Multi-Age Grouping

Social development is all about a child's ability to interact with their peers and adults in a socially acceptable way. Being able to effectively communicate, listen and empathize with others forms the basis for healthy relationships and the ability to successfully fit into social situations both now and in the future. One of the many reasons for bringing groups of children together in the early years is to facilitate and enhance their social development; not only do they learn academically, but benefit from one another socially.

In our classroom, one can observe the Cardinals supporting a collaborative climate as they engage in cooperative learning. The older Cardinals serve as mentors and have taken on leadership roles as the younger children look up to them. We have witness the younger Cardinals as they provide endless opportunities for their older peers to gain patience as they help them communicate their needs, manage conflict, tie their shoes, “read” stories, and give a helping hand when needed. It is this type of learning environment that serves as a strong motivator for the younger Cardinals as they get to see that their friends have mastered what they are working on, which can grant them confidence.  It is a win-win situation as all the Cardinals are able to see themselves as progressive, successful learners.

This is our Cardinal family and in our “home” we all work together to help each other learn new skills, and master the old ones.

Painting Exploration in Art Class

We have begun our first media exploration in the art room, focusing on paint! The Cardinal artists have started thinking about different types of tools that we use with paint and together we looked at some different brushes. The Cardinals were very enthusiastic and thoughtful in sharing differences and similarities between the brushes.

They then tried out the brushes using watercolor and experimenting with mark-making. Along the way, students noticed that some colors mixed together to make new colors like purple, orange and green, while some colors mixed together to make black. We also discovered that the colors were lighter or darker on the paper depending on how much water we had on our brushes. 

The Cardinals are very excited to learn more about paint next week!

- Amanda, Early Childhood & Lower School Art Teacher

Building connections with our Middle and Upper School community

This week we ventured out and took a stroll around the inside of our school before heading outdoors. In our journey, we bumped into Erin Timmer, Kate’s mommy. Erin is our Middle School Social Studies Teacher. As we quietly walked down the Middle School hallway and passed the very busy classrooms, we saw Erin teaching in her class. As soon as she recognized us, she immediately invited us in. Wow! A “big kids’ classroom”! Thanks, Erin, for the experience!

As we continued on our voyage, we walked through the Upper School hallways. Once there, we decided to pay Kristina Denzel a visit. Kristina is our Upper School Biology Teacher, and is also Stella’s mommy!  We happened to pass by at a time that she was not busy. After a warm greeting to all the Cardinals, Kristina showed us around her classroom. We got the chance to see a lot of fish tanks with fishes and coral inside them. We learned that some of the tanks had salt water fish and some had fresh water fish. Kristina introduced us to her newest pet, a hermit crab. How adorable! Its “pink” shell was loved by all. Afterwards, we got to meet an albino gecko named, Apollo. Wow! He too was quite adorable to see. We even got the chance to pet him.

After a few minutes exploring the Upper School biology lab, we enthusiastically proceeded to the next part of our adventure, the outdoors.   Thanks Erin! Thanks Kristina!  We can’t wait to make more connections with our Middle and Upper School community.