Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you one of my favorite Thanksgiving stories.  It is called 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  The story is an adaptation of the familar poem written by Clement Moore.  In it, a group of eight children go on a field trip to a turkey farm on the day before Thanksgiving.  The children spend the day playing with the turkeys and form a bond with them.  At the end of the day they realize what Farmer MacNuggett has in store for their future. The children decide to take matters into their own hands.  As they leave the farm on their bus they are all a bit plumper and the turkeys are mysteriously missing.  At each of the children's homes the next day Thanksgiving dinner is a vegetarian experience with an extra guest.

Now, I am not advocating for people to not eat turkey on the holiday.  (It will definitely be on my menu.)  But what I love about the story is the message.  At the end, the turkeys are very thankful for the kindness that has been shown to them.  It is so important to be thankful for the opportunites and advantages we have, but we also need to be thankful kindness shown.    So often it is easy to focus on what is negative and difficult.  I would like to challenge all members of the DT community to do two things: Show kindness to someone AND recognize the kindness shown by others.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday!

Smile, Davis Thayer!

Last Thursday, students at DT had the opportunity to meet with and learn from Bren Bataclan.  Mr. Bataclan is a local artist who creates whimsical characters with the intent of making people smile.   While he sells some of his work, since 2003 he has been creating other paintings and leaving them for people in cities across the country and all over the world.  Along with each free painting is a message.  These messages used to ask people to smile at one another.  Now, with the down turn of our economy, they encourage people to believe everything will be okay. This is a link to a story CBS news shared about him:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/22/eveningnews/main5104546.shtml?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

Mr. Bataclan worked with all of the students at Davis Thayer to teach them how to draw his characters.  His message is simple: a smile is universally understood and can spread joy and laughter.   At the end of his presentation he donated a piece of art to the school.  Later in the day each of our fifth grade classes had the opportunity to spend time with him and do some more creating.  Students drew on their own and even collaborated to create illustrations in groups. Mr. Bataclan encouraged students to not worry about being "right" about how they drew but to add their own elements to the drawing.  
We were very fortunate to have Mr. Bataclan here.  Students are continuing to draw his characters and spread smiles across the school!  We hope they continue to apply his message of spreading hope and happiness using a universally recognized symbol, a smile :-).