Taking Bear Witness on a Walkabout

After we finished our jobs and had some time to play with friends this morning...

...we headed out to take Bear Witness on a tour of some of the school. Before we left, we met to talk about the best ways for us to move through the building as a group and how to be good community members as we travelled.

Our first stop was the office, where we introduced Bear Witness to Tricia and Andrea and let them know where we were going.

We said hello to many friends in the hallways and admired the artwork on the walls.

We heard Keisha's voice and stopped to listen as she sang.

Next, we took Bear Witness to see Susan. She was the one who brought Bear Witness to us in the first place, and she was happy to find out that the bear had a new purpose.

We peaked into the auditorium to see if Seth was there and to ask him if we could use his saw to cut our giant piece of wood. We called his name and it echoed, so we called a few more times. He was not there.

After we passed the auditorium, we heard some more music - this time it was instruments.

We followed our ears into the middle school band room, where Mark Kraft was directing the band.

Mark welcomed all of us in and then had his students take turns and play each of the instruments. The Catbirds had to try and figure out what each instrument was called.

Some of them were quite loud.

We headed off into the middle school.

Next we happened upon Roseanne Liberti and here 5th grade science class.

They met Bear Witness and invited us in to witness some of the things they've been doing.

They have built some things out of spaghetti.

They showed us a mysterious ball that has appeared in their room and explained that they are generating hypotheses about how it could have gotten there. We shared that we have also created hypotheses about our rocks and what might happento them in our rock tumbler.

We met a few other teacher types and introduced them to Bear Witness.

Our last stop was the Technology Department, where we met John and Hoss. We gave Hoss high fives, and then it was time to head back.

When we got back, we played for a little bit, then cleaned up and had snack.

Then Justin arrived to help us write a song for Bear Witness. Justin is a good friend of the Catbirds, a middle school math teacher and a very talented musician.

First, we had to come up with words that rhyme with "Bear."

BW was very interested in the whole process.

Next, we made up lyrics and used some of our rhyming words.

After we had a good start, we sang it a few times. We will add another verse later on, but it sounds pretty good so far.

Then we headed out!

When we came in, it was Storytime.

We read a book about a selfish crocodile and what it took for him to change his ways.