"Trackpack†" will soon replace the backpack !

When Taylor Swift presented her idea during fourth grade to her Council for Contributions of Great Merit, everyone present applauded wildly!  A remote controlled backpack on wheels?  No more heavy lugging books back and forth? Fewer visits to the chiropractor?  Taylor's "trackpack" idea earned a unanimous, "Hurray!" The Glorious Giraffes have another winning idea come true, just in time for Thanksgiving and our gift giving time of year!

We predicted that Miss Swift would have no problem pitching her idea successfully to Palladio High Academy Interns in three distinct fields ... textiles, engineering,and advertising.  And the results have supported our prediction!  In less than one year, the trackpack is making its debut on the greatest shopping day of the year...the day after Thanksgiving.  Yes folks, this Friday, we will be able to purchase the first ever Trackpack at Macy's Merit Exchange in Herald Square.

Just look for the Delacorte Spirit School colors.  Our spirited Global PTA will be at all stations selling hot chocolate, apple cider ...and Taylor's trackpacks!  You will recognize our sales representatives because they be wearing their spotted gloves and scarfs of Gold and Burnt Umber.  Our preschoolers also will be sporting their giraffe costumes from the annual Halloween parade.  And our graduating fifth grade students will have the honor of wearing their newly purchased giraffe hoods for the very first time! Miss Swift already posted a picture of herself in full regalia with her trackpack ...and seven pins...guess who these kids are.  See her website to check your guesses.  You can also place online orders with Taylor.

Textile interns recommended that the first Trackpack † bear Delacorte colors.  Taylor agreed that Giraffe name pins should be available for upper class students who want to decorate their Trackpacks † with Glorious Giraffes to honor a special  Delacorte student.  Purchase your Glorious Giraffes at the booths adjacent to Trackpack† tables.  This time next year, the production team plans to include colors from Upper Armory.  And in 2012, Palladio colors will be available for purchase.

So stay tuned ... and support the Glorious Giraffes this season as we open sales for Trackpack †.


† remember this sign ... Ms Swift's production team used to designate their trademark

November's Full Moon Parade

Today marks the Parade of Giraffes beneath November's Full Moon.  All Palladio big sisters and brothers gathered their Upper Armory midsters who in turn had gathered their Delacorte youngsters with preschool toddlers in giraffe attire.

Maree and our brand new baby day!

Maree opened this morning's workshop in Shakespere's Garden, just beyond the Sweedish Theatre.  It was packed with global families, teacher interns, master teachers ... and gratitude for the resources that make this new aliance possible.

Maree is known for spreading the awareness of each day being a brand new baby day...Thank you Maree for this perception of possibilities ready and waiting for our attention which will encourage their growth.  Today, we call forth the power of informed and loving alliances ....teaming with possibilities ... many that will ever more fully address needs and develop strengths.

This morning's focus highlighted the transformative power of gratitude -no mtter the state of affairs.  Maree teaches that gratitude lifts our perspective...and that lifting connects us with the field of greater possibilites. If we enter the state of gratitude then we our vibratory field becomes transformative in nature.

Thank you ... perfect entrance for this day!

All Call: Twentyfirst century applications for furry friends' refuse

"Please take a look at these pictures from last week ... on the sidewalks of New York," reports 1stYearUS, Tienna Navarro.  Interested in dogssince the age of three, Tienna wants to start a new club Caring for Our Furry Friends.  She needs one Teacher, one Delacorte 6thYear, and One Global Parent to join her club council.  She aready knows her focus for her graduation project.  "We may be Middle School, but we are not living in the Middle Ages.  That's when folks didn't know about germs and refuse, illness and prevention.  Without this knowledge they were known to dump such stuff out their windows to leave in everyone's path!"

I will make educating all dog owners and calling forth their civic duty to dispose of refuse properly and leave our streets clean for little children to walk, strollers to return do-free to apartments, and pedestrians to trust that the cracks in our track shoes remain empty!  And what about the health and sensitivity of our street workers?! Picking up a black bag of trash should not fill their nostrils with the stencth of your pup's pee ---should it??? Absolutely not! This would never happen in Brazil!"


Being a team learner, Tienna is  receiving applications from fellow first years. Please visit her website where you can download and upload your application, if interested.  Tienna also posted more pictures...you'll be disgusted enough to be motivated to doooo something positive!  She will select two promising applicants who will partner with Tienna over the next two years to initiate a needed Contribution of Great Merit, temporarily entitled: DOOTY-FREE (from the Sidewalks of New York).


(Inerview with Tienna Navarro, 1stYearUS, 11/2/10, on the way t the polls ...oops! by Janna Simon)

George T. Delacorte... our namesake philanthropist

Our campus is named after a New York philanthropist, who also founded a famous publishing company.  George donated money so that theatre could flourish in Central Park.  He repaced folding chairs and a portable stage with a permanent theatre.  We are proud to name our innovative, international, globally devoted learning community after such a generous person!  When our plaza clock chimes, we thank you, Mr. Delacorte!
Daily, our K-5 school community flourishes in Delacorte Plaza, with access to wildlife, a marsh habitat, visitors from around the world, and the sidewalks of New York!

New Dog on Delacorte Campus!

Please welcome "Tootsie," a new addition to our Walking Companion Program.  She will become a familiar face on campus beginning Monday (11/1), following Halloween Sunday.

Tootsie graduated last month with honors from The Upper School's Companion Training Program.  She celebrated her first birthday over the weekend with her Global Family.  Fulfilling all the requirements to serve faithfully and reliably as a Walking Companion for our older learners, Tootsie will accompany those coming from Sheep's Meadow.

We may recognize Tootsie from the following description crafted by a member of her family, our very own Thirdyear, Betsy Cross:  Tootsie has a long brown face, a soft milk chocolate colored nose, and very pointy ears that sometimes flip backwards.  They are pink and white inside.  She has a very distinguishing feature: one eye is golden colored and one eye is sky blue.  Can you guess what breed mix she is? (The answer: half huskie and half pointer.)  She has a long and slender body and reminds me of an antelope when she plays with her squeaky toy.  When Tootsie wants a hug, she will come up to you (if you are sitting at a table or something) and snuggle her head into your lap.  If you don't pet her in thirty seconds or less, she will tap your arm with her paw.  (My family washes her paws every night after the last kid takes his bath. so dont worry about getting dirty or getting germs or tics or anything! My family loves Tootsie and we hope you will too!! 

Ready Online: Background for introducing Galoshes

Source: Wikopedia (10/14/10)

 The transition from a traditional wooden sole to one of vulcanized rubber may be attributed to Charles Goodyear and Leverett Candee. The qualities of rubber, though fascinating to Goodyear, were highly dependent on temperature: it was tacky when hot, brittle when cold. Vulcanization of rubber tempered its properties so that it was easily molded, durable, and tough. A rubberized elastic webbing made Goodyear's galoshes (circa 1890) easy to pull on and off.

An unconfirmed legend states that an Englishman named Radley invented galoshes. He suffered from rheumatism and wanted to keep his feet dry. While reading De Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar he noticed a description of protective cloth overshoes "gallicae" and decided to capitalize on the idea. He patented cloth overshoes reinforced with rubber to keep the feet dry.

There are also records of a black inventor by the name of Alvin Longo Rickman, who received a patent for an overshoe in 1898.[4]

There are two basic types. One is like an oversize shoe or low boot made of thick rubber with a heavy sole and instep, designed for heavy-duty use. The other one is of much thinner, more flexible material, more like a rubber slipper, designed solely for protection against the wet rather than for extensive walking.

In Russia, galoshes have been an indispensable attribute of valenki.

In the upper U.S. Midwest, school children know the black rubber, over-the-shoe boot as "four-buckle arctics".

In Quebec, they are called "claques". They were also used by the public, in the Ligue Nationale d'Improvisation LNI, to indicate discontent.

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Galoshes in media

Russian FM radio station Silver Rain Radio has presented a "Silver Galosh Award" for the most dubious achievements in show business every year since 1996. This references the Russian idiom "to sit into a galosh", which means "to get into a mess".

Gummo Marx, the fifth of the Marx brothers, who quit the act during the family's vaudeville days and thus never appeared in a Marx brothers film, was nicknamed by Art Fisher based on his habit of always wearing gumshoes. While all the other performers wore street shoes, and thus made a loud noise when they walked on a hardwood stage, Milton (Gummo) was known for startling people by appearing suddenly from out of nowhere, because the gumshoes on his feet gave him a nearly soundless footfall.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a fairy tale The Goloshes of Fortune about magic galoshes which made every wish of their bearers true, but this often didn't bring them real fortune or happiness. There are children's movies based on this tale, The Magic Galoshes (Czechoslovakia | Austria | Germany, 1986) and Russian Galoshi schastya (Russian: Галоши счастья).