Week 10: Fun & Games
At Silver Oaks, children spend a lot of time learning through play. Whether they’re playing math games, enjoying outdoor time, or involved in group projects like making complex structures from blocks, our students are always building on the “six c’s.”
It turns out we were onto something. According to Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University and co-author of Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children with Roberta Golinkoff, “Everything goes through the social.” In other words, we’re wired to learn from interacting with others.
To hear an interview with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek on NPR click here: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/769052767/the-key-to-raising-brilliant-kids-play-a-game
The Growth Mindset
“Growth Mindset” is a term coined by psychologist Carol Dweck, who encourages parents and teachers to validate kids’ efforts, rather than focus on their grades or one-off accomplishments. She believes that this approach teaches children perseverance, and builds resilience.
Dot Day
Sharing this reflection from teacher Annette Nelson:
Dot Day?!
At Silver Oaks recently, we celebrated “thinking outside the box” and “coloring outside the lines” for Dot Day, a day set aside by teachers in mid-September to encourage students to make their own mark on the world.
The story behind Dot Day is that teacher Terry Shay read the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds to students on September 15, 2009 and encouraged them to make their mark on the world.
It's a lovely book about a girl in art class who thinks she can't draw. Her teacher encourages her to just make a dot on the paper and then treats it as a work of art. Once the girl sees her dot framed above her teacher's desk she is inspired to make even more dots.
It’s wild that International Dot Day has become a phenomenon celebrated in 183 countries! Students all over are encouraged to harness their creativity, make their mark, and see where it takes them. It seemed like just the sort of thing that the SOCS community wants to celebrate.
Empowering the Artist
One thing I did before we started was to share with the students some “best practices” for painting, from the amazing, hilarious art teacher Cassie Stevens. We used watercolor paints but the rules are generally the same. Dip your brush in the water, wipe it on the lip of the cup, dip it in the paint and go for it!
The paint brush needs to dance on it's tippy-tippy-toes across the paper because no one wants to go to the booty-scooting-ballet! That ruins the brushes and makes for less detailed artwork. To ensure students remembered the rules, I dressed as a ballerina and danced around. It was a hit!
Since it was dot day, each child got a paper plate and painted concentric circles (or whatever they were inspired to do) to make their own "dot." The kids loved it! And, even though everyone had the same basic supplies, the variety they came up with was something to see.
P.S. You can purchase the book here.
A new year at Silver Oaks!
What kind of school did Mozart attend? I have no idea. And I don’t care that my children will never be Mozart. But I do care that they learn to be humans who can express themselves and can move and act with confidence and compassion in the world in which we live—particularly the natural world.
To that end I want to say, wow! What a wonderful first couple of weeks at Silver Oaks Cooperative School. As new members of the cooperative, we feel lucky to find a group of educators dedicated to leading educational practices. Silver Oaks offers a relatively affordable, parent involved education focused on social-emotional growth with plenty of outdoor time.
At Silver Oaks, my children are having plenty of outdoor time, including two outdoor “work” sessions a day. I put work in quotes because from a certain perspective, children shouldn’t be doing work, but rather playing. Increasingly, though, folks are realizing that play is work. And unstructured play sometimes seems to be relic of the past. What will the children do if not entertained? What will happen?
They will find something to do—right?
So far, I’ve reveled in my co-op days at Silver Oaks. There is a child-friendly rhythm. The teacher takes the lead, and I learn some helpful ways to interact with my children at home.
I’m so glad that Annette and Alicia decided to dream big and work with many, many others to make this dear school a reality.
I once heard, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” And isn’t that what we need right now? I feel like some pressure is off me now, because raising a child in this world is not just a two-person thing, it’s more like an all hands on deck thing, and at Silver Oaks many hands make light work.
Amy, mother to Isaac (K) and Oliver (2)
Spotlight on Silver Oaks Cooperative School!
Route One Fun Blog Spotlight
A lot of our families live in Greenbelt. We were lucky enough to be featured by this local blogger.
Science Thursday: Star Power
This week we discussed stars and constellations. We talked about the life and death of stars, including our own, and how our sky view will change over the next thousands and millions of years. We discussed how connecting stars to make pictures helps people find certain stars in the sky. Also, how the constellations were used to help with agriculture and navigation back in the day. We also all drew our own constellations out of the stars that make up Orion and Ursa Major. Finally we watched as a projector shined moving stars on the ceiling. A special shout-out to Annette for providing me with a constellations shirt to wear for the day!
Have a great weekend, Olga
Week 33: Eggs, Caterpillars, Butterflies, Oh My!
Christine: As you may have guessed, we are spending a great deal of time wondering, thinking and observing, and writing about these things. Our caterpillars are quite chubby now and we anticipate all five will be in a chrysalis by Monday. We’ve written our observations about Day #5 on Monday and Day #8 yesterday.
We have read Caterpillars and butterflies by Stephanie Turnbull, Bob and Otto by Robert O. Bruel, On Beyond Bugs! by Tish Rabe, National Geographic Kids Caterpillar to Butterfly, velma gratch & the way cool butterfly by Alan Madison and Kevin Hawkes, Miss Spider’s New Car by David Kirk, Butterflies for Kiri by Cathryn Falwell, A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, Dinosaurs ROAR, Butterflies SOAR! by Bob Barner, and Anabella Miller’s Tiny Caterpillar by Clare Jarrett.
Week 32: Field Trip and Fantasy
Alicia (lead teacher of the Oaks): It really was a spectacular week! In addition to all the dreamy fun, we just couldn't quite leave Chris Van Allsburg yet, so we read The Garden of Abdul Gazasi, Widow's Broom, Zathura, and Ben's Dream. We wondered which ones were fantasy and which ones were just fiction or another genre. We made our own quite brilliant comics. At the field trip, the children learned about the four stages of an insect's life, and got to see the stages in butterflies at the Wings of Fancy exhibit. The Oaks will return to this and research other insects as well.
Science Thursday: Metomorphosis
We had a puppet show about metamorphosis. A molting cicada and a caterpillar talked about life cycles and metamorphosis. The cicada molted, the caterpillar became a butterfly, and a good time was had by all. This was the year's final puppet show, which made some kids a little sad.
— Ogla, resident scientist