Carriage House

December 10, 2022

Barn Owls

Authors and Illustrators: Lenape Stories

The Barn Owls have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on their Lenape Stories! They have diligently worked through the five steps of the writing process and were excited to publish & bind their “How to” books. Once they were complete, the authors were eager to share their work with different audiences. Starting with their own classmates, Barn Owls read aloud and shared their stories with their peers. Then they took their books “on the road” and shared them with the Fungi Friends, during our weekly Buddy Read.

Kiddos took great pride in sharing their stories and introducing their buddies to Lenape hunters, gatherers, builders, crafters and farmers. They are looking forward to reading their stories to other groups in the Randolph community!

Elder Guardians

Preparing for our Celebration of Learning

We have spent a lot of time these last three weeks finalizing the artifacts and logistics for our celebration of learning next week. Students cannot wait to show you their hard work at the inaugural Elder Guardian Museum. More on our process in next week’s newsletter!

Building Background for our 2nd Inquiry

While we have been finalizing projects related to our 1st inquiry, we are also building knowledge and skills for our second. Our next inquiry will focus on the history of New York state, beginning with the Haudenosaunee. Just like the last, it will combine reading, writing, science, math and social studies.

Before Harvest Feast, we reflected on what we already know about the story of Thanksgiving and the origin of harvest feasts. We watched the documentary Gather in order to build a foundational understanding of the historical and present impacts of colonization. The documentary also allowed students to begin this inquiry with the shared understanding that Indigenous resistance to colonization is ongoing. We read the text, “Harvest Feast: Beyond the Thanksgiving Myth,” to strengthen our understanding of the context behind what is now considered the “first Thanksgiving.” We also met with Brensa LaForme from the Iroquois Museum to begin building background knowledge about the Haudenosaunee. Students practiced taking notes to add to our whole class KWL (know, wonder, learn) chart which will be used to form inquiry questions for the first part of the unit.

We have also been exploring race and racism and are getting closer to co-creating definitions of social identity. Over Thanksgiving break, students completed race and ethnicity interviews with their families. This assignment gave students the opportunity to experience the content with grown-ups they are close to before jumping into this topic as a group.

In class, we have been engaging in a week-long collaborative lesson with Nina. Our focus has been on color representations in cultures, art, and media, contemporary examples of discriminatory policies, and ongoing resistance to anti-Black racism. We began with a chalk talk, a protocol that allows all students to engage with the content before discussing it as a group. Students then discussed their observations, reactions, and conclusions. Having a deeper understanding of race as a social construct with far-reaching implications in our society will follow us into our next inquiry, giving students the opportunity to examine our state history with a more critical eye.

Writing

Throughout the fall, students have been practicing writing. We write responses to texts, take notes during learning, and use writing in real-world applications such as thank you notes and invitations. While we always focus on getting their ideas on the page, students are also encouraged to apply the skills they are learning in phonics lessons to their spelling.

We have also been brainstorming topics for a narrative writing project that we will begin full-force after Winter Break. We have been reading from Writer’s Magic: Creating Stories that Fly by Gail Carson Levine and practicing different story ideas and techniques in our writer’s notebooks. Most students have chosen a story idea to take through the writing process next semester and are beginning to draft. Stay tuned for all the ways we are going to strengthen our writing in the months to come!

Community

We continue to strengthen our learning community by sharing about ourselves in Community Circle, working together to solve problems, and supporting each other in various ways throughout the day.

At the beginning of the year, class discussions would often result in students speaking over each other, with only a few of the loudest voices being heard. We’ve been working on changing this habit by calling on each other to share and reflecting on what they see and feel now that this behavior is shifting. Students have also been tracking data, calculating averages, and setting weekly goals related to these habits. They are also taking on more leadership roles by running Closing Circle and leading class discussions.

We’ve also been spending time with the youngest members of Randolph, another way in

which we are growing as leaders.

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