Whole School Celebration!
By Meadow Schneider, 8th grade
By October 28th, the fish tank next to the entrance had been filled up with pompom balls, earning a whole school celebration. Since it was the end of the week, the celebration would happen the next Monday, on the 31st.
To earn a whole school celebration, the fish tank in the display case has to be filled to the top with pompom balls. A pompom ball gets added each time a class earns one-hundred tickets from the teachers. Normally a few kids come down to the front office to tell Ms. Victoria that their class has earned one-hundred tickets, then she'll get out a tub of pompom balls for the kids to pick from and put into the fish tank. Students earn tickets by being safe, respectful, and responsible.
The celebration started at 8:15 am with homeroom teachers leading students to their first activity. In Mrs. Frechette's room, students played challenging games like keeping a balloon from hitting the ground using anything but their hands, and dumping candy corn onto a plate to see who can eat the most using chopsticks. Mr. Hill and Mrs. Thompson played a Garfield Halloween movie in their room and gave freshly popped popcorn to students; In Ms. Russel room, her and Ms. Langmaid decorated it to look extra spooky and had students walk through. Ms. Baker hosted a dance party in her room, and in the gym, Mr. Owczarski set up different games to play like Ghosts In The Graveyard and Zombie Tag.
To end the celebration, everyone went outside and participated in a pumpkin rolling race across the field. For each grade(s), two pumpkins were set on opposite sides of the field. Students rolled the pumpkins across the field and back as fast as they could without carrying/lifting the pumpkin. The seventh and eighth graders ended up coming in first place, then the fifth and sixth grade in a close second, then the two groups went up against a few of the teachers with the seventh and eighth graders coming in first again.
Lyndon Institute Dance Students Visit Walden School Students
By Samuel Bittner, 8th grade
On November 4th, Lyndon Institute dance students came to Walden School to perform for the students, teach them about choreography and the fusion of music and dance, and appreciate cultural differences.
The first choreography consisted of a large variety of moves with varying speeds. There were many transitions and positional changes. What keeps choreography interesting is the changes in movement and position.
(Oh Modern Swan) The second choreography is based on ballet fused with modern dance, and personal movement preference. It is based on a doomed relationship between a hunter and a swan who transformed into a beautiful woman. “It is a very technically difficult form of dance… which takes years to perfect.” Some ballerinas thought that they didn’t fit the mold of ballet dance, and they rebelled to form a new type of dance, modern dance. It was something every class level could do. “There were no boundaries.”
Lost was a free dance choreography that is meant to represent the dancer's feeling of being lost. After the performance, students were asked to find scenes in which the dancers looked lost. The younger students found great scenes when the dancers were showing being alone and lost. One example of a scene is when one of the dancers would go away into a corner, representing being lost, and the other dancers would pull them away and “out” of the feeling.
(Awaken) In this piece, only three dancers were dancing. Two of the dancers started on the ground, but were awakened by another dancer's movement, and then followed the original dancer like they were their master.
Grades 3-8 participated in a dance workshop, where the dancers from Lyndon became their teachers and performed a dance together with their group. Students were allowed to create their very own eighth pattern choreography that would be conjoined to the end of the dance.