I was able to spend about 45 minutes observing in each of the Children’s House classrooms this morning.  As the Director of Education, part of my job is to provide support for the teachers, while also ensuring philosophical consistency across all levels of the school.  I love to see what’s happening in the Children’s House classrooms.  And the best part is that observing also makes me a better teacher in my own classroom!  This morning I witnessed so much concentration among the young children of our school.  I also noted some ideas to help extend or invigorate learning.  I look forward to meeting with the Children’s House teacher teams later this week to share ideas and strategies.  

When I came back into the elementary, various children were anxious to talk with me about their work.  We recently added a new weekly poetry job.  Each week one person memorizes and recites poetry for the class.  The poet of the week can work on memorizing one poem to share, or select a new poem each day.  The six-year-old who was assigned the job for this week decided to focus on Emily Dickinson, and opted to recite a new Emily Dickinson poem each day.  She was so excited that as soon as I re-entered the room she wanted to share how much of the poem she had memorized.  Another student had been working on creating new recipe cards and wanted to check in about the next steps.  Someone else wanted to work on calligraphy.  Two girls approached me about rounding numbers.  Meanwhile a group of older students were working through number base conversions, one boy decided some map research would enhance the story he was writing, and a few younger students were studying the flags of Central America.  How nice to walk back into a learning community bustling with activity!