Third-grade and fourth-grade art classes repainted the Lower School benches.

The Lower School Launches DEscribe, an On-line Celebration of Good Writing!

Lower School librarian, Mrs. Sienicki, helped students launch
DEscribe.

The Lower School is very proud to announce that DEscribe, the Lower School’s Celebration of Good Writing, is now up and running! We consider this our spring edition and plan to release our next edition in the fall. Many of our students have written beautiful words, in so many different ways, this year. It is impossible to include all of their writing, so we have chosen some very special pieces to display in DEscribe. Writing is not a process that develops overnight, but rather a journey that takes time, desire and perseverance, with careful guidance and good teaching. 

Students work together on DEscribe.

We are proud to share some of our excellent writing! We hope that you agree with us and enjoy reading our children’s words. Click here to read DEscribe.

Proud creator of the DEscribe logo

"Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful."

Margaret J. Wheatley

A Reflective End of the Year

Second graders created poems with their seventh-grade buddies.

Just as the first six weeks of school is a critically important time for setting up for a year full of focused learning (click here to read about the first six weeks), so too are the last few weeks.

As students feel the summer approaching, they naturally become focused on simply getting to the end. What may not always be so apparent to the adults around them is that most students are also anxious about what the next school year will be like. Some of their concerns are social, but for many there is the notion that things will be harder and wondering about whether they will be able to be successful. Put together, these feelings can lead to a very emotional end of the year.

Second- and seventh-grade partners work together.

Guided by best practice and our respect for the Responsive Classroom approach, we make a conscious effort to have the last few weeks be a time for reflection and a sharing of what we have all accomplished over the year.

Classroom and specialist teachers will be taking the time to help students to engage in "Museum Walks" of their accomplishments. Students are often surprised and proud when they take the time to remember what they have done. It also reinforces their learning and makes them confident about making similar progress in the year to come.

Preschoolers and fifth-grade buddies look for
worms together in the Lower School's compost.

We also ask that students use their reflective review of the year and find ways to share them with students from the grade below. This serves not only a positive preview for students about the next year, but also serves as one more reinforcement for the presenting students.

Yes, we do celebrate these accomplishments, but we are mindful that these celebrations need to have a reflective quality. We ask that parents support our efforts. It may seem natural to want to bring in food and favors for end of year parties but doing so can undercut the tone that we are setting for the end of the year.

The new DEscribe, D-E Lower School's on-line celebration of good writing, is an attempt to create a collective "Museum Walk" that shows the hard work and progress that our students make.

***

This week third-graders are taking standardized testing. For many parents the words "standardized testing" is associated with the words "high-stakes." This is NOT the case for the testing that we administer. We do not prepare our students for the testing, and there is nothing riding on an individual student's or the school's test results. Our most important use of the testing results is to measure the strength of our program compared to other independent schools around the country and to evaluate the effectiveness of curricular and pedagological changes that we have made. To preserve valuable instructional time, we no longer test fourth graders.

SO! Help our students put this testing in perspective.

***

There is a new Pre4 blog post featuring an exciting snail race.

There is also a new post on the Preschool 3 blog

There is a wonderful Children's Book sub-section in Saturdays NYT Book Review.

***

Views from the Preschool and Kindergarten Grandparents' Day