Blue Ridge School celebrates three holidays on Friday

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Crafting dancing dragons, building decorative valentine boxes and writing affectionate poetry: Blue Ridge School was in a state of celebration Friday due to the confluence of three days of observance, the Chinese New Year, Georgia Day and Valentine’s Day.

“When students have something to look forward to, they want to be here, and a lot of times they don’t even realize how deep we’re going with their learning because they’re so enamored of the activities,” said Christine Long, the school’s principal. “We address the state standards, but in a fun way that makes learning come alive.”

Georgia Day, which commemorates the founder of the colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe, arriving in Savannah with settlers on Feb. 12, 1733, was a focus in social studies, while Elizabeth Smith’s third-graders capped a two-day project on the Chinese New Year, and every student had the opportunity to do at least one Valentine’s Day activity.

In the kindergarten classes of teachers Nancy Goble and Lindsey Parris, students hand-crafted valentine boxes, and they wrote valentines using holiday-themed vocabulary they discussed in class.

“They came up with the (concepts) and designs” for the boxes, as well as vocabulary words to use, Parris said. “They did a really great job with them.”

“You’ve made my heart smile,” Long told students as they showed off their creations to her and shared their Valentine’s Day treats. “It’s important to show love and kindness to others.”

Taylor Cosby, a fourth-grade teacher, found a distinctive way to incorporate Valentine’s Day into her math and science lesson.

“The blue whale has the largest heart of any animal, about 400 pounds, and it beats only six times a minute” on average, she discussed with her students. Though six beats a minute can seem modest, especially compared with a human’s normal resting heart rate of 60-100 beats per minute, it’s estimated a blue whale can pump nearly 60 gallons of blood around its body with each of those beats.

Madison Clark’s second-graders wrote haiku poems with a Valentine’s Day theme.

“We try to do poetry every Friday focused on what we’ve been talking about during that week,” Clark said. “They also illustrate them, and put them in their poetry books.”

Smith’s class researched the Chinese New Year on Thursday, then constructed crafts like lanterns and dragons on Friday, said Brayan Hernandez, one of her students. “I learned that red is good luck,” among other facts.

The color is associated with energy, happiness and good fortune, said fellow student Diego Moreno. The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, has a revolving annual date, but was Feb. 12 this year.

The festival can last up to 16 days, and is highlighted by “a giant feast at a long table (featuring) dumplings, rice noodles” and other interesting foods, said Aileen Palma, another student. That sounded attractive to Palma, as “I’ve had dumplings, and they’re good.”

Another element of the Chinese New Year is giving red envelopes containing money, under the belief it will set a prosperous tone for the rest of the calendar, Palma said. If she were gifted a red envelope of money, “I would share it with my family.”

Her favorite art project of the unit was the dragon, because “you get to color it, and I love coloring,” she said. Also, “the dragon can ‘dance,'” which she demonstrated while humming a tune.

In Carrie Kitchens’ fifth-grade class, students created valentines using the inventions of famous inventors, like Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver and the Wright Brothers, as themes, then presented them to classmates.

Giovani Baltazar opted for Edison, and he appreciated that he could choose his inventor for the assignment, he said. He selected Edison because “he invented the light bulb, and your heart lights up when you get happy,” like when receiving a valentine.

“There’s so much love in this school,” Long said. “It just oozes out of our hearts.”