Each week, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders learned about how various art forms can be used as a form of activism. In the beginning, students learned about the term, artavists, meaning individuals that use art to be an activist. After learning about artavists, we read the book, Artavist by Nikkolas Smith. While reading, Read More >>
Banned Books
As banning books became much more common throughout the country we began a discussion with older students based on reading aloud a book called The Day the Book Was Arrested by Nat Hentoff. In the book, a parent objected to the reading of Huckleberry Finn due to both the racist language used to call Read More >>
Systemic Racism in Syracuse: Education
New School students, grades 4 – 8, were assigned to find the answer to a number of questions teachers posed relating to Education, Syracuse’s Police Department, Lead Poisoning, Housing and Health. Their findings were discussed with the class. After digesting all this information, the students were asked to generate questions they could pose to Common Council Read More >>
Butternut Creek 2020
At The New School we work hard to bring our curriculum alive, and to take our students out into the community for hands on learning experiences. This fall, as we started learning about fresh water biomes, we took our students in grades 4 – 7 to explore Butternut Creek. Nothing quite like donning a pair Read More >>
Systemic Racism
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 >>
Local Government 2020
This unit began soon after we switched to distance learning and we had to adjust and modify the curriculum accordingly. Instead of taking the students to visit the three branches of local government in Syracuse, we invited representatives of each to be interviewed via Zoom. Before each Zoom interview, students had to research the representative Read More >>
Animal Classification Part 2
If you need a reminder, check out the Part one description from last semester. This project was designed as a year long project with time as one of our tools. Another tool that The New School frequently utilizes is looking at the same big idea in multiple forms, and during multiple times of a Read More >>
Animal Classification
This year we were very fortunate to get a donation of a program called ZOO TO YOU which brings the zoo animals and personnel to our school every other month for the year. As a team we began to think about how to make the most of these experiences. We decided to build off of Read More >>
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 >>
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 >>