Students in Kindergarten and First Grade have an art class each day. Second grade joins us once a week. K-1 has free art at least once a week where students can work on longer individual projects or experiment with new materials. We have made and colored playdough that the children have enjoyed using, and use 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 >>
Read-Aloud at Reading Time
Once a week our youngest students gather together for their own read-aloud during the school-wide reading time. Some of them are just beginning to learn to read. Others have developed some reading skills and are just beginning to read independently. They all enjoy listening to a good story together, sharing their thoughts and questions about Read More >>
Green Eyed Monster
This mini unit explored the connections between visual art and language arts, and how both are used to creatively tell stories and express emotions. After listening to the picture book, Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley children were introduced to adjectives as descriptive words. The students then brainstormed adjectives they could use for Read More >>
Listening Center
Once a week the youngest students listen to a book on tape. As they listen they copy the title of the book and start drawing a favorite scene in the book. More recently children have been asked to write one or two sentences. Some of the titles they have listened to this year include: Thidwick the Read More >>
Block Spot
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 >>
Habitats
Students in Kindergarten through second grade have been learning about habitats and the different species that live in them. So far we’ve read “A House for Hermit Crab,” written by Eric Carle as an introduction to what a habitat is. We’ve compared our own habitat to Hermit Read More >>