A Sneak-Peek Into Our Intentions
The Beginning School Team sent this letter to parents before the first day of the 2016-2017 school year. We’d love to hear the reflections of Opal School…
Tag: playful inquiry
Sharing Strawberries
In the spring, because our third graders had become so engaged with statistics of our global population, we decided to share some of the Material World…
Making pickles
Opal School exists not only to influence its immediate community: It lives to provoke change far and wide. We know that our workshops catalyze change –…
In This Tree Lives Hope
In the Magnolia Classroom community, the children have been focused on developing and learning to appreciate their connection to the natural world. They are practicing strategies…
It’s not about the towers, either
I start this post with a shout out to Allie Pasquier, whose recent Bakers and Astronauts post catalyzed this one. Her post examined how the…
What brine do you soak in?
Students in Opal 4 have been working to seek connections between some of their experiences in Opal 4 this year, the questions we’ve been exploring…
The Power of Illusion
The opinion piece is a famously third grade writing assignment. It is, in fact, Common Core English Language Arts Standard 3.1: “Write opinion pieces…
Thinking With Charcoal
Opal School third graders have been exploring charcoal as a language — a tool for thinking and expression. We began by asking: What can this…
Living in Questions
Visitors to Opal School are oftentimes struck by the quantity and quality of the questions they encounter here. At Opal School, we aim to live…
Listening to children listening to trees
As we aim to create a school founded in a strong image of the child, we need to constantly consider our image of childhood and…