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Writing Workshop with Dana

We are working on short story structure:  beginnings, middles, and ends. We have been discussing character motivation, dramatic conflict, and how to resolve things in an interesting and satisfying way.  It’s a challenge to structure imaginative worlds, and it takes a lot of focus to show a dramatic arc in a compressed form. Our goal Read More >>

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Cursive

Students in 3rd and 4th grades have been working on reviewing all of the lower case cursive letters from the clock climbers to the hills and valleys.  As we finish up our lower case letters, students have been challenged to write two words in cursive, switch with a partner and print what their partner has Read More >>

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Upper Case Printing

Working once a week with our youngest children, we have studied and learned how to form the capital letters A through E. While this sounds like a simple task, there are many things to consider. First of all where to start the letter? This is hard for some youngsters who are used to forming their Read More >>

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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 >>

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Westcott Cultural Fair

The Westcott Cultural Fair is always a festive way to begin our school year. This year, during Investigations, the children, expressing their love for books, created signs to carry . The titles of books they chose was wonderfully varied: Kensuke’s Kingdom, Private Peaceful, Cat Warriors, Blues Clues, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Diary of a Wimpy Read More >>

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Poetry: Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages,

Inspired by Lucy Calkins’ Poetry: Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages, the youngest children explored writing poetry. The unit starts with a poetry museum, which asks children to write about objects that have been collected. As each object is observed children are encouraged to see with poet’s eyes, to see the unusual in ordinary objects. As Read More >>

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Little House and maple syrup

Our youngest eight students have been having a wonderful time exploring the time period of pioneers by using Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Little House in the Big Woods.  We started by reading a biography about Laura and then started reading her first book.  As we explored the big woods with Laura and her family, we’ve also Read More >>

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New and Goods for Capitals and Punctuation

This year we have a group of children in the 2nd and 3rd grades that were ready to develop a better awareness of the conventions of writing, including capitals and punctuation. We decided that we would use the familiar format of New and Goods but with a different focus. The first session showed what we Read More >>

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Wishes, Lies and Dreams

Inspired by Kenneth Koch’s book, Wishes, Lies and Dreams children in second and third grade spent six weeks writing poems about sounds, dreams, colors, comparisons, and lies. They were most intrigued and excited about writing about lies! White Mitten by Syris I had a white mitten As white as the snow I did snow angels Read More >>

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Solar System

The youngest children started learning about the Solar System in January. Children developed questions they wanted answered about each plant.  As we listened to The Magic School Bus, Lost in the Solar System, and books by Seymour Simon children drew and wrote notes about each planet. We started with the gas giants and then moved Read More >>