Elementary School Museums

By Franziska Laskaris, Elementary School Assistant Director

It is incredible to imagine how quickly the year has flown by with less than two months left of school! Despite the quickly approaching summer break, our students in the elementary school are hard at work. At a recent faculty meeting we took a moment to reflect on how much work our students have put towards their classroom museum. Each year the classrooms work to create museums for friends and families to view as a display of their learning and many talents. The faculty all agreed our students did a wonderful job this year developing ideas for projects, writing endless paragraphs, and rehearsing for live theater and movies. Each classroom took its own approach in deciding what to present and how to engage the students in the process of many hours of preparation.

Anderson Room students analyzed jobs and created props and costumes to become, for example; a toy maker, tap dancer, or police officer. The Chapman and Krisberg Rooms, both exploring neighborhoods, worked collaboratively with the art teachers to develop buildings and small props in order to design their own neighborhoods. Students took many neighborhood walks and learned how to identify the difference between a commercial or residential building. The Emily and Longobardi Rooms studied the Brooklyn Bridge and all of its majestic history. While one class decided to build an extra large model of a bridge, the other developed a play about the history of its development and completion. The Mott and Whittier Rooms provided scenes of life in an Iroquois longhouse and offered different perspectives on what life was like for Native Americans. The Cuffe, Fox, and Fell Rooms have been heavily involved in their study of Immigration and took their guests on a journey to distant lands with digital stories of immigrants, created a news story, and proudly displayed their writing. Classes on the fifth floor spent months learning about exploration, with a focus on Marco Polo and Columbus. The Penn and Levi Rooms decided to focus on the similarities and differences between the Taino culture and Spaniards. The students demonstrated stark differences between the cultural groups and shared their learning of the unfortunate violent history between these different worlds. The Fry Room decided to re-enact the trial of Columbus upon his return to Europe. The trial was well rehearsed and truly convincing!

Thank you to all of our families who came to honor the work of our students. We hope you are as proud of your children as we are!