Mr. Wizard, aka Buzzy Dale, Mystery Guest

The New School now has its own Mr. Wizard! Buzzy Dale (Chloe's father) is sharing his love of teaching science and knowledge as we explore electricity and magnetism. His first demonstration had the children enraptured as he demonstrated how electricity flows through conductors, and is stopped by insulators. He also demonstrated how materials vary in their resistance and how electricity creates heat and can be used to do work. The use of a blow torch caused all kinds of excitement! There is more to come!

Phil Brill, Mystery Guest

Phil Brill, Valor's Grandpa and author of a children's book, The Red Bottle, was in town visiting his family. He offered to come to school and share his real life story that inspired him to write The Red Bottle. He shared the lovely story of his trip to the beach where he found sea glass. He talked about the process of turning this experience into a book. The students were intrigued with Phil's illustrated story boards that became the pictures in his book. The students had to search for the hidden bottle in each picture! Students are now busy taking turns reading the four signed copies of The Red Bottle that Phil was generous enough to give to The New School.

Sam Van Aken and his Tree of Life

On Thursday, October 30, Sam Van Aken was our third mystery guest of the year. Sam created, using grafting, a tree that can bear 40 different kinds of stone fruits. The children asked their yes/no questions and quickly determined Sam had come to share something about trees. But then we challenged them, in the remaining minute, to figure out his specific interest in trees. Asher, one of our older students, had his hand raised for a good 30 seconds before Sam called on him. Asher nailed it by asking Sam, “Do you cut a part of one tree and add it to another one?” Sam proceeded to explain how he got started six years ago. After learning about an orchard at the NYS Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, which was home to over 200 varieties of plums and apricots, he began experimenting with "sculpture through grafting." We will take all the children to SU’s campus in the spring to view one of Sam’s trees planted on SU’s quad.  We can’t wait to see the tree in its multi-colored splendor. Some of us will return in the summer to sample some of its fruit!

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/08/trees_40_fruits_sam_van_aken_syracuse_university_food_inspiration.html

Margaret Bourke-White Field Trip

On Thursday, October 16, 2014, nineteen of our oldest students visited Syracuse University’s campus to view Margaret Bourke White’s exhibit of 180 vintage photographs taken in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England and Italy in the 1930s and 40s.

Prior to our field trip, Andrew Saluti, Assistant Director to SU’s Art Galleries, visited The New School as a mystery guest, and then proceeded to share with the school the significance of Margaret Bourke White’s work – her passion for photographing industry, people, and her documentation of World War II. It is hard for today’s youth, familiar with instant access to information, to grasp how Bourke-White’s photographs in Life Magazine informed the world. Andrew was also able to show and explain how different the process of taking photographs was in the 1930’s. Children were also amazed to learn how large her camera was! Andrew is gifted when it comes to engaging children of all ages in a sophisticated topic. His presentation was masterful.

At the exhibit, the older children used Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to study two photographs. The discussions that ensued were facilitated by graduate students in SU’s Museum Studies program. Finally, students were given time to view the entire exhibit and to identify photos they found especially meaningful. We are indeed lucky to have such resources in our community and couldn’t be more grateful to Andrew for hosting such a rich learning experience for our students.

Highland Forest, October 2014

In many schools children are taken on camping field trips to celebrate the end of the year, as a reward you might say. At the New School we visit Highland Forest twice a year. The first time is scheduled near the start of school, and the second trip is within weeks of the end of the school. Without question, the most important field trip is the first one because we continue to reap its rewards all year.

Giving children two days of outdoor activities where they can explore nature in a picturesque setting helps them get to know each other. It is amazing to watch children spontaneously gather and work together to build fairy houses, shelters, or to simply play games filled with imagination in the woods. These shared experiences help children build relationships that carry over and benefit their school experiences for the rest of the year. We expect each child at The New School to be able to work with every other child in the school. This is a huge expectation, which the children meet time and time again.

This year’s Highland Forest adventure provided hands-on opportunities to examine tree leaves. We looked at pinnate, palmate, parallel veined, and lobed leaves. We classified leaves and painted them. Children in groups of four or five built shelters from available resources in the forest after being told they only had 30 minutes to accomplish the task. They enjoyed this so much they want to return in the spring to spend two hours perfecting their architectural designs. The younger children looked for birds nests and other signs of birds in the forest. We all sang and danced around the campfire and listened to great books during the day and at night after snuggling in our beds after the lights were turned off. The greatest reward was that the children loved their time in the woods and getting to know each other. 

Glimpses of After School at The New School

APRIL

We studied branches cut from a great variety of shrubs and trees, making drawings and labeling them as we thought about how they were different and how they were the same.

In the following days we created nests, weaving the beautiful curly willow, red osier dogwood and other slim strands, wondering how the birds manage the challenge without hands!

Of course, we next were inspired to put eggs in our nests, and spent many days using hard boiled eggs and empty shells, decorating them with dyes (which sometimes colored our hands more brightly than our eggs), acrylics and tissue paper collage.  Using push pins and a turkey baster bulb we blew raw egg from its shell, with riotous horking sounds.  Caroline took the slimy mess home to cook for her dogs.  They loved their omelet.

We made many fairy houses, inside and outside, and played fantasy games and ran around.  More kids joined After School the day of the Science Celebration, so we had an extra exciting afternoon.

MAY

We spent time finishing up work and projects from the day program, and continued to create our end-of-year secret gifts for classmates.  We liked making props for the Variety Show, and talking about what we’d be doing in the show.

Mary came to do yoga with us outdoors one beautiful afternoon, which was fun and challenging and relaxing.

We took a garden walk, talking about ideas for putting in our own garden, making a list of plants we’d like.  We played with hula hoops, batted whiffle balls, kicked up a soccer game, played basketball and catch.  The good weather is truly here.

We continue to play fantasy and wizarding games outdoors, and come inside ready for read aloud.  We have been exploring stories about respecting difference, and about cooperation, taking our time with the books, thinking and talking about what we hear. 

Socrates Trial

Socrates was found innocent! At his trial at The New School, our children rewrote history. The re-enactment of the trial of Socrates marked the culmination of three months studying Ancient Greece by the entire school. To set the stage, children created a set showing the hills of Athens and the Parthenon set against Corinthian columns. Everyone was dressed in robes and while the jury deliberated everyone munched on stuffed grape leaves, hummus and feta cheese.

         The action began when Socrates and his three accusers (Anytus, Lycon and Meletus) entered the court and took their seats. Socrates was charged with not worshipping the gods and corrupting the young. Meletus (Agnes Coleman) was the first to present his case. She said, “It is a disgrace to our city that a man who does not worship our god has a better life than some people who pray and chant up to our god.” Then came Lycon (Ace Wischman) who argued that Socrates “is a danger to Athens and the citizens of Athens. He is a danger to the law…ruining our city.” Anytus (Max Newman) made an impassioned plea, “Now my own youth is a drunkard and Socrates is responsible. Look at what this man has done to my son.”  Xanthippe, (Maia Gostin) Socrates’ wife, made a plea to the court, and was escorted by guards (Asher Creel, Ben Foley) out of the room. (Women had no place in the Athenian courtrooms.)

         Then it was up to Plato, (Nora Vancalcar) and Chaerephon (Jake Aretsky) to support their friend and colleague. Chaerephon argued that the oracles of Delphi had confirmed that Socrates was the smartest man in all of Greece and accused his enemies of jealousy. Plato eloquently used an analogy to explain that “without knowledge we are but prisoners who spend our entire lives in a cave.” What was the danger of “asking questions?” After all “we learn from asking questions.” Finally Socrates (Neona Krabacher) spoke. He said, the charges brought against him “are the result of rumors that Athenians have heard since they were children.” He trusted that the Athenians, will think for themselves and find him blameless. Throughout the trial Socrates’ friends Cristobulus, Apollodorus and Adeimantus ( Alaira Otteson, and Juliette Waters) kept a record of all the trial proceedings, writing down the information on their papyrus rolls.

         After listening to these arguments the jury of eleven 2^nd and 3^rd

 grade children found Socrates innocent! Jury member, Greer Foley argued amongst her peers, “There is nothing wrong with asking questions.” Mae Cohen said, “He is a great teacher.” Lola Gostin agreed, “He believed in the Gods. He said it. Asking questions is not a crime. He just wanted his students to learn from a different perspective.”