady. This week top soil was delivered and then it was time to install the shade cloth. As soon as it went on, the greenhouse was noticeably cooler.

Senior Projects

Our ten high school graduates (ten!) all had interesting and ambitious projects to share at last Thursday's Senior Project Sharing Night, but Ethan's was one of the most photogenic. Here he explains how his wind generator will work once it is on our roof. For descriptions of the other projects, you can read each senior's profile in the four Kino Connections for May.

Where are the Pacific Northwest trippers?

Here:

The Survival Class Survives

The Survival Class has survived a five day / four night camping trip on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. They survived a sand stom in the dunes; a heavy, wet snow fall (they had to scramble to get their gear under cover, and then eat their spaghetti in the snow); swimming in hot springs in a cold wind; and a snowy windy mountain top.

They saw earthquake faults, glacial canyons, and terminal moraines. Johnny says, "No one complained and everyone was great about doing their camp chores. The kids were responsible for making the campfires every morning and evening. They did it without any adult help."

Flights of Fancy

We've been messing around with aeronautics on a school-wide basis the past couple of weeks. students made an estimated 487 paper airplanes out of scratch paper, built kites, and experimented with air pressure to launch fairies and pigs.

Last Friday was a perfect day to celebrate with a kite festival.

But because of the wind we decided it was prudent to launch the hot air balloon in the library.

Sad Goat News

In Memory of Lluvia
by Cassandra and Alex H

She was a good goat and we loved her a lot. She will be missed. It will be hard for Nube, too. He will miss his sister.


Some thoughts about Lluvia collected by Alex H. and Cassandra
“Every little child loved her.” Rebekah
“I was getting to be friends with her.” Chloe
“She was a cute white goat, whose eyes were very pretty. I liked her very much, even her goaty slobber.” Jonna
“She was such a sweet goat. When I let her out of her pen she used to run around with me. She would stop running when I stopped running. She liked scratches and she loved mesquite pods. She smelled like .....goat.” Heather W.
“I never thought that I would bond with a goat. I always enjoyed seeing her run up to the fence when she knew she would get a handful of sweet feed. It is sad to lose her. We will miss her.” Jennifer
“Lluvia was a good goat.” Christy
“I liked that she always seemed happy.” Ellie

Boy Oh Boy

Thanks to Patrick Nilz and his great ground crew, Chris and a group of students got to go up in a hot air balloon this morning. They cruised for a while over the desert and fields outside of Tucson and were given a celebratory breakfast when they landed, and still got to school on time.

Ethan's senior project

Ethan Nichols is working on his senior project, a
wind turbine that will generate usable amounts of electricity.
The windmill will become a permanent part of Kino
where we can actually charge 12-volt batteries.

Rodeo, Kino Style

The evening before Rodeo vacation, the primary students always stay late for a cookout, stories around the campfire, and, when the evening draws in, a little howling at the moon.

Some cattle roping:




Square dancing:



Some music:



And listening to stories:

Horatio Hornblower's Hotspur

Mark brought in his utterly cool Lego replica of the Hotspur to show the Pirates class a couple of weeks ago. The Hotspur is the 20 gun sloop captained by Horatio Hornblower in some of his earlier adventures, written by C.S. Forester. Mark designed the model himself, using the ship from the television version of the Hornblower stories for his references. He said he started the project at the end of Christmas vacation and finished it on February 12.

You can see lots of details -- like into the gun deck, (because the main deck lifts off!) and close ups of the characters at brickshelf.com.

Sail Biking!

Kids come up with neat things when they mess around in the metal shop. Ed says these guys (plus a friend who is not in the picture) put this contraption together from spares wheels, a front fork and an old milk crate.

What's Pajama Day without a hike in the desert?

More than half of us wore our pajamas on Pajama Day but I didn't get a picture of anyone reading. (It's billed as a day to snuggle down with a good book.) Heather says in this picture they were just walking back from the new tree house they built themselves. She had been reading The Lorax with a bunch of kids in pajamas.

Look what Martha's doing with the boys' bathroom!

Martha Martin has been creating amazing mosaics in the boys' and girls' bathroom. Here's how the boys' bathroom looks right now:


Here's a close up so you can see some of the details:


In case you can't tell from the photos, these are all tiny cut out, hand glazed, tiles. Here's a more detailed photo:



Take a look at the August 2, 2008, post to see the girls' bathroom when it was a work in progress. Fantastic!

Teddy Bear Picnic

The primary students had a teddy bear picnic at Children Memorial Park last week. It was a gorgeous day for reading bear books and playing frisbee. Mary Jane, Libby, Mary Vega, Alex's mom, and all the bears went too. Anna and Mary Lou met them for lunch.

Chris' homeroom had cleaned the park the day before, so it was pristine when they got there, but Mary Jane said they were careful that it was clean when they left, too.

Adventures In Physics

Anna persuaded five of the physics students (Griffin, Andrew, Ethan, Mark W, and Jamie) to meet her at school at 6 am so they could see the Go Fast jet pack pilot in flight. Luckily, she brought bagels and cream cheese too, because the promised 6:45 flight didn't happen until 8:45. Anna says the flight lasted about five seconds and was the loudest thing any of them had ever heard. Griffin wrote that they learned about "the principles of pressure, sound, and lift; the principles of sponsorship and advertising . . . and the principle of heat loss, as it was very cold."

Alumni News: Eleanor Davis

Eleanor's book Stinky was just named a Geisel Honor Book by the American Library Association at its annual convention last week.

The winner of the Newbery Award always gets the most attention, but the ALA makes awards in other categories, like the Caldecott for illustrated books and the Geisel, named for Dr. Seuss, which recognizes the most distinguished books for beginning readers. In addition to the winner, there were four honor books.

Eleanor started drawing comics early on at Kino. As a junior high student doing writing with Jack, she wrote a series called The Caped Sucker, inspired by the fact that a half-unwrapped tootsie roll pop looks like it is wearing a cape -- and is easy to draw, too. For her senior project (she graduated in 2001 after 11 years at Kino), she produced a comic book every month.

Stinky is Eleanor's first commercially published book. She was approached about writing and drawing it when she was still in college at Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was majoring in sequential art and illustration. It is one of a series of books in comic book format published by Toon Books for young readers .

There's an interview with Eleanor here.

Inauguration Day

by Josh B.



We had a couple of t.v.s set up so anyone who wanted to could watch the inauguration. The crowd that collected included all ages of kids, from primary through high school, teachers, and parents who came to enjoy the occasion with their kids and with us.

Barack Obama, before bed, he looks up at the
moon. He wakes in the middle of the night and he
checks on it every time. Cause something might be
wrong: It might fall in pieces at night or somebody
might shoot it.
Ryan