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Map-it on Ipads

What on earth?!  Alan (Ben and Greer’s dad) taught us how to use the ipads he brought in, to make our mark in mapmaking.  Now we know how to find the school, and our own house, spreading the image to even ‘drive’ the route home.  We went outside to take pictures with the ipads, of Read More >>

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Read Aloud

At the end of every day, we schedule time for Read Aloud. During this time a teacher reads to a small group of students.  Students often choose to draw in their sketchbooks as they listen. The groups change according to the book we read. At the beginning of the year we split into two mixed Read More >>

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Local History

Each  child at The New School was given a replica of an old postcard of a Syracuse scene. Postcards showed parks, downtown scenes, and places of interest such as Oakwood Cemetery. Using VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) children were asked to look at the picture and describe what was happening, and what made them say that? Read More >>

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Bruce Coville Showers Sparks of Inspiration at The New School

Students at The New School have been exploring Shakespeare, reading Bruce Coville’s adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, and of Hamlet, two of seven plays he has reworked for young readers.  The Syracuse author of a variety of enticing books for children brought his boundless enthusiasm and talents to the school this week, describing the history Read More >>

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Clay

Students get a chance to flex their creative sculpture muscles as they create with clay.  Each student gets a chunk of clay to mold as they see fit while using their hands and various clay tools.  Since we won’t be keeping each masterpiece, we take a photo of the figure with it’s creator as a Read More >>

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St. Patrick’s Day Fun

Our leprechaun trap tradition was started many years ago by Dottie Mueller. Ever since the children spend two weeks creating inventive traps (the leprechauns say ingenious!) in the hope that those pesky leprechauns will come visit our school.  So far we haven’t succeeded, but the leprechauns come, create mayhem, get stuck and unstuck in their Read More >>

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Snowflake Bentley

The passion of one man to share the beauty of snow crystals and dew drops with the world has inspired our students to share their own snowflakes through Legacies. After reading Snowflake Bentley by Jaqueline Briggs Martin and looking at the marvelous photographs published in his book Snow Crystals, three of our students shared and taught classmates how Read More >>

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Syracuse Local History

Time Travel at The New School To introduce our Local History unit all the children at The New School were sent home a different historical postcard of a Syracuse scene. The postcards were dated from the 1920’s to 1930’s. Using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), students were asked to look at the postcard and list as Read More >>

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Valentine’s Day

Nothing like Valentines to challenge us to transform a shopping bag into a favorite animal.

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Joe Murphy, Fine Artist and Illustrator visits

It’s been a while since Joe Murphy graduated from SU, but he got some quick attention passing a sheet of his  X-Men trading cards around the circle of students, and a drop-jaw reaction to his own fanciful painting of a dog in a wizard’s hat.  As a kid, Joe was intrigued by his realization that Read More >>