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Clarence Randall, World War II veteran

History is about real people and the places they lived. It is about their stories. Too often in the study of history, our education misses this facet. Last week our older students were part of an extraordinary discussion. One of our students told us her grandfather was in World War II. He is now 99 Read More >>

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The Great Depression Through the Eyes of Artists

The causes and effects of the Great Depression were studied through the eyes of artists Dorothea Lange, John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, a political cartoonist of the era and Langston Hughes. Children created a one-page written and visual response based on one of Lange’s photographs making connections to its historical context by creating. They listened to excerpts Read More >>

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Kate Woodle, Children’s Book Illustrator

Kate Woodle conducted a four-week, illustration workshop for the seven oldest students. Kate kicked off her workshop as a Mystery Guest for the whole school, where she described the process of illustrating a children’s picture book. To the smaller class, students had to bring a fictional story they had written. Kate showed them how to Read More >>

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World War 1

The oldest students spent three months studying the causes and effects of World War 1. The causes were complex. Students looked at world maps showing imperialism around the world prior to the war. Having identified the colonialists gave meaning to the complicated alliances that were formed prior to the war. This led to an examination Read More >>

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Animal Cells

  This four week for our oldest students unit looked at the structure and function of a typical animal cell. The animal cell’s organelles were described and discussed. Students constructed a large model of an animal cell, working in class and independently in pairs on their contracts. Students watched a PBS short and discussed the Read More >>

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Letter Writing

This spring, students in grades 3-4 participated in a unit on writing a persuasive letter.  We read informational articles to gather baseline information about how littering affects the ecosystems on Earth. We began this unit by viewing letter examples and highlighting different aspects of the letter to view how a letter is formatted.  As we Read More >>

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Emerald Atlas

This spring, students in grades 4-7 participated in a book club for The Emerald Atlas(Books of Beginning) by John Stephens.  We began this class by creating group discussion rules that were agreed upon by all students that revolved around respecting others. After our initial meeting, one discussion leader was assigned (with student volunteers) per class meeting Read More >>

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Spectra: Energetic Escape!

Students enjoyed four activities that explored friction, kinetic and potential energy and how energy is transferred. In each experiment students considered a key question and after setting up an experiment they collected data. The data was graphed and analyzed. In Fiction Fun they considered what affects the force of friction. Here students set up an Read More >>

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Making the World a Better Place

We spent the first half of the year being inspired by people like Ghandi, Wangari, and Malala, and their stories of how they made the world a better place. We listened to their stories. We also invited local activists who saw and responded to a need in our Syracuse Community. We met with inspirational people Read More >>

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Creation Myths

Since January, we began a class with the younger half of the school reading a wide variety of myths from Native American, South American, and African cultures that give voice to stories of how our world and elements of it have been created.  We read many versions of how there came to be Day and Read More >>