Embedded Files
In the Studio (and out) With Nina
On October 28th, we celebrated our annual Masquerade Parade! The Masquerade Parade has been an annual tradition at Randolph for many years and is always a beautiful part of our curriculum. Each year we choose a theme for our masks and this year’s themes came from shared stories. Evan shared a different animal-rich story or book with each class and through this story they chose an animal or plant (or non-living thing!) that inspired them. They used reference photos, their books, and of course their imaginations to turn either a plain paper plate or a sheet of felt into their creature.
We all started by going through the stories and making a list of all the animals and plants in each story. From here, each child chose their mask inspiration, from a rock to a red tailed hawk and everything in between. The Upstairs kids spent some time sketching their plant or animal and mask ideas and designs. Then we spent a few days carefully crafting our masks using felt, foam, hot glue, feathers, paint, and sharpies.
The masks are beautiful representations of animals and plants that we share our space with. For our parade, we gathered in the amphitheater for singing and sharing our creations, and then made our way up the driveway to share our beautiful masks and spirit with the folks passing by on 9D. This is always a favorite experience- getting drivers to honk as they pass, hearing passersby cheer for their masks and just being joyful together.
If you’re interested in the stories, they are:
Brother Wolf (Fungi Friends)
Trout are Made of Trees (Robins)
Every Autumn Comes the Bear (Kittens)
The Turkey’s Gift (Barn Owls)
How the Turtle Flew South for the Winter (Elder Guardians)
Notes From the Field With evan and Amy
The Curriculum is Falling!
The Curriculum is Falling!
When you're curriculum is nature-based, the leaves. are the stars these days. There is so much we can learn from a leaf. Check out how each group has been learning from the leaves.
Randolph Field Guide:
Upstairs groups have been working on creating a Randolph Leaf Field Guide. They have been collecting various leaf specimens from around our campus and examining them closely. They are learning the scientific names for different parts of their anatomy and reveling in the biodiversity that surrounds us.
Field Science at the Creek
We are so lucky that our campus is full of a different species of trees. Together the children collected red maple, sugar maple, silver maple, red oak, river birch, catalpa and tulip poplar leaves. A few Upstairs Neighborhood children hiked down to the creek to learn to find some different leaves; sycamore and American beech.
Leaf Bouquets
Leaf Bouquets
A few of our Elder Guardians wanted to collect the fallen leaves to create a bouquet to add some seasonal flare to their lean-to. Their creations turned out to be so beautiful and intriguing that several younger friends wanted to try their hand at leaf-arranging. Of courser, our elders were well equipped to be teachers to their younger friends.
The Great Potato Sort
The Great Potato Sort
Randolph School grew a lot of potatoes. 674 to be exact(thank you, Carriage House kiddos). There were a few different varieties and so many differences between each potato. But, our potatoes were all mixed up! What a perfect challenge for our mathematicians in the Downstairs. The Fungi Friends examined our potato collection and looked for similarities and differences. We sorted our potatoes into three categories, small, medium and large. Having the potatoes sorted by size will help us start planning how we can use them for our Harvest Feast next month. Yum!
A Potato Challenge for Every Age:
See how our curriculum adapts to meet the needs of learners at different stages:
It's always great to have Michael on hand to help us sing and celebrate. After a hard morning counting and sorting we all needed to dance and giggle.
Musical Storytelling with Michael
This week Michael took inspiration from our time with Evan Pritchard. In small groups the children identified three main animal characters that featured prominently in Evan's stories; snake, turtle and opossum.
Michael used rhythm and movement to help the children act out their animal parts. Then, each group created their own tale using these characters, rhythm and movements. We talked about the different parts of a story, setting, plot and resolution and had fun finding creative ways to tell a story with just our bodies and sounds.
Back in the Stacks With Siobhan
Back in the Stacks With Siobhan
Dear Siobhan: Mask Research with the Upstairs Neighborhood
In order to make their masks this year, the Robins and the Kittens needed some information. One day a couple of weeks ago, some letters arrived on my desk in the library.
So I got to work pulling books I thought would help these friends find the information they needed about bears, trout, mosquitoes, bears, foxes, and rabbits. Then we gathered on the porch and got to work.
We used tables of contents and indexes to find the specific animals we were looking for. And if we couldn’t find what we needed in books, we turned to Encyclopedia Britannica Elementary, an online resource that is great for basic information, images, and videos and has many kid-friendly and pre-reader friendly features. You can access it at home through this website: novelnewyork.org.
The Upstairs Neighborhood kids love books with “real-life pictures” in them (aka, nonfiction books with great photography) and they ended up borrowing a lot to take back to their lean-tos to explore further. We adults call this research, but to our kids it’s just a fun time to gather around a book together, looking at beautiful photographs and learning interesting facts about animals. Even better, it helped inspire their mask-making. Hopefully, we’ll get many more opportunities to do this throughout the year.
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