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Inaugural Poetry

A group of our six older students were part of a poetry class inspired by Amanda Gorman’s spectacular presentation of “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. Gorman’s poem provided a natural extension for our year-long study of systemic racism in America. After reading Amanda Gorman’s poem, students were asked Read More >>

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Short Story

From about mid-March to mid-April Misha, Sam, RJ, Stuart, and Jiyong participated in a short story unit where they further developed their writing skills and critically examined the parts of a short story and learned how to write one themselves. The unit started off with learning about where writer’s find their story inspiration or “seeds” Read More >>

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Bill Peet Book Club

Over the past two months, the 8th graders participated in a book club where they read Bill Peet: An Autobiography. Some people may be familiar with the name Bill Peet because of his children’s books that he created including, The Wump World, Hubert’s Hair Raising-Adventure, and Ella. Before his success in children’s literature, Bill was Read More >>

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All American Boys Book Club

During the fall semester, our student teacher, Julie, hosted a book club with the 8th grade students. The book she chose was “All American Boys” by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. She chose this book as an extension of the student’s learning about systemic racism. “All American Boys” allowed us to look at some of Read More >>

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Four Voices

A group of older students studied speech writing in a 5-session, online class. We listened to speeches written by Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, and watched Martin Luther King deliver his “I have a dream” speech. We also discussed techniques for making writing for spoken voice more effective, and analyzed three videos delivered Read More >>

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Four Voices

A group of older students studied speech writing in a 5-session, online class. We listened to speeches written by Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, and watched Martin Luther King deliver his “I have a dream” speech. We also discussed techniques for making writing for spoken voice more effective, and analyzed three videos delivered 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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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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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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Arrow Over the Door book club

Over the next five weeks, fourth grade students will be participating in a book club with our student teacher, Kelly. In book club, they will be reading The Arrow Over the Door by Joseph Bruchac, a historical fiction novel that is written through the viewpoints of  Stands Straight, a young Abenaki Indian, and Samuel, a Read More >>