Wonderful World

Inspired by the work of Eric Carle and Leo Lionni all the students at The New School first made paper for their collages. Using acrylic and tempera paint on matte and glossy papers, textures and designs were created with various objects. Then students were asked to identify a repetitive shape from a landscape and to create a pattern. The landscapes displayed reflect the wonders of our world – the sun, volcanoes, ponds, flowers, trees, lightening and underwater coral reefs.

Giant Steps by John Coltrane

The children listened to John Coltrane’s Giant Steps and were asked to paint what the music made them think of. We then read Chris Raschka’s book of the same title. As they painted children shared their visions:
Giant Steps made me think of:
Marina: the ocean and how it is so active.

Maia: the wind is blowing the leaves around, crazy like.
Mae: a cheetah, sneaking up on its prey and it is raining, so they are under some trees. The cheetah is hiding in the grass.
Lola: first a pencil forming. Then I thought of a snake going really fast. Then I had this feeling it was roaring. Now I noticed that it is like Snoopy’s song. Dancing on the instrument.
Savannah: calm water and a crazy sunset.
Gulliver: a rain forest
Ace: the past and present and the future. That is why I decided to draw a castle and a building.
Alaira: a park with lots of trees during a rainy day.

Sarea: rain, squiggles and hearts.
Muta: jail in the rain.
Dash: two people playing music making people fall asleep.
Greer. people and cats and lots of animals being loud and making noise.
Jonas: Max, Ben, Eyeruse and me sitting around a table listening to music.
Ben: a platform with a whole bunch of different colors flying around it.
Max: something completely random, weird telephone booths, sprouting out of the ground and a rain forest growing around in circles. People walking crazy.
Eyeruse: colors and all random shapes popping up in different places and disappearing.
Ciara: people dancing and a stage with music notes coming out.
Autumn: total chaos.
Zerbie: movement, chaos, within order and dancing.
Monae: a stage with people dancing and swirls around them and disco balls.
Neona: people dancing in a dark room with sudden light.
Nick: a chase scene.
Martin: swirly swirls of different colors, abstract dots of different colors
Nora: colors.

Anthony Salatino is Mystery Guest

Anthony Salatino became this year's first Mystery Guest at The New School. Tony is the choreographer of Syracuse Stage's production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Our smart children were able to figure out in 3 minutes why he was at the school and then Tony answered their questions. 

Here are a few examples: 

Lola:  (re dancers, especially the creatures capturing Aslan)  They must have a lot of practice.  Tony: Yes!  They had 5 weeks of practice.  We call it rehearsal.

Dash: Did you decide when they were dancing around in a circle?  Tony:  That’s a good point.  They didn’t want Aslan to escape, and the way they showed they needed to keep him was with a circle.  A circle can mean different things.

Nick:  Were the noises the animals made real animals recorded?  Tony: Yes, for the Lion’s roar, and the Wolf.  The rest of the sounds were from the actors.  Nick: The Lion and Wolf could also be made by the voice.  (Gives examples.)

Mae:  I was looking at the table when Aslan was gone.  He comes from back of the theater.  Why does he do that?  Tony: He comes from the back of the house—of the theater to make it dramatic.  He’s coming from the other world.

Bubbles

Everyone has played with bubbles at some point in their life. However, many people may not think about what a bubble really is. What makes a bubble a bubble? Six of the students in grades 4-7 investigated the science behind soap bubbles through hands on experimenting. While we were doing our experimenting on bubbles and their properties, we recorded our findings to each experiment on charts. Then we discussed our data together as a group. Areas of bubbles that we focused on were surface tension, cohesion of molecules, clustering, the variables that lead to so many different brands of soap and the properties that lead to a bubble popping or not popping on particular surfaces.

Shakespeare Lives

During snack each week we have been listening to the plays of William Shakespeare as retold by Bruce Coville. We started with Romeo and Juliet and then moved on to the dark tragedy, MacBeth. In our discussions we have talked about the characteristics of a tragedy and spent much time getting to know Shakespeare's characters. Which ones did we most admire, revile, or enjoy? Soon we will move on to learning more about William Shakespeare, the playwright and how theaters were developed in the Elizabethan era. Once a month Shakespeare Movie Night will allow us to watch Shakespeare in action. The first film we watched was West Side Story. A lively discussion followed about why Leonard Bernstein changed the ending of this version of Romeo & Juliet. After learning about William Shakespeare and hopefully building a model of the Globe Theater we will listen to Midsummer Night's Dream and enjoy memorizing some of Shakespeare's famous words.

Place Value

In our place value class, five students learn how to use the number grid to quickly add and subtract numbers. Along the way, students explore how there are many ways to get a single answer. Students learn the value of the ones and tens place, as well as how to move up and down the hundreds chart by other methods than simply counting by ones. We are exploring the different patterns that can help students navigate the chart.

The Dragonling Book Club

Sometimes doing what is right is not what is easy. Four of our younger students are learning about this through the book The Dragonling by Jackie French Koller. Here students try to put themselves in the shoes of the young boy in the book, Darek, who is going against the wishes of his village in order to save the life of a young dragon. Throughout the book, students are asked to reflect on key themes that run through the book such as loyalty and values. Would you be able to go against the norms of society in order to do the right thing? The students try to put themselves into Darek’s shoes by writing diary entries, having group discussions and using this book to make connections to other books, the world and their own lives.