For the past month Rainbow Mountain students have been learning alongside Asheville artist preparing for Imagine! An Asheville Arts Extravaganza. Fine artist, performance artist, and musicians have been all over campus. Jon Cooley is a little of all three and he is working with fourteen fourth through sixth-graders. First he taught them how to make a dulcimer and now they are learning how to play it.
Yesterday the Rainbow Mountain Dulcimer Players put on a performance at Barnes & Noble in the Asheville Mall. They started with the first song they learned on the dulcimers, Mary Had a Little Lamb. They also entertained us with This Land is Our Land, and Ode to Joy as well as Groundhog and other songs.
It was a great show and we look forward to seeing them on stage May 20th at Imagine!
The sun was out all week, a rarity for an Asheville spring, and Kingsley Pugh took full advantage of it. He invited any interested Rainbow students to paint, outside, on paper parasols. And although the kids thought it all great fun it was more than that. Kingsley will be selling the colorful parasols at this weekend’s earthday festival. Proceeds from the sale will fund four solar panels on Rainbow Mountain’s “new” building. Kingsley’s company Harvest The Sun is donating the labor.
Author Maureen Healy came to Rainbow last week for a discussion with parents about how to foster a child’s happiness. Maureen has recently released her new book, “365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids” which she shared with us. It was a real pleasure to be there and learn from Maureen and the other parents. We hope Maureen will come back and share more of her wisdom.
From Maureen’s web site:
Maureen’s groundbreaking book, 365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids, is making quite a splash in the world of conscious parenting. Her unique background blends Eastern and Western thinking so that parents, grandparents, childcare specialists and any adult can learn simply yet powerful tools of fostering a child’s joy.
With 20 years of experience, Maureen has traveled the world fostering children’s positive emotional health. She has even lived at the Base of the Himalayas and been named a “Creative Activist” by Creative Visions Foundation. Maureen also contributes actively to the field with a popular Psychology Today blog and more.
Additional information: http://www.growinghappykids.com/
Three schools come together with three service-learning projects and one idea: to learn to change the world.
By doing a good turn, known as “tikkun olam “ in Judaism, change in our corner of the world can lead to change around the world. Hands of Hope consists of a several month service-learning project in partnership between a school and local non-profit and concluding with a community-wide benefit concert.
The Hands of Hope family concert will feature Billy Jonas at The Orange Peel on Sunday, March 21st 2010. Tickets for the concert are available in our office, at our partner schools; Odyssey Community School and Maccabi Academy or at the door.
Each school will share their community work at the event so come early to visit tables and see what they’ve accomplished. Local businesses sponsoring Hands of Hope will be present as well.
We hope you will join us in this community-wide event to be a part of changing the world!
Author Maureen Healy came to Rainbow last week for a discussion with parents about how to foster a child’s happiness. Maureen has recently released her new book, “365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids ” which she shared with us. It was a real pleasure to be there and learn from Maureen and the other parents. We hope Maureen will come back and share more of her wisdom. 
