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Read Alouds

Listening to books read out loud is a favorite part of our day. At the end of each day children free draw in their sketch books as they listen to great stories by great authors. This year the youngest children have listened to: Dan the Pawn, Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White, Lafcadio by Shel Read More >>

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Amelia Bedelia Take Two!

Students in kindergarten and first grade have been enjoying the silly antics of Amelia Bedelia all year.  During class, we read a book, discuss the “mistakes” that Amelia makes about the English  language and then draw about some of them.          Each child is working on making their own Amelia Bedelia book to Read More >>

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Word Stretch

  Our youngest students graduated from Picture Stretch to Word Stretch in the early part of the year. In Word Stretch the children number sections on their page from 1 – 6, and then one student is called upon for a topic or theme for all the words they are going to write. For example if Read More >>

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Mrs Piggle Wiggle Play

Students in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade working with a partner are writing plays based of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books. These books are filled with short stories where Mrs. Piggle Wiggle cures children from tattletaleitis, being a cry baby, and even destructiveness. Each pair of students picked one of the stories and they are putting their own Read More >>

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Reconstruction, Part 2

Students in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade were each assigned a specific historical character that had an impact during reconstruction after the Civil War. They are researching different topics and finding out their characters point of view on topics such as State Rights, Federal Rights, Education, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. As the students Read More >>

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Things too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

Over the past six weeks the students in sixth and seventh grade have been reading the book Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry by Susan Vaught. This book is about a girl named Dani who sets out to solve the mystery behind why her dying grandmother, who used to be a write,r stopped Read More >>

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Parts of Speech

In a series of three lessons the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students learned about four different parts of speech. First they learned the function of verbs in the English language and that every English sentence must contain at least one verb. Then we practiced enhancing verbs with adverbs by playing a game of charades. Read More >>

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Writing with Paul

Paul Otteson, parent of two former New School students, returned to teach a 3-session workshop on story structure, with an emphasis on how to end stories or story segments. Exercises included learning about six classic styles of ending stories (resolved, unresolved, implied, twist, tie-back, ‘crystal ball’), writing endings in these styles, matching story openings and Read More >>

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Are Lyrics to a Song Poetry?

The seven oldest students are taking part in a poetry class, which was inspired by Bob Dylan’s recent nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature. We started the discussion discussing the difference between a poet and a lyricist. It was interesting that all but one student didn’t feel that Bob Dylan deserved the award. They Read More >>

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Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt is a journaling time where the students are given a specific story starter or topic to write about. After introducing the prompt, the students briefly brainstorm what they might write, offering relevant words that I write on the board. Once they begin writing, they are encouraged to focus on writing their ideas and Read More >>