Children in Kindergarten and First Grade participated in a writing class this spring where they “played” with words and pictures. They worked on rhyming, fact & opinion and writing descriptive sentences. Here are some examples of their writing.
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 >>
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 >>
Poetry: Powerful Thoughts in Tiny Packages
Lucy Calkins inspired a poetry unit for our students in grades K-3. Starting in May, each week of this unit inspires children to consider a new “ingredient” or strategy. The unit began with experimenting with looking at ordinary things in a new way. Subsequent classes will explore looking at patterns in poetry, music, line breaks Read More >>
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 >>
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 >>
Kenneth Koch’s Wishes, Lies and Dreams,
Poetry Unit Kenneth Koch’s Wishes, Lies and Dreams, published in 1970, has long been considered a classic in its field. Herbert Kohl wrote that this is “perhaps the best book I have read portraying the joy and excitement young people experience when writing poetry.” Using this timeless book, for seven weeks, students in grades 4 Read More >>
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 >>
Writing Workshop
Students over the past sever weeks have been studying how perspective is used within writing. Examining how a writer uses perspective to inform and persuade the reader, students then used these techniques within their own work. Our 3rd and 4th grade students have done tremendous work from analyzing writing to creating their own unique, engaging Read More >>
Writing Skills
Jiyong, Stuart, Pearson, Theo and Paul were part of a class called Writing Skills. In this class they were introduced to and/or reviewed various aspects of writing and grammar. We have discussed the sentence, subjects, nouns, pronouns articles, singular and plural, predicates, verbs and tense. Typically there is a mini lesson at the start of Read More >>