Gross motor and fine motor play is an important part of a child’s learning. Building, creating,discovering, problem solving, imagining and more (!) happen when children work together to play with blocks, tinkertoys, legos, lincoln logs, trains and tracks, marble runs and plastic people. At the New School, Children in grades Kindergarten and First Grade get Read More >>
School Quilt
Every year we have a tradition of creating a paper quilt. Each child is responsible for creating one of the squares in the quilt. This year we designed our 32 square quilt to reflect our school wide study of immigration. The students were asked to identify four places they would like to explore (identified on Read More >>
Imagine
After defining the word ‘imagine’ the older students listened to John Lennon’s song, Imagine. They then shared what they thought John Lennon was saying in the song. They described what he believed. Then students watched a part of the closing ceremonies of the Olympics where the same song was performed. Students shared why they thought Read More >>
Highland Forest in October
Twice a year the students at The New School camp out overnight at Highland Forest. It is a magical two days at Pines Camp. On Thursday night parents join us for a potluck dinner and songs around the campfire. On our Thursday hike, after reading a book about birds nests, we challenged children to create Read More >>
Play at The New School
At The New School we value “play.” Twice a week children enjoy a half hour of free time during gym. Three times a week we play cooperative games. During free time children enjoy many different activities. Children need this time to independently develop creative games and projects. The “building craze” started about two years ago. Read More >>
Family Picnic September 2012
At the end of the first three days of school new and returning families traditionally gather for an informal potluck at Ryder Park, Dewitt. While the children climbed, slid and swung on the playground, parents and teachers had a chance to get reacquainted. Towards the end of the picnic parents introduced themselves and shared their Read More >>
Shove Park 2012
A big tradition for The New School each year is an end of the year picnic at Shove Park. This year the weather was spectacular and children spent the day building dams in the creek, reading, playing, and taking the creek walk down to the waterfall. Alumni are always invited. We loved seeing Evelyn, Read More >>
Teachers Giving Gifts 2012
On the last day of school each child came home with two important things. A memory box from the teachers, celebrating something important about the past year, and a letter that articulates the depth of each child’s achievement. Often children will focus on the memory box, but the letter is the most important part. We Read More >>
Children making and giving gifts
Every year children randomly are assigned another student to make a gift for. When they present their gifts they share an appreciation which explains why they made the gift. In the picture above a child is being presented with a handmade joke book. Other gifts included a board game about whales, a model of a Read More >>
New and Good
New and Good is a tradition at The New School. It was started in the 1970’s by Bob Newman, when he was the director of the Syracuse Institute for Enabling Education (the precursor) to The New School. It has worked effectively during all these years to merge affective education, pre-reading and early reading education. New Read More >>