Van Gogh in the Making

The Watermedia Painting Winterim has been working on their paintings these past few days, getting a feel for the brush and how to create intricate landscapes. Today (Thursday) they are taking a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the watercolor paintings there and get some inspiration for their own work.

Mrs. Sharon Wooding, wife of the esteemed Mr. Jerry Wooding, retired LA Science Teacher, is the instructor for this Winterim.  We look forward to seeing their finished artwork. We expect nothing less than the inspiring and amazing work of Van Gogh (no pressure though!)

Sochi's Got Nothing On These Guys

The Special Olympics Winterim has been hard at work these past few days preparing for the Massachusetts Winter Special Olympics this weekend. These students have been packaging things like t-shirts, pins, and medals at the Yawkey Sports Complex in Marlboro, MA. These packages will be sent to all the venues that are to host the Special Olympics this weekend. The Winter Special Olympics will have sports ranging from basketball to skiing and will take place throughout New England. Our students will also be running a basketball skills clinic on Saturday for the athletes, similar to the one that was run at Lawrence Academy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We wish the best of luck to all the athletes and hope that our students are able to help them bring home the gold!

                        

A Dancing Lawyer and his English-Teaching Friend Lead LA Students into Court

The LA Winterim Social Media Team ran into the System group on the Red Line today while the System group was heading to see the Boston Municipal Court. This unplanned meeting gave The System Winterim time to discuss what they had done over the past few days.

The System has spent its first few days of Winterim traveling to various courts in Massachusetts in order to observe the Judicial System in the United States. So far the group has traveled to a state court, a federal court and today they will be experiencing an arraignment court.  This is one of the busiest courts in the system since everyone who is arrested must go through this type of court.

For the second half on Winterim, the System will travel to Washington D.C. to further see inside the workings of the Federal Government. After they arrive in Washington D.C on Monday, the students will spend the next two days meeting with legislators, seeing Congress, seeing the Supreme Court, visiting the FBI, and possibly meeting with a few cabinet members.

From Building a Fruit and Smoothie Stand to Teaching English

After two long days of hard work, spent both building and teaching, the Dominican Service group continues to be exited to help the Mariposa Foundation. After the long day of work yesterday (Wednesday), Ms. MacMeekin sent another update on the group's progress:

Hola!!

Day two was supposed to end at 4, but the group decided we needed to finish the cinder block portion of the building so we pushed for another hour and got it done!  Today we are painting wood for the upper walls, creating a floor, playing softball, and teaching some English classes (just to name a few of our jobs).  Everyone is still in great spirits and working hard to accomplish as much as we can.  The girls of Mariposa are getting used to our group and want to include us in all they do which is fantastic! As I sit here writing this update, two girls are playing with my hair and singing the song they learned with Mr. Bashir in English class. 

Things are going very well and the kids are working hard, learning a lot, and having a great time. 

Hope all is well in the US!

A Different Kind of Game

Beyond Monopoly Winterim is making board games. These are not your ordinatry board games as the name of the Winterim suggests. The games require strategy and problem solving. The group has played several games like The Settlers of Catan, Game of Thrones, Memoir '44, Smallworld, Formula D, Hive and many others.  They play the games to learn more about what goes into creating a complex strategy game that is also entertaining to play.

Their game creations or prototypes are in progress as seen below. Much of which might be changed by next week after they meet with gaming experts this week.  Creative names like Space Race and Occupy all Streets might some day be seen on the toy shelves of Toys R Us.

Going Under

Underwater Discovery finally gets "under water" by doing some snorkeling on Tuesday, March 5th. We learned about their day though a Facebook email sent by Craig and Erik:

Post by Lawrence Academy Winterim.