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 >>
Rigamajig
A part of every afternoon at The New School is a time called Investigations. During this hour children can choose between several activities: art studio, construction materials, strategy games, or work on individually designed projects. For several years we have used Rigamajig, designed by Cas Holman of RISDE and represented by KABOOM, as a major Read More >>
Highland Forest Fall 2018
Twice a year, for the past 20+ years, teachers have taken students camping to Highland Forest. These two days in the fall and spring are so important to building community. There is something magical that happens to groups of children when you provide them with the opportunity to play outdoors and engage with each other Read More >>
Printing Class All Year
At the start of the school year, children in kindergarten worked on writing upper case letters of the alphabet. We have now moved on to lower case letters! During each class, we use sign language, the sound of the letter and printing pages to practice on two letters. Read More >>
Ramps
During Investigations the youngest children at our school explored inclined planes using ramps. They rolled marbles down ramps and measured the distances each marble rolled. They varied the slope of the inclined plane, predicting which height would cause the marble to roll further and explaining why. First they used a height of 6 wooden blocks, Read More >>
Measurement
A group of children in grades 1 though 3 explored how humans measure their world! We started with length and using yard sticks, meter sticks, tape measures and rulers we measured objects around the school. We discussed the various units that can be used, both metric and standard. We learned which unit is longer, an inch or a Read More >>
Highland Forest, October 2014
In many schools children are taken on camping field trips to celebrate the end of the year, as a reward you might say. At the New School we visit Highland Forest twice a year. The first time is scheduled near the start of school, and the second trip is within weeks of the end of Read More >>
Rigamajig
The Rigamajig is a new large-scale building kit conceived for hands-on free play and learning. This unique toy was conceived and designed as a custom play feature for the High Line Park in New York City, by independent toy designer Cas Holman of Heroes Will Rise, and Friends of the High Line, in collaboration with early learning Read More >>
Investigations
Investigations is scheduled every afternoon from 1:30pm until 2:25pm. Most children will say this is the best part of the day, running neck and neck with gym or outdoor play! During Investigations children are offered a choice of activities. If all their “contract work” from the morning is complete they can sign up for one Read More >>
Centers for our youngest students
Centers are an important part of the day for Kindergarten and First Grade students. Every day they participate in at least one language arts, math and gross/fine motor center. Children learn by playing games in these centers, whether they are adding, subtracting, learning letter sounds or reading sight words. To simplify their contracts, we use Read More >>