Posts in Class Notes
Liz's Class Notes

The senior learners are making progress on their projects. Vivi is busy crocheting a shirt, while Nina has designed and sewn two skirts using donated clothing. Dutch is studying photographers and taking photos, and Nate has developed a recipe and baked a healthier version of a pop tart. Aidan is editing sports videos, and Aylin is creating beats of different lengths. Sophia has made a timeline of the modern prison system, starting with slavery, whereas Augie has created a timeline of Judaism and identified several Jewish foods that represent part of the Jewish story. Indie is researching and growing mushrooms, Jazzy is testing tricks with her older dog while learning about animal behavior, and Ava has baked croissants and cream puffs with plans to bake more French pastries. Everyone is hard at work and learning a great deal.

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Liz’s Class Notes

We are fully engaged in our Senior Learner Projects. Each class member is embarking on an ambitious long-term project that aims to develop their expertise and culminate in a performance or presentation for a larger audience at the end of the year. In May, we will invite local community members to view and evaluate these culminating presentations, which highlight the extensive work involved.

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Lucy’s Class Notes

Over the past month, we have been deeply engaged in our roles as museum curators for the Hayground Museum. We have reviewed all of the audio files from our interview process, listening carefully for important information and special stories that capture the essence of our community.

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Art Studio Notes

Students have been hard at work bringing our Gaudi-inspired collaborative sculpture to life, which will soon be featured in the Parris Art Museum’s Student Exhibition. Drawing inspiration from natural forms and organic architecture, they have been painting the structure and embellishing its surface with fabric, found objects, and a variety of materials to create a textured and dynamic piece.

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Kitchen Class Notes

This week in Jeff's Kitchen, we embraced the cold and did a deep dive into the world of soup. Starting off the week learning about the making of Dashi (traditional Japanese broth) for this year's first miso soup, and ending the week using locally grown and donated potatoes for potato leek soup.

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Science Class Notes

This week in science, students discussed the meaning of biodiversity. As a class, students worked together to define biodiversity in words, then translate this into illustrations. These illustrations came together to create a biodiversity mosaic, where the students hope to educate others of the meaning and importance of biodiversity through art.

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Marybeth & R.J.’s Class Notes

Earlier this week we set a firm end date for our sea lore projects. This has kicked off a flurry of productivity as the children, sew, paint, illustrate and craft their way toward their end goals. Simultaneously we have begun to shift our focus toward the next phase of our work - nonfiction stories of the sea. We had a wonderful first discussion about what history is and comments from eager participants included things like, “History is telling a story about something old,” “It is something we should know about - it is important,” and “History isn’t now because we changed it to make the world better.”

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Lucy’s Class Notes

This month, we began the new year by creating vision boards to help foster a productive and motivated mindset. Students reflected on their goals, interests, and passions while brainstorming new things to try and skills to develop. This activity allowed them to start the year with clarity and excitement, laying the foundation for a successful and creative year.

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Liz's Class Notes

The kids enjoyed their first week at The Watermill Center with Philippe Cheng. Philippe engaged them in a discussion about self and identity, focusing on passports. They explored the information found in a passport and the format of portraiture. In the coming weeks, the kids will create their own passports to further investigate self and identity.

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Marybeth & R.J.’s Class Notes

As we begin the second week of December we are immersed in the world of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The children are loving this tale of adventure, magic, romance, and conspiracy. They are exploring the meaning of the text in their scene rehearsals and through our annual art project, The Shakespeare Scramble. The “Scramble” is a collaborative project whereby partners illustrate a line of text in the form of a multimedia poster.

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Julie and Jackie’s Class

Our class is busy, busy, busy. We are proud to have finished the projects for our Upcycled Design Challenge, and look forward to donating them to the youngest students at Hayground—if we can part with them. The kids were inspired after visiting the Watermill Center and seeing the art of Lucien Shapiro, who used objects found while beach combing on Shinnecock beaches.

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Lucy’s Class Notes

What are useful ways you utilize a surfboard? I hope you’re not thinking surfing, because we want new, innovative, out-of-box, answers only! We all brought in random everyday objects and brainstormed new ways we could use these objects. Other than a surfboard, we analyzed a spoon, brick, floss, a mask, a juicer, and much more!

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