The 79th Street Gate: A Lower Division Newsletter

Dear Lower Division Families:

Each Monday I am asked, “How was your weekend?” My response is usually something matter of fact such as “Too short,” “Refreshing,” or “Jam packed!” But more important to me is the question, “What did you do this week?”

At Garden, I am thrilled to be around students, and seeing students who enjoy school, are enthusiastic about learning, and who are communicative with people centers my work. I enjoy being with prospective families and telling the story of Garden School- who we are, our history, and the exciting activities and learning experiences happening each day.

Parts of my day focus on curriculum and learning programs. And I try to see this through the eyes of students, teachers, parents, or perspective families. While my area of concentration in college was mathematics, I am truly drawn to reading and its impact on students.

Today’s work with my colleagues in a Professional Development setting highlights on-going commitment as we all look to increase our skills, frames of references, and current methodologies. Watching students interacting with coursework and materials encourages us as educators to continually improve ourselves.

Expanding our scope of programs to meet the needs of families and our communities comes to the forefront as I walk our hallways. I see the pool and think about our Summer Program; I go to the gymnasium and shift to thoughts of our Physical Education, Sports, and Afterschool Programs; looking out our gates I see our buses and happily recall some students and bus drivers coming to campus.

Connecting with alums or inviting alums to collaborate with our students is very rewarding. Soon, our art and writing classes may have the opportunity to “meet” two of our alums, and more work with this resource is a goal for me.

Many days I struggle with “people or paper,” but data and its analysis help to clarify on-going projects, resource allocation and expansion, and dreaming BIG! Looking toward the future and our Road to 100 is quite pleasurable and professionally rewarding. Part of my day always includes parent communications, be it at arrival or dismissal, through phone calls and emails, or in-person. I treasure parent partnership.

Please read through this newsletter so you can visualize what students do during the week—they attend classes, they interact with curriculum, teachers, and friends, and they enjoy activities and programs. They, too, can dream BIG!

Enjoy, get outdoors, and enjoy the weekend. What will you be able to say when asked, “How was your weekend?”

Bill Vogel

Early Childhood

Our children’s literacy development begins or “emerges” right after they are born as they learn through observations and experiences as to “why, what, and how” people read in their daily lives. As our students enter our nursery some are already becoming familiar with some beginning concepts of colors, shapes, early math concepts, and the formal alphabet.

This past week we explored the letter Mm. We were fortunate to have a student whose name begins with Mm so she was able to wear the letter Mm crown to celebrate. We also looked for Mm in our calendar (March, Monday). We read four letter Mm initial sound books, and three versions of the story The Mitten. Coloring sheets and dot painting reinforced our sounds. Interactive computer programs and videos added to our lessons, with a more “formal” look at the letter as students make their way into our pre-kindergarten programs where word building, name writing, and sentences add to the journey of reading!

Communication is fundamental to children’s development. Children need to be able to understand and be understood. Communication is the foundation of relationships and is essential for learning, play, and social interaction. Language is how we get to know each other and build relationships. Very early on in the school year, the Pre-K students learned to express their needs and wants to teachers and peers. Learning to communicate involves learning to be part of a group. Teachers help children to feel secure and accepted by talking to their students in a calm tone and demonstrating understanding of what they say by listening closely and responding appropriately. Story books help children learn that spoken words can be put down in print. Books are read daily as part of our routine. Some are read for a particular purpose while others are read just for fun. The students in Pre-K have been seeing their names written on their projects, folder, backpacks, cubbies, etc. They also trace and write a name page each day. As part of our morning routine, name cards are shown to the group so good mornings can be said by all. Not only can each child recognize their name, but most can read all the names of their classmates as well. Letter recognition, both upper and lower, is reinforced as the children brainstorm words that begin or end with each letter. This is a quick way to review letter recognition, letter sounds, and evaluate learning. Children can be encouraged to love reading, writing, and language by reading aloud together, exploring the sounds of language with rhymes, alliteration, and sound letter connections. These young readers and writers are supported through daily activities both on and off paper.

The changing season is a topic we will be following closely this month. March winds have inspired us to read about kites. Kite Day by Will Hillenbrand is one of the books that we read. We followed up this book by making representations of kites to hang in our classroom. These kites were made from cardstock, yarn, and tissue paper. To help support this book we also viewed Jessi’s show on how to build your own kite. One of Jessi and Squeak's favorite things to do on a nice day is to go to the park and fly their homemade kites! In this episode, Jessi showed us how to build our own kites. She also told us how a little wind can send it soaring through the air!

This Thursday began our colors of the spectrum fun with the color red. We watched Red Kite, the story of an ambitious young kite who gets more than he wanted on a day of flying at the park.

This week the Kindergarten class continued learning about the Arctic, specifically the animals that inhabit these icy lands and waters. How do these animals adapt to the harsh climate? How do they protect themselves from predators or hunt for food? First, we focused on animals that have blubber, such as the blue whale, narwhal, walrus, and different types of seals. Then we learned all about animals that have thick fur coats or feathers instead of blubber, such as the arctic fox, wolf, hare, and snowy owl. Many of these animals camouflage with the snow in the winter, and then shed their white coats in the spring and turn a brownish gray! We couldn't believe these animals can actually change color based on the weather! Students engaged in different writing activities throughout the week to show their knowledge and understanding of these arctic animals. Each student chose different animals to write about in their sight word journals and described the different ways their bodies adapt in order to survive.

Grades 1-2-3 Cluster

March roars in like a lion and brings with it topics on wind, Pi Day, rainbows and leprechauns and other mythical creatures we have explored. In language arts the students are working on creative story writing that are connected to lessons in the classroom. Some students are eagerly composing stories about catching leprechauns and their treasures, while others are writing about giants or pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Topics that excite the children lead to inspired writing. At this age level the children are using inventive spelling techniques to help them sound out the words they want to write. The children are also incorporating simple sentence structures, like beginning with a capital letter, spacing words and ending with punctuation. As their writing grows editing will become more involved in the writing process.

The second grade language arts and social studies curriculums cross over quite a bit throughout the year, and this is one of those exciting times. The students have been practicing their presentation skills and sharing their time lines with classmates. We have been learning about famous inventors, and taking notice of the order of events and how they influenced the next inventions. We took a close look at the progress of air travel, and the children enjoyed a humorous and (mostly) true story called Hot Air, by Marjorie Priceman. It tells of the first hot-air balloon trip that included barnyard animals!

It's Women's History Month, and students have selected and are reading biographies of famous women. They will have the opportunity to work in small groups to share what they have learned and write a short book report. Students also will prepare and conduct an interview of their classmates pretending to be the historical figures they have read about. Finally, the second graders will present their interviews to younger grades over zoom. We can't wait to share what we have learned!

The third graders have been having fun with the peculiarities of the English language. Last week they explored homophones. They were surprised when they realized how many homophones they could come up with. We had a friendly competition of who could come up with the most homophones in two minutes. Congratulations to Daniela M, our winner! They drew pictures of homophone pairs and shared them with the class. Next, the third graders are learning about compound words. Hairdo, birdhouse, daylight, somebody, and stagecoach -- to name a few. Soon they will draw pictures of the two words that make up the compound words and try to guess each other's compound word.

Grades 4-5-6

Garden School’s emphasis on reading and writing in grades 4, 5, and 6 helps foster a love and appreciation for various genres and styles. Exposure to different writing styles not only builds interest in certain literature for students, but it also influences the way they write, too. The fourth grade, for instance, has studied realistic fiction and mystery novels this year, and they will begin a science fiction unit very soon. The writing styles of authors like Andrea Cheng and Andrew Clements have guided the class as they produced their own creative writing stories over the last several weeks. The class has learned to incorporate details from their own experiences and use rich, expressive, and detailed language to support the development of a setting, plot, and storyline. One student wrote a police mystery to be solved, while another wrote about the impact of a viral online video! Writing is also a collaborative process - the fourth graders spent time conducting peer revisions to help guide and enhance each other’s stories. Together they were able to share the excitement about their own stories while supporting their friends’ work as well.

The fifth grade has come to understand the importance of writing in an entirely different way - through the removal of its existence! The class is currently reading The Last Book in the Universe, a story in which writing no longer exists and technology reigns supreme. This post-apocalyptic world features a society that has become dependent on advanced technology, leaving reading and writing in the past. When asked why we write things down, fifth graders posited that writing “helps us remember things,” and “helps us share information, our feelings, or experiences,” and that without reading and writing, “information wouldn’t spread as quickly or reliably” and “there would be no history!” The class has realized that reading and writing can be a deeply personal experience. It helps store and recall memories - good or bad alike - and can influence future generations. The novel, Last Book in the Universe, presents the intriguing idea of literary immortality, and over the next few weeks, the students will write about a character whom they believe deserves such an achievement for their deeds. This style of opinion writing will encourage students to think about those who have achieved such greatness to be remembered forever through writing.

Sixth graders have also begun to understand the personal impact of writing as they write about their own individuality. As they continue to read The Giver and learn about Sameness - the community where individuality is suppressed - there has been much disbelief about how a “utopia” could take away some of the most important aspects of life - freedom, choice, and personal interest. Recently, the class created collages that represented the passions that make up their world: sports, travel, family, games, and more! Writing about themselves helped the class reflect on how such uniqueness creates excitement and intrigue, and without it, life is boring and passive. Writing will again usher the students into a deeper understanding of self as they partner with classmates to design their own utopian societies. This project will require students to consider which aspects of life they value and want to highlight for everyone. They will consider not just the physical layout of the world, but the intricacies of lawmaking, the social constructs of community, and the optics of their perceived “perfection.”

Garden School is fortunate to be able to continue expanding its technological capacities, too, in support of writing instruction. iPads and Chromebooks have supported multimodal writing instruction through word processing, interactive grammar games, and eased partnerships between classroom and remote students. Writing takes on many forms, and exploring all the different forms of writing invites students to find their niche.

If your child is entering fourth, fifth, or sixth grade next year, you are invited to learn more about the different styles of writing in a parent workshop hosted by Mr. D’Anna, the language arts teacher and dean, on March 25th at 6 PM . Please RSVP here by Monday, March 22, 2021.

Students across the Lower Division kicked off their celebration of Women’s History Month with a project inspired by the artist Faith Ringgold. Ringgold, a Native New Yorker, is still making artwork into her 90s. Her famed Story Quilts merge painting and sewing into a beautiful narrative. Ringgold’s Tar Beach was so popular that she turned it into a children’s book. The children made their own stories in which they, like the story’s main character, fly through the air to go anywhere in the world!

This week, the first and second graders, did portraits of their favorite women artists they have learned about this year in art class. The overwhelming favorites were Yayoi Kusama and Frida Kahlo.

A rainbow is a sign of hope and new beginnings. It signifies diversification and acceptance as in “rainbow coalition” which encompasses a wide spectrum of choices and views.

Students in the early childhood cluster explore color theory, beginning with color names and their order within the visible light spectrum. In science and art, designed activities foster examination of the relationship between primary and secondary colors. “Color” days help to reinforce these concepts.

The entire school community joins in to participate in Rainbow Week by wearing the designated spectrum “color” of the day; we started with RED on Thursday. Of course, GREEN is worn on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day!

Thursday, March 11 - RED
Monday, March 15 - ORANGE
Tuesday, March 16 - YELLOW
Wednesday, March 17 - GREEN
Thursday, March 18 - BLUE
Friday, March 19 - INDIGO/VIOLET/PURPLE
Monday, March 22- RAINBOW COLORS and RAINBOW MOTIFS

March 14th is famous for Pi Day, the day to celebrate the mathematical constant of π! As many of us know pi, being the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, as 3.14; our students in fourth through sixth grade were tasked to memorize as many numbers of this never ending number that they can. On Thursday, our students pulled out some impressive numbers with the most being 85 from Tenzin S in the 6th grade! Other top winners with Tenzin are Enrique M (4th grade) with 79 numbers, and Hajarshn B (5th grade) with 39 numbers. These three students are going to compete in our Pi Bee on Monday March 15th. Honorable mentions go out to Robert O, Victoria A, Arafat K, Giuliana V, Julian R David Y, and every participant!

On Monday, we will continue to celebrate Pi Day throughout the building with our Pi Bee, door decoration winner announcements, and other friendly games such as guessing the circumference. Events like Pi Day not only bring the school community together, it allows students to learn new ideas in a fun meaningful way!