Over winter break I got a certain "blog guilt" seeing all the wonderful things that had happened in the fall that I had NOT blogged about.  One of my resolutions was to catch up and post articles in a steady almost daily fashion until I had gotten somewhat caught-up... here is one of these past due entries that should have been posted weeks ago... 

Every year our little ones put on a show for their parents before winter break.  The tradition is called Winterfest.  Two years agao however the aim and focus of the Winterfest was changed to make the project more pedagogical and give students more ownership.  Theme driven topics were brought in.  Last year every campus had fairy tales as their theme.  This year the theme was the cinema.  What ultimately gets represented on stage is the result of a class project in which students negotiate and choreograph their numbers.  They create the story board and imagine the stories set in motion.  Parents come and enjoy and we try to record the event as best we can, but the magic is caught the day of, and it is difficult to adequately represent in a blog type environment just how rich the student work is.

This year we got very lucky.  With our cinema theme, Pasadena 3rd grade teacher, Daniel Miralles, and his class decided to go out on a limb and the group created a silent movie.  Students never came out on stage except to take a bow to the enthusiastic crowd. The little short was a big hit and it also allows me to showcase the Winterfest in a very real way and share the magic with our families and friends of LILA.