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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2017
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HYBRID SCHOOL BASED IN ASTORIA
CELEBRATES A FULL FIRST YEAR
Curriculum focuses on creativity, student-centered learning
famous person,” Lippold said.
Exposure to musical art forms is com-
mon at the school; local musicians such as
John Fenton, and Lulu and Ned Heaven-
rich, volunteer to play for the kids.
John Fenton, a Knappa marimba teacher,
brought 10 marimbas and set them up for
the Salmonberry Scholars and, in about
40 minutes, had taught them a few songs:
“They were amazing,” he said. “The lit-
tle ones from the play school served as the
audience.”
Lulu Heavenrich, a retired teacher of 30
years, has grandchildren at Salmonberry
and visits several times a week. She and her
husband, Ned Heavenrich, of the Browns-
mead Flats, bring in instruments, and teach
folk dances, games and country dancing.
By HEATHER DOUGLAS
For EO Media Group
STORIA — This month,
Salmonberry Hill, a school in
rural Astoria for kids ages 3
to 11 that blends homeschool
and public school, completed
its fi rst year in operation.
Inside the Netel Grange
in Lewis & Clark, the “Salmonberry Schol-
ars” — children ages 7 to 11 — gather
scripts for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Children chatter excitedly, forming a loose
circle, and begin reciting lines that incorpo-
rate some of Shakespeare’s verse.
The students chose the play from the
selection of stories offered to them. Last
year, they chose one based on Greek
mythology. The kids are involved in every-
thing from costumes to sets.
They have even created a new character
named “Luck”— Puck’s twin brother. Puck
and Luck — played by 8-year-olds Sahalie
Heavenrich and Solice Swank, respectively
— sit side by side and rehearse.
Spinning and twirling during recess, a
group of other students choreograph a fairy
dance.
Corrine Alaine Garrison, the hybrid
school’s founder and head teacher, had
wanted to start a school like Salmonberry
since she was a child herself.
“Salmonberry is a happy medium for
many families because homeschooling can
be a huge job,” she said.
The upstairs houses Salmonberry Hill
Academy for grades 1 through 5, led by
Garrison and associate teacher Andrea
Burch. Downstairs, Salmonberry Play
School serves 3-year-olds through kinder-
garteners and is co-taught by Bree Heaven-
rich and Courtney Johnston.
‘This is it’
Salmonberry Hill — which focuses
heavily on arts, music and nature — started
as a homeschool formed by Jasmine and
Shannon Swank. The couple, from John
Day, wanted a different option for their
daughter, Solice. A community of fami-
lies, led by Garrison and Heavenrich, came
together.
“I had not seen the type of school I
Values
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
ABOVE: Gus Lawrence, left, and Vaughan Eccles, right, paint pictures during art
class at the Salmonberry Academy near Warrenton. TOP: Jayden Woody, left, and
Annabelle Hawkins, right, share a laugh while playing with Legos and other toys
during classes at the Salmonberry Academy near Warrenton.
wanted in my community, so we went to
check out the grange. I knew instantly:
‘This is it. We can transform this and make
it into what we’re wanting,’” Heavenrich
said. “We deep cleaned, re-painted, took
out enormous amounts of trash, replaced
windows to get the space ready.”
Teachers at Salmonberry are “unre-
stricted in their ability to meet the child
where they’re at,” Jasmine Swank said.
“My own daughter’s confi dence has grown
exponentially, which has been incredible.
There is a lot of hands-on learning, art and
creativity, which can be lacking at more tra-
ditional schools.”
The play school devotes an hour of out-
door time each day — rain or shine — and
gives students daylong access to an art
room.
The older students’ curriculum includes
a traditional combination of history, math,
science and writing, with frequent opportu-
nities for creative expression, including the
performing arts. Each month, the scholars
memorize and recite a poem, and each year
the school performs a play.
The arts
While Salmonberry Play School hosted
its own art show for parents earlier this
month, the older kids are preparing one
for their own pieces in early June. They
worked with water color, acrylic, collage,
mixed media and clay.
Sarah Lippold, a parent and regular vis-
iting guest art teacher, saved the students’
work all year for the show.
In keeping with the curriculum’s art
focus, “we will usually read then write
about a famous fi gure and fi nally draw that
While the two schools are quite differ-
ent, the values are the same: an emphasis
on student choice, student-centered learn-
ing and creativity.
“The curriculum is not dictated by the
state or government, but by the children,”
Garrison said. “I assess the students during
the summers, and from there I choose the
curriculum that best meets my students. I
focus on an individualized pace with topics
that interest the children.
“We are really big into history, so we
write and practice our grammar through
history and science. We also create art
centered around famous historical fi gures
we study. We just fi nished a big unit on
Vikings.”
Garrison and Heavenrich believe that a
focus on arts benefi ts children’s social-emo-
tional development.
“Art opens a window in the mind,” Gar-
rison said, “and when you integrate differ-
ent academic subjects, even math, it helps to
visualize things to understand them better.”
“By encouraging kids to do art, we
understand other people better and, ulti-
mately, the world,” she said.
For now, the Salmonberry Scholars are
busy memorizing lines and creating fl ower
wreaths in anticipation of their upcoming
performance.
“We’ve come full circle and had a lot of
support from the community,” Heavenrich
said. “We’ve had an incredible fi rst year.”