Articles

Literacy in Early Childhood

Literacy means more than just learning to read. It encompasses reading of course, but writing and speaking are equally important components. We all know that the wonderful sounds babies make are early attempts to communicate with us. We nurture those sounds as children grow so that they develop a vocabulary and eventually meaningful conversation. Few…

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Social-Emotional Learning at Bennett Day School

We live in a global society, and today’s students will inherit a world that doesn’t yet exist. Social-emotional learning is vital in children being able to first and foremost understand themselves and then meaningfully relate to others—whether in their Kindergarten classroom or half way around the world. By integrating social-emotional and academic learning through literature,…

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Bennett Day School Curriculum Design Approach

In building a program from the ground up, Bennett Day School has the extraordinary opportunity to develop our curriculum with intention and joy, unconstrained by “what we’ve always done.” In order to ensure our objectives, assessments, and assignments remain relevant, we adhere to a curriculum design framework called backward design. This framework allows us to focus…

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What We Learned at Namaste Charter School

In early May, the Bennett Day School founding team participated in Namaste Charter School’s Learning the Namaste Way: Educators Starting a New School workshop.  We learned about Namaste’s core values and how they infuse their classrooms, hallways, and school culture with these values and resultant goals. Shuchi and I attended a breakout session on parent involvement where we took…

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Inside the TinkerLab

In our last post, we told you a little about the philosophy behind the Bennett Day School TinkerLabs. This week, we’d like to give you a clearer picture of what these incredible learning spaces offer children and the role they play in the greater learning experience. Modeled after Malaguzzi’s aquarium, these spaces will be full…

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Space: The Final Frontier of Education

How Bennett Day School’s TinkerLabs are peeling back the walls of the traditional classroom   What does your child’s classroom do to improve the learning experience? What comes to mind when you picture a classroom? If you went to a traditional American school, you’re likely picturing a space that contains neat rows of desks, a…

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Friday: The Digital Atelier

On Friday, we got to get our figurative hands dirty in one of ten ateliers that were arranged for us.  I chose the Digital Atelier in large part because I am increasingly interested in the effective technology integration in the learning context. Seamless technology integration: that’s what I was hoping to explore. Well, I couldn’t…

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