Desmond Daniels, a familiar face in the Lower School community, has become even more familiar as he spends his Senior Independent Project (SIP) shadowing Andrea Emmons. Seniors at AFS are required to do an independent project before graduating, which gives the opportunity for Seniors to experience something they love. This could be working on a project that they have not had the opportunity to do, deepen/enrich previously learned skills, or work in a career setting. Desmond chose to work in a career setting of his dream job. . . one day being part of educational leadership and working in education management.
Fourth graders recently finished creating the floor plans
for their dream house project, a fun project that was an extension of our study
of area and perimeter. The guidelines
set forth were that each house needed to have between six and eight rooms,
include two composite shapes and have a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom.
We recently learned how to find the area and perimeter of
composite shapes (a figure that can be divided into two or more basic shapes,
such as squares or rectangles) and we wanted the students to apply what they
had learned. We also stressed the
importance of knowing your multiplication facts when finding the area of a
rectangle or square because it is much easier to multiply length by width than
to count each square on grid paper!
First grade students have been immersed in researching the animals featured in fairy tales. They have read multicultural versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. The black bear, gray wolf and the pig are the three animals from these tales that students have delved into researching. Students have been inspired to write a poem about each of these animals. The poem about the black bear was based on the poem Sleep With A Bear by nine year- old Yana Nicole. https://allpoetry.com/poem/11760970-Sleep-With-A-Bear-by-Yana-Nicole 
One of the many ways in which we pride ourselves here at AFS
is the planning time made possible for all classroom teaching teams to meet
with the resource teachers. It is an excellent opportunity to enhance all of
our students’ learning when a classroom unit of study can be integrated with
resource classes such as music, art, science, library/tech, and of course español. This connection contributes to
a greater awareness of the interrelationship of our school’s dynamic J programs and makes learning more relevant.
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| Connecting over a shared kindergarten interest- reading! |
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| One on one with some challenging chess moves and rules |
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| Multiple players with set rules and a need to read |
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| Collaborative play includes compromise and flexibility |
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| Collaborative art map |
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| Working together for a common purpose |
Without hesitation, a class discussion ensued about how we could raise money for an animal for the classroom to adopt, such as a red panda. All of a sudden, two long lists were brainstormed of how to raise money for animals that need our help and the class' art, nature and animal passions collided into a beautiful idea. Stay tuned for further information on our end of the year project that, as one parent, described our kindergarten class as developing into "social entrepreneurs!"
