StoryBook Projects – Tuesdays – 5-7 year old
Students gather around Ms. Jen’s table, reading their individual “Chapter 1”s. Precious, furry mice are tucked in children’s hands, as they deliberate their next chapters. Each child continues their storybook, inspired by Mouse Soup. Ms. Jen circles round the story, acting as scribe while students invent plots, twists, and characters of their picture books.
“Lucy read a book to her grandmother over the weekend,” one mother exclaimed, during pick-up. “For the first time ever! What do you do in that class?” Through games, theater, co-reading, and art, students are brought into the immersive world of stories to develop a love of books – that hopefully lasts a lifetime.
Outdoor Architecture and Building – Wednesdays – 7-10 year olds
The trees on the Acera playground are glowing red and orange in the afternoon sun, and Ms. Estee’s architects and builders are learning how to transform their designs into real built structures. Big ideas and dreams get tossed around during brainstorm sessions, and the very detailed work of measuring, adding strength, finding balance, and working together makes for hard, focused work. Students take a play break, visiting freshly cut trees across the school yard – an opportunity to study the anatomy of the tree, and the sticky, oozing, sugary sap that draws a line of ants. “Why do you think a tree keeps it’s sap so close to the surface? What’s the role of bark?” Students smell the fresh scent, count rings, traverse their small hands along the waves and crests of the husky bark. “Protection!” We feel the tree’s ballooned stretch marks, and notice the directionality of the grain. Students regroup the following week in the woodshop, where they use that same knowledge of grain direction to select pieces for their new construction: a tree house!
Registration for Trimester 2 is open! For a full schedule and program descriptions, visit our Afterschool Enrichment page.
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