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Younger Local History

After completing a scavenger hunt in the Syracuse area to find a place from a historic postcard, students had to compare their postcard to the current location.  Using a visual thinking strategy they tried to notice all the similarities and differences between the two time periods.  To share this information with classmates, we had multiple Read More >>

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Erie Canal

From mid-April to the beginning of May, the K-3 students embarked on a journey to learn about the Erie Canal. The unit began with discussions about the ways in which people and goods move from place to place today. After creating a list of how we move from place to place in 2021. We then Read More >>

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Crow Drawings

After reading She’s Wearing a Bird on her Head we learned about the remarkable efforts of Minna Hall and Harriet Hemenway, two determined women activists who founded the Audubon Society to protect birds. Then we admired the extraordinary paintings by James Audubon. Now it was our turn. We examined a crow that has been perched Read More >>

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Poetry: Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages

Lucy Calkins inspired a poetry unit for our students in grades K-3. Starting in May, each week of this unit inspires children to consider a new “ingredient” or strategy. The unit began with experimenting with looking at ordinary things in a new way. Subsequent classes will explore looking at patterns in poetry, music, line breaks Read More >>

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Vooks

Vooks is an online digital library with animated books aimed towards young readers. Throughout the fall, going into winter, I would show the students a Vook and during the reading, I would pause the video and ask students questions about the book we were watching. This is referred to as a “pause and ponder” on Read More >>

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Africa

In the weeks leading up to winter break, our K-3 students had the opportunity to learn about another continent with our student teacher, Julie. She took them on a trip around the Earth to visit Africa (virtually, of course). To introduce this unit, she started out by using Google Earth to show the students our Read More >>

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Animal Classification Part 3

This fall we resumed an Animal Classification Class that we had started last year.  It included last year’s children and our newer children as well.  We began with a long read aloud (and slide show-once we figured out how) called The Most Beautiful Rooftop in the World by Kathryn Lasky.  It is a dense book Read More >>

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Geometry

During the fall of 2020 our youngest students all studied shapes! Throughout their unit of study, they would be taking a close look at 12 different shapes, comparing some of the differences between them and identifying them and even searching for them throughout the school. To begin our unit, we introduced the shapes to the Read More >>

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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 >>

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Famous Paintings Reimagined

Many of our students went over and beyond our expectations for this fascinating assignment where they had to identify a famous painting and reimagine it, take a fresh look, and or put themselves in the painting. We provided students with a video of 100 of the most famous paintings and then voila! We have Whistler’s Read More >>