KBOO visit

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 4/16 – 4/20

​We visited KBOO community radio station on our Adventure Monday this week! KBOO staff gave us a little presentation and a tour around the space that is full of activists’ history and soul.

​Guevara, who really knows her way around the station because her mom works there also assisted in the tour! We got to practice being DJs in their studios too!

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Reminiscing on our Grand ReOpening event last Saturday, we would like to give a big shout out to everyone in our community.

​The turnout was so wonderful! Students projects & performances, and overflowing support from families really made our weekend! The pictures from the photobooth are now available online (use code VFS2018)! Please check them out!

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In Room A Cooking class, we made Mango and Sweet Sticky Rice to celebrate Thai New Year too!

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At an All-School Meeting, we had a conversation around tree climbing. Next week, we are going to have a conversation about how to take better care of the trees and our outside space and climb safely. For right now, we have asked students to pause climbing our beautiful tree. In the meantime, take a look at these fun tree climbers’ photos!

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Have a beautiful weekend!

VFS Staff

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VFS Grand Re-Opening!

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 4/9 – 4/12

On Monday, we stayed here for an incredible comics workshop taught by Ellery’s mom, Jennifer Shiman! This comics workshop was focused on using sound effects. BAM! Thanks Jennifer!

We’ve been steadily getting ready for our Grand Reopening. On Thursday, we had our dress rehearsal and dedicated the day to setting up our projects.

The sun has been shining, and our tree is blooming! We’ve been doing lots of climbing our tree and playing in the pink petals. We also got some new tree rounds to play with! Chorus Club even took advantage of the nice weather to rehearse outside this week.

We’ve started our new round of offerings for this term. Room A Cooking made homemade hot chocolate with marshmallows! The first Spanish class started by learning about Spanish pronouns. Lots of people have been working hard on math during our new I ❤ Math hour at the end of each day. The Zoology class learned about what qualifies something to be alive and what makes something an animal.

In other exciting news, we are working as a community to improve project time. We’ve been discussing how we use our space during project time, and how we can create supportive cohort groups to elevate everyone’s project time experience! Please take some time at home to think about and discuss what your project time expectations and goals are. We have set the intention that everyone should participate in project time to the best of their ability, and most of the space is reserved for this activity until 11:30. For students who are not yet ready to commit to the full 2 hours of project time, the playroom and sometimes the rumpus room and outside are open for playing!

Have a great weekend and we hope to see you all Saturday, at our Grand Re-Opening, from 2-6!

VFS Staff

VFS Olympics Week

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 4/2 – 4/6

Welcome back to VFS! For our first week of the spring term, we continued signing up for classes and have put together a schedule of offerings to try out starting next week! The rest of our time has mainly been spent celebrating The Village Free School Olympics! We had a BLAST!

​We have three teams, decorating themselves and the school, competing, and generally showing spirit and good sportitude!

Be sure to congratulate your Angolan Pangolins, Blue-Tongued Skinks, and Ugandan Cranes at home for all of their hard work and creativity this week!

​As a part of our VFS Olympics, we had an opening ceremony, free school jeopardy, an egg drop, outer space crafts, field day, relays, spa day, VFS dance & arbitrary variety show, and more throughout the entire week!

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We also had an amazing easter egg hunt organized and orchestrated by a group of teens and led by Cole!

If you haven’t already, take a look at all of our awesome offerings available this term by the VFS Kindness tree, and there is still some time left to sign up!

​We also celebrated Heywood’s 8th, Vincent’s 9th and Gardner’s 11th birthdays this week as well. Lice checks was a successful operation, thanks to Alana, our lice ninja!

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Have a wonderful weekend!

VFS Staff

Spring Cleaning

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 3/12 – 3/16

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On Monday, we stayed back at school and warmly welcomed Kathy back to the space! We showed how much we missed her by making crafts, presents, and sticking notes to our kindness tree all week! Kathy also gave a presentation about her sabbatical experience volunteering at the Leatherback Center in Costa Rica.

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This week we were able to spend two afternoons at the Buckman Park! The weather was gorgeous. Miles and Oli hosted a drawing contest. We also celebrated two birthdays! Nathan D. turned 13 and Oliver M. turned 12!

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We continued getting ready for our upcoming Project Fair and The Grand Re-opening with rehearsals, personal projects, and sprucing up the space with decorations and lots of Spring Cleaning on Community Clean-Up Day!

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Standing Plans have started going up! If you haven’t already, be sure to take a look at the offerings when you come back after the break and talk to your children about what they are interested in (and whether they would like to offer something themselves). As always, staff is available to help any student with signing up.

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Have a wonderful week and see you after Spring Break!

VFS Staff

Lots of dirt and outside time!

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 3/12 – 3/16

On Monday, we had to change our plans when we found out The Lower MacCleay Trail was closed, so instead we went to The Laurelhurst Park where we played, and watched ducks, and had our picnic lunches. It ended up being a very beautiful day, despite our hiccups!

​On Wednesday, we joined thousands of students across the country in a 17-minute walkout in protest of gun violence at schools and in memory of the 17 lives that were lost in the recent Florida school shooting.

Later that afternoon, we hosted a special Gardening gathering where we decorated our outside space and replanted many lovely plants and flowers the Portland Nursery donated to us. Big THANK YOU to the Portland Nursery!!

​We had several visiting students doing experience days this week and it’s been really fun having them! We also celebrated Guevara’s 6th birthday and Raiden’s 7th birthday this week!

On Thursday’s morning meeting, we had a special presentation from Trash For Peace organization. We did not only learned how much plastic waste we make, but also how creatively we can recycle and reuse them. Stay tuned for an upcoming project VFS students are going to work with Trash for Peace and the City Repair!

​We continued to create swords, battle axes, and light sabers throughout this week, and of course had many slow motion battles. On Friday, the Gardening Club was finally able to start our own worm bin! Naia also taught other students about Springtails and its habitat. We had such a wonderful time!

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Enjoy your sunny weekend!

VFS Staff

Ghoul School

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 3/5 – 3/9

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It was a spooky week at The Village Free School, with the building overrun by vampires, werewolves and other strange creatures! There were battles of the undead and the living. Many swords and bow and arrow sets were created out of wood and cardboard, and they fought gallantly.

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We celebrated lots of birthdays this week! Judah turned 9, Zoe turned 15, and Leo N-R turned 7! To celebrate, we decorated and devoured cupcakes, made Frankenstein stuffed animal creatures, and sang lots of birthday songs.

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In the School Meeting this week, we voted into effect a proposal to have a one-week-long traditional school experience later in the year, led by Salena and Trevor as the principals. This should be interesting! We also heard the All School Sleepover Committee’s plan for our upcoming sleepover on 4/14.

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We’ve started a morning meditation offering this week, after our morning meetings. On Tuesday, the Harry Potter Week planning committee decorated quidditch broomsticks. Wednesday, for the Stories & Toonies class, they read Pete’s a Pizza and learned about fractions.

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Shout out to Felix’s family for providing us with so many of our needed kitchen supplies! We are continuously overcome with gratitude for our supportive community!

Enjoy your sunny weekend!

VFS Staff

Magical week!

VFS Weekly Update

for the week of 2/26 – 3/2

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This week we started off with a fancy tea party and a trip to Multco Animal Services to look at some adorable animals!

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We also had our second week of a 3-week-long Finance Foundations workshop. Thank you to the people from Financial Beginnings who volunteer their time teaching our students about money management!

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At our morning meeting on Wednesday, we talked about our upcoming Project Fair, and students began planning what they might like to work on and contribute. We’ve been working on lots of projects in The Project Zone and all over the school.

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On the same day, we had the Annual All-School Community Meeting. We had a great turnout and an excellent discourse on the principles of our school, our community’s identity, and how to engage students of all ages in ways that are accessible to everyone. Thank you everyone for showing up for our beloved community!

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The Hot Lunch Crew made Pad Thai on Thursday with the help of Noppawan! We ended our week on Friday with some toonie time in the quiet room, sowing flower seeds outside during Gardening Club, and continuing working on our cool Podcasts.

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Have a great weekend!

VFS Staff