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 of the project, and following it with an exciting narrative on how to construct a story.  A great story.

Coville transitioned from tales of  his Shakespeare days (recalling illustrator Ruth Sanderson’s putting him in costume to pose as the wizard Prospero, he remembers running through the woods brandishing his staff, crying “Become a toad!  Become a toad!” for art’s sake), to a performance art piece on how to create a story. “Shakespeare has a reputation for being ‘difficult,’ but 400 years later, his work is still popular.  The stories work,” he told the students. 

A character readers care about, a problem for the character to solve alone, a difficult decision to make, and the details that emerge as the writer keeps asking the question ‘Why?’ were all described and embellished to a rapt and delighted circle of young writers.  The energy generated by Coville’s presentation enlivened writing classes and discussion the in the following days.  He told a great story.

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 reminder of what was made.  This has been a fun activity for older and younger students.

Measurement

Inch by inch we built our own measuring tapes and used them to measure our thumbs, ears, wrists, and waists.  We were excited to find how much easier it is to use a measuring tape to measure around things than it is to use a ruler!

New and Good

New and Good is a tradition at The New School.  It was started in the 1970’s by Bob Newman, when he was the director of the Syracuse Institute for Enabling Education (the precursor) to The New School.  It has worked effectively during all these years to merge affective education, pre-reading and early reading  education.  New and Goods has many variations but, by and large, it is an opportunity for children to verbally share something that has happened or will happen in school or at home.  The teacher then writes it down on large chart paper using the child’s words or a summary.  As it is written many aspects of reading and writing are noted.  This is a chance to plant seeds for young children.  We talk about phonics, we talk about the meaning of words, the conventions of writing, punctuation, many things that children will be using in the near future.  For many children this is the opportunity to absorb all the pre-reading skills while sharing and celebrating information and ideas that are important to them.

            We look at word patterns and words that are contradictions.  They all know that our language is crazy  “This is ‘said’ (sed)…this is ‘is’ (iz)???”.  We jointly try to spell all the sounds we hear in a word and then figure out what letters are silent…like r-a-i-s-i-n-g or f-r-i-e-n-d. 

            In January, Dash told us, “a long time ago” pilots were playing checkers with people on the ground.  We sounded out all the sounds in “p-l-a-y-i-n-g, t-o-o-k, p-i-l-l-o-w and g-r-a-m-p-a.  Greer told us she “likes to play Sleeping Dragon”.  We looked at the “ee” in Greer and “sleeping”.   Muta told us he “had honey cereal” for breakfast.  And Syris told us “My great grandpa, my grandparents and my parents and my brother are going on a ship with 3 swimming pools.”  We had to think about all those generations. 

            In February, “Mae and other panda lovers are raising money to save pandas.  It will go to zoos that have pandas. “  We looked at “oll” words, “all” words, “ill” words and “ell” words.  And we always find “ing” words.

            On March 1, Lola said, “Yesterday, Lola went to the BIG Wegmans for dinner.  (That day we looked for all the different ways that “y” sounds in our language…silently, like in “ay” words,long ‘ e’ like in “party”,  short ‘I’ in “gym” and “Rowyn”, long ‘I’, like in “my”.  We saw how changing one letter changed a whole word in “went-want-won’t- wint(er).  Sarea told us “After tomorrow my brother’s birthday is going to come.  He will be 3.  

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 traps, sprinkle clover and gold all over the place, and always leave each child a gift. Some years they receive gold coins, other years chocolate but this year they left magical pencils. They also left a pot of gold which was hidden in the grounds and it took 28 children fifteen minutes to find it.  Our celebration wouldn't be complete without green bagels and cream cheese. Begorrah!

Beaver Hike

Enjoying the drizzling rain our younger students had a wonderful time on our beaver walk. We were very lucky to have John Stella and Beth Moughty (Marina’s parents) as tour guides. John challenged us to search for signs of beaver and signs of spring. We counted four beaver dams in the feeder canal and a large one with a rushing waterfall over it on Butternut Creek.  There was evidence of chopped down trees and wood chips.  We also observed green plants in the canal and buds on trees and bushes on the brink of bursting forth with new leaves.  We were fascinated by the ways seeds are transported by weight, wind and stinking to animals and us! John brought a beaver skull that he found in California to loan to us.  Be sure to stop in a check it out!  

 

Electronics

It worked! These boys were thrilled when the circuit they built in electronics class lit up the LED (light emitting diode).  The hours of learning to identify, sort electrical components, and read circuit diagrams were successful! 

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 they could create their own snow crystals that will last through spring and summer.