Our children, our students, live in a world that has developed all kinds of media and ways to transmit information, disinformation, ideas, and images. They hear the media, adults, other peers talking about events and opinions as they move through their days. Some of these ideas are exciting and innovative, others are darker and disturbing. Read More >>
End of Year Traditions
We end the school year with many lovely traditions. Tradition #1. Children draw names out of a hat and secretly make a gift for a fellow student. Then using materials at school, the children spend many hours creating just the right gift after thinking about what makes that person unique. Sitting in a circle, one Read More >>
Advocacy in Action
Sriharsh Gowtham, a young activist, visited the New School at the end of the year. He came to share his political experiences in New Hampshire where he worked hard to change laws in regards to political campaign donations. Harsha shared information about how much it costs to run a campaign and how important it is Read More >>
The Three Branches of Government
The older children have been learning about the three branches of government. At the end of the year we went on three field trips to observe the legislative, judicial and executive branches in action. The City of Syracuse was amazingly hospitable and willing to enrich the learning of our students. On May 5 we took Read More >>
Cooking
Our students like to cook, so that has been a choice at Investigations. We made cheese quesadillas with pico de gallo. When students noticed chives growing on the creek bank, we made biscuits with chives and cheese. With no oven available, we “baked” them in a skillet. We made apple crisp, cooking the apples in Read More >>
War Horse Book Club
A small group of fourth and fifth graders decided, after reading four short novels by Mildred Taylor that they wanted to continue with the book club and read another book together. They all voted to read the book at home. And so I selected a favorite book, War Horse by a favorite author, Michael Morpurgo. Read More >>
Dictation
Students in dictation class have been focusing on reading and spelling words that follow the vowel-consonant-e pattern and comparing them with words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. Students sort, compare, read, and write words and sentences using words with these patterns. We have emphasized spelling patterns for certain consonant sounds at the ends of these types of words. For example, Read More >>
Fox Book Club
Some of our younger students have been participating in their first book club. We have been reading several of the Fox books by Edward Marshall, including Fox On Wheels, Fox and His Friends, Fox On the Job, Fox Be Nimble, Fox On Stage, and Fox Outfoxed. Each book is divided into three chapters, each a humorous story about Fox and his family, friends, Read More >>
Variables
Our two 7th graders and one 5th grader have taken a journey into pre-algebra this year. This class has been called Variables all year, but we have explored so much more than just variables. One thing that is constant is that there is often an “unknown” or “x” in most of our work, so the name “Variables” has stuck! Even Read More >>
Government
In January the oldest students started a “Government” unit. For three-months we have studied the needs and rights of individuals, the rights of a community and different forms of government in existence today. Children were first asked to bring in a newspaper article describing some aspect of government. The diversity of topics, from Speaker Sheldon Read More >>
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