-

|

Wildflower Romp

  Our younger students joined other children on a Wildflower Romp at DeWitt Library in early June. They explored the meadow behind the library that is full of many kinds of wildflowers and were encouraged to pick all the flowers they wanted. With an assortment of art supplies available, the children used their flowers to create Read More >>

|

Writing Workshop with Paul

Three of our middle school students participated in a four-session workshop designed to enhance the skills of developing writers. In preparation, the students read “War Horse” by Michael Morpurgo — a story of World War I told through the eyes of a horse. Students discussed the the book and author’s writing style, and then wrote Read More >>

|

The Great Depression Through the Eyes of Artists

The causes and effects of the Great Depression were studied through the eyes of artists Dorothea Lange, John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, a political cartoonist of the era and Langston Hughes. Children created a one-page written and visual response based on one of Lange’s photographs making connections to its historical context by creating. They listened to excerpts Read More >>

|

Letter Writing

This spring, students in grades 3-4 participated in a unit on writing a persuasive letter.  We read informational articles to gather baseline information about how littering affects the ecosystems on Earth. We began this unit by viewing letter examples and highlighting different aspects of the letter to view how a letter is formatted.  As we Read More >>

|

Emerald Atlas

This spring, students in grades 4-7 participated in a book club for The Emerald Atlas(Books of Beginning) by John Stephens.  We began this class by creating group discussion rules that were agreed upon by all students that revolved around respecting others. After our initial meeting, one discussion leader was assigned (with student volunteers) per class meeting Read More >>

|

Creation Myths

Since January, we began a class with the younger half of the school reading a wide variety of myths from Native American, South American, and African cultures that give voice to stories of how our world and elements of it have been created.  We read many versions of how there came to be Day and Read More >>

|

Crocodile Lyle

This winter, our Kindergarten students explored the fun of Bernard Waber’s lovable crocodile, Lyle. Each Thursday we read a Lyle book and then drew and wrote about one part of the book. Students enjoy predicting what will happen in the story from the pictures, discussing vocabulary and drawing their own pictures for each story.  They Read More >>

|

Silly Sentences

Once a week during journal time, the youngest students are part of a class called Silly Sentences. Here they play with puzzle pieces to make sentences that are bound to make them laugh. After making two or three sentences, the children copy and illustrate their sentences in their journals. In the process there is a Read More >>

|

Story Soup

Many a white page has been known to cause “writer’s block.” At The New School we recently tried something new. During Read Aloud we are reading “Sweep: The story of a girl and her monster” to the older children. Early in the book Nan, the main character. reminisces about happy days. Her  Sweep collects lost Read More >>

|

Power, Privilege, Persecution, Persistence and Poverty

As the oldest students started to create a annotated time showing the century from 1850 – 1950, they revisited and reviewed last year’s study of the Industrial revolution. Here we learned how inventions fueled a transformation of the US economy. The booming economy brought with it huge social problems in regards to how workers and Read More >>