We partner with the A Year at Mission Hill project because we believe in its premise: Through looking carefully at quality in varied educational contexts, we can find common threads. This week’s video looks at assessment. It asks a profound, complicated question: How do we know what children are learning – and how do we …
Sometimes “Highlights” and “Ask Me About” just can’t capture the week. We need pictures! Historically Accurate Play in Opal 4 has moved – geographically and chronologically. We are now in the city of Boston in the year 1775. The first invitation into this new time and place was a map study of a few historical …
You might remember that back in September we wrote about sneak peeks. We talked about them as a way to get to know one another, share stories and laugh together. Those pieces are still visible, but it is now April and sneak peeks have changed and grown some – just as we have. Every Monday we still …
A few months ago, it was hard to open a newspaper or turn on the radio without running into Paul Tough and his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (see, for example, this episode of This American Life.) As the title suggests, the book highlights the fundamental relationship between …
As we discussed on Literacy Night at Opal School last week, the writing component of Literacy Studio in the upper grades at Opal School is inspired by what we call genre studies. In a genre study, students read many published examples within a chosen genre to figure out what the author of those pieces did …
Read more “What does a Genre-Based Writing Study look like in Opal 4?”
What is Literacy Studio? Literacy Studio is an approach to developing increasingly sophisticated reading and writing skills and attitudes through the application of the arts, lived experience, and mentor texts. Examining the course of study over the last month in the Opal 4 classroom provides insight into this methodology. Mentor Texts In Literacy Studio, we write under the influence …
With all of our talk with Opal 2 students in this first month of school about intentions, some questions have come up about the process of being intentional and thinking about our thinking. Together with the children we’ve wondered: How do you have intentions but still stay open to possibilities? Are there chances to be surprised and …
The final goal and expecation that we have for Opal School students is this: Develop strategies that contribute to the quality of the community by having a keen sense of place, identity and belonging while respecting the rights and identities of others. In the end, it’s about understanding the complexity of a community that intends …
In second and third grade this year, the “big idea” we are studying is the concept of interdependence. This idea of each living thing having its place in a system that relies on it and that it relies on can be studied through almost anything. We have begun to study it through the world of insects. …