Category Archives: From the Classroom

Eighth Grade Project Night

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The Meadowbrook journey is marked by many traditions and rites of passage. MWS students grow up watching the activities and accomplishments of the older students knowing that, one day, it will be their turn. In this very different school year, we are doing all we can to continue our best loved traditions albeit in new ways.

Each year, Grade Eight students choose something they would like to learn about and organize a project, with goals and deliverables, around it. They find an adult with the relevant expertise to act as mentor and spend several weeks immersing themselves in their chosen topic. Notes and progress are recorded in a project journal to inform their presentation materials. Usually the students set up exhibits of their work at school and invite the students from the other grades to visit and ask questions. On Project Night, the eighth graders gather on stage and present their work to their class and families. As they were unable to gather at school this year, our resourceful students made their presentations over two nights via Zoom.

Ian’s project was to create his own brand and design a clothing line. He writes, “One of the reasons I chose this project was because I like designing pieces of clothing and I wanted to learn more about marketing and running a startup business. My ultimate goal for this project was to develop my own clothing line and to learn how to market it. I also wanted to acquire knowledge in marketing strategies.” He designed a logo for his brand as well as different ways to apply his designs to clothing and shoes.

 

Whitman also worked with graphic design to create his own baseball cards. He says, “I chose this project because since I was seven, I started getting baseball cards and the cards’ different designs and artwork fascinated me so I wanted to make my own.“ “I love going to the baseball card shop down the road from my house and looking at all the different old cards and new cards. I love the thrill of opening a pack and wondering if you are going to get a rare card that other collectors would buy for hundreds of dollars or strike out. “

Whitman first drew the baseball players and scanned them into the computer before using Adobe Photoshop to format his designs into baseball cards.

 

Liam says he had always been interested in electronics, and likes taking watches and things apart to see how they work so, he thought, why not build a computer? “During this project I learned to be patient, not to rush, and that you can do anything if you just put your mind to it and focus. I think this project was also really amazing, because even though I built the computer for my eighth grade project, I can still use it at home. The timing was also perfect, because as soon as I finished building my PC, I needed it to do home-schooling. Overall I am very proud of my work, and I can’t wait to show everyone what I have built!”

 

Robbie also chose a project with on eye to building something he would like to own. He wrote,  “Electric skateboards are super fun to use and have become a modern day mode of transportation. I chose this project so I could have fun making an electric skateboard but mainly I wanted the end result. I wanted to own my own e-board.”

As several of the students found, the COVID-19 social distancing rules presented a challenge to completing projects that needed the mentor’s presence to check the work or help with manufacturing. Robbie has built the electric motor with remote control that he needs. He looks forward to completing construction of the maple deck so that he can ride on his finished e-board.

 

Caitlyn’s project met a different need. “I chose skin care because I have yet to find a product that works with no problems for my skin. So I felt that by researching substances I would be able to create something that works.” Tracing the history of skin care back to before the days of Queen Cleopatra, Caitlyn learned how skin care has developed through the ages. She also learned about different oils and moisturizers, their therapeutic qualities, and the role of preservatives. Her family report that the skin care products she has made work very well.

 

 

Scarlett studied hairstyling. “I have always been interested in different braids and fancy ways to style hair and I wanted to explore and learn more. My goal for this project was to learn how to properly treat your hair, what products and tools to use, and I wanted to experiment and create different hairstyles. I enjoyed doing my eighth grade project, and I learned that there is a lot more to hairstyling than just a brush and some hair elastics. It takes a lot of practice and the right technique to create great hairstyles. I had a lot of fun and I am looking forward to using my new skills in the future.”

 

Shaw decided to learn guitar and he presented his new skills by singing and playing the Johnny Cash song, ‘Ring of Fire’. Shaw says that his years of strings lessons helped him with the learning process. “What I think I got out of in this project was, always trust the process. You can panic or be anxious but always stay on track no matter what. I’m especially happy about the way I improved as a person through this project with patience and care towards what I was doing.”

 

 

Julian also sang and played for his project presentation. “I decided to do a home audio recording of music. I chose to record a cover of a song that I really like and one that is not very familiar to most. It required me to work with vocals, guitar and keyboard, sometimes through a new and challenging way that was well worth it.”  Recording at home provided lessons on acoustics and Julian also learned about the technology used to digitize the music.

 

 

 

Ellis really enjoyed putting her project together; a piano medley that she composed herself. “The goal of this project was to have three or more completed songs that I played all together as one piece. My first idea was to choose three different songs from different time periods, but in the end it became a Beatles medley.

“The main skill I learned while I was doing this project was learning many different chords. I learned how to listen to a song, play the base notes, then apply the chords to the base notes.” Ellis performed her composition for the audience from home.

 

Christopher presented his project from his uncle’s workshop. A keen baseball player, Christopher had decided to make a wooden baseball bat. “ I originally thought I would just get a chisel, sanding paper and go to work. I did not know that a lathe was even a thing.” He explained the bat making process for the audience and showed his early attempts before presenting the finished article. “I’m hoping when I go out into a game, I am able to use the baseball bat that I made. I look forward to hearing the sound of my bat when I hit the ball but I sure do hope it does not break.” Christopher says that his project has definitely sparked his interest in woodworking.

 

 

Although Seth’s original goal of making an electric turbo fan was thwarted by issues due to the pandemic, he set himself a new goal of making a hand crank generator. He writes, “I did begin to dive deeper down the fascinating rabbit hole of how motion is related to electricity. I began to learn more about how mechanical movement can be used to generate electricity, and about how electricity can produce mechanical movement.”

Seth says that making a hand crank generator was easier than he had imagined. “The best thing I learned from doing this project was the knowledge that I gained about the fascinating world of electricity.  I’ve only just begun a lifelong interest with generators, motors, electricity, engineering, and mechanical design.”

 

Andrew learned about mechatronics; technology combining electronics and mechanical engineering. The goal of his project was to make a toy car that moves automatically by working with both electrical and mechanical systems, as well as robotics, computer programming, telecommunications, systems control, and product engineering. “So, break all that down and its Hardware (Body) and Software (Program) combined in one. A major part of mechatronics is programming I used JavaScript.” After some challenges finding the right amount of voltage to make the motors work, Andrew changed the code and produced a car that worked just as he had planned.

Mary chose to make a baking recipe book so that she could collect together her favorite recipes as well as some that her grandma had been using for many years. “While doing this project I learned how to make new things and all new techniques.” Mary was awaiting arrival of the print edition of her book but her project exhibit included photographs of a mouthwatering array of treats. “This project was really fun and I will keep on baking and trying new things.”

 

 

 

Jack’s project was to craft a climbing wall and pull-up bar and he also learned to climb. “Climbing is a sort of adventure that when you climb up a wall you don’t know what will happen and where the holds are. Climbing also helps work your mental state in the way that being up high on the wall and relying on yourself to go farther is a large mental burden sometimes. When I first started climbing, I found it hard in that my physical strength was just as weak as my mental power. When you’re climbing it is good to have a friend or partner watching or helping you because it helps boost your confidence.” Jack built the wall in his garage so now, when he can’t go to a gym, he has one at home.

 

 

Caroline chose photography so that she could learn how to use a professional camera and become better at editing photos. She began by researching cameras to buy but then a friend lent her one that she didn’t use anymore. “I started playing with my camera a lot and kind of got the hang of it. I still wanted help with my camera so I started taking online courses to get the camera on manual mode and to get better at it. At the time I was just taking pictures of the beach and sunsets. Two days before the project was due my mentor reached out and asked if I wanted to go on a shoot with her. Luckily my subject was also free and could model for me. We walked around town and found cool places to take pictures. It was a really great experience and I think the photos turned out well.“

 

Congratulations to all of the students on their hard work, and thank you to the mentors and parents, and also Mrs. Goldman, who made it possible. As well as new knowledge of their chosen subjects, the students learned valuable lessons in perseverance and flexibility on the face of unexpected developments. Project Night 2020 was a resounding success – well done all of you!

Third Grade Farm Trip

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Contributor: Diana Carlson, Class Teacher of Grade 3 of 2015-16

I have just returned from spending a week with my third graders at Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, New York.  We had a great time!  The students baked bread, made butter, and cooked supper for their classmates and teachers.  They planted seeds as the spring leaves popped around them in the April sunshine.  They woke in the chill dawn to feed and water the cows, chickens, pigs, and horses.  They also rode those horses, and cleaned those cows’ barn, and looked for eggs in the hen-house.  They skipped stones and waded in the river and ran and climbed trees, with old friends and new.  In the evenings they sang together, and practiced being quiet together so that everyone could settle down to sleep.Farm Trip 2016

Farm Trip 2016

The farm trip meets the developing nine-year old in many important ways.  For most of my students, this was their first extended time away from their family.  The nine-year old is developing an individual interior world; for the first time they realize that they can have thoughts and experiences that are theirs alone.  The experience of the farm trip, although shared with familiar classmates and teachers, is an individual, personal life experience outside of the family round.  Many of the students expressed surprise at how little they missed their families; they almost felt a little guilty at first, as if their self-sufficiency denied their affection for their families.  When the families arrived to pick up their dirty, happy children on Friday morning, the students were thrilled to reconnect and share their experiences with their parents and siblings.  They experienced that a separation is not a severing, and that they are able to have individual experiences and still remain connected, even over distance and time, to their loved ones.  This foundational experience gives the child the confidence to move out into the world in ever widening arcs as they mature.

We had the opportunity to share our farm experience with students from the Primrose Hill School in Reinbeck, New York.  The children enjoyed getting to know one another and see how another Waldorf third grade can be similar and yet different.  We knew many of the same songs and poems, we were following the same curriculum as outlined by Rudolf Steiner, we were the same ages.  And yet we had different class cultures, different personalities.  By the end of the week however, the farm teachers commented that the groups had integrated so harmoniously that they couldn’t tell which students were from Meadowbrook and which were from Primrose Hill.

The farm experience deeply connects the child to the third grade science and geography curriculum.  Now these students really “know” cows – their size, their smell, their slick noses and rough tongues, their beautiful eyes and placid natures.  To know a cow in this way is to have a deeper connection to all that comes from the cow – butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, leather, hamburgers.  The students also gain an understanding of the amount of work that creates their daily meals.  One student commented on how difficult it was to clean out the barn – how strenuous, how smelly, how relieved he was to never have to do that again.  And one of the farm teachers remarked, “Yes, and think – somebody has to do that every day or you would never be able to have ice cream!”  The realization that all we enjoy is derived from the work of others cultivates gratitude and a true understanding of the interconnectedness of our world.

Farm Trip 2016 IIThe experience of being at the farm planted seeds of understanding in the hearts and minds of my students.  I look forward to watching these seeds sprout and blossom in the years ahead.  I am grateful to Meadowbrook and to the parents of the third grade class for making this trip possible.

Parenting in the Digital Age

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MWS and the Human Development and Family Studies program at URI are co-sponsoring a showing of Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age on Sunday, April 10. Tickets are $10 and must be purchased in advance. Click here for tickets

Physician and filmmaker Delany Ruston decided to make the documentary Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age when she found herself constantly struggling with her two children about screen time. She felt guilty and confused, not sure what limits were best, especially around the use of mobile phones, social media, gaming, and how to monitor online homework.

Click to watch trailer

Click to watch trailer

The recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) regarding children’s use of media have remained largely unchanged for 15 years. With children now spending more time on entertainment media than they do at school, the AAP is proposing new guidelines that stress the need for parents to be active in managing this aspect of their children’s lives. “Parenting has not changed”, proposes the AAP, “The same parenting rules apply to your children’s real and virtual environments. Play with them. Set limits; kids need and expect them. Teach kindness. Be involved. Know their friends and where they are going with them”.
However, screens have become so ubiquitous in our culture that many parents feel overwhelmed and unable to determine what is best for their children. In an interview with the New York Times Dr Rushton says, “The worst thing a parent can do is hand over a smart phone and hope for the best. But parents often feel like trying to set limits is pointless, that the cat is out of the bag, tech is everywhere. I hear all kinds of excuses. But kids’ brains aren’t wired to self-regulate. They can’t do it without you, and they shouldn’t have to.”
The film weaves real life stories with scientific evidence and insights from experts in child development, brain science, and psychology. Boys and girls use media differently, leading to different issues. Stories include that of a 14-year old girl who fell victim to social media bullying, and of a boy whose love of video gaming took him from straight A student to internet rehab. Because young brains are not yet fully developed, children and teens are particularly vulnerable to the effects of screen use. The film includes findings from recent studies about the impact of media on for children’s ability to learn and to reach their full academic potential.
Screenagers gives parents practical ideas for creating a healthy digital environment for their families. It suggests ways to work with teens to help them build good habits and to balance their on-screen lives with the real life experiences. The film is intended to spark discussion between educators and parents as well as with teens. We all live in the digital age and only by working together will we be able to ensure that this technology changes our lives for the better.

Play is Serious Business

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Imaginative play is essential for the healthy physical, emotional, social, and academic development of the child. Waldorf Education recognizes that when children are given a safe and beautiful environment they use the power of their own imaginations to create learning experiences. Hasbro invited Meadowbrook kindergarten teacher, Su Rubinoff, to share her expertise with its innovation design team.

Su at Hasbro (1280x1022)

Hasbro is a leading global play products company based in Pawtucket, R.I. with many well known brands including Play–Doh, Transformers, Scrabble, and My Little Pony. Most of us will remember games such as Monopoly and Candy Land from our own childhoods but Hasbro has since added a new generation of electronic toys and digital gaming, and continues to look for new ways to play. MWS alumna, Ceileidh Siegel, is currently the company’s Director of Imbedded Innovation and leads a team working on design ideas intended for production 3-5 years from now.  Ceileidh says her job is a mix of the Tom Hanks role in the movie Big, where a 12 year old wishes himself into an adult body then lands his dream job of professional toy tester, mixed with Shark Tank, the television show that ruthlessly investigates the viability of new product ideas.

Playstand PoniesIn 2015, Ceileidh’s team hosted a Hasbro “Summer Camp” focusing on the reinvention of two core brands.  Her group worked with members of the company’s Marketing, Design, and Engineering, teams with the intention of providing timeless favorites, Baby Alive™ and FurReal Friends™, with a timely new twist. These lines feature play characters for young children that encourage patterns of role play and imagination. As a foundation for their work, Ceileidh felt that an in depth perspective on children’s innate need for play was essential for the group. She particularly wanted them to understand the importance of nurturing role play and what it brings to the developing child.

Cassandra with her doll

Cassandra with her doll

Having experienced play–based Waldorf education at Meadowbrook from early childhood until graduating from grade 8 in 1997, she decided to invite MWS kindergarten teacher Su Rubinoff (known hereabouts as Miss Su) to share her expertise with the Hasbro group. Su has worked with children for more than 40 years and holds a Master of Science degree in remedial education. She has devoted many years to the study of child development, investigating the connection between sensory and academic learning. Su, who has known Ceileidh since birth, was honored by the invitation but also a little nervous so she enlisted the help of another MWS alum, Cassandra Duda, for technical assistance. Cassandra graduated from Meadowbrook in 2013 and is currently a junior at the Lincoln School. After researching the school archives, she created a PowerPoint presentation with photographs of young children at play to accompany Su’s talk. She also brought along her favorite childhood toy, a doll named Ellie. Ceileidh says that Cassandra’s input was tremendous, “She brought the team on a lovely digital journey from the forest kindergarten, through Su’s trips around the world, to show the global drumbeat of play.  She was poised and articulate speaking about her connection to the doll, the weight of its bean bag body and the rituals associated with it including purchasing clothes and accessories on family visits to Germany each summer”. In reflection, Ceileidh shared how her Meadowbrook education prepared her for the presentations she gives today. “Making my own textbooks reinforced that I really needed to know the subject from the inside out and from every angle.  It gives me a great sense of calm because, if you know the material the way we are required to at Meadowbrook, there are no “gotchas”… you literally wrote the book (well, now it’s a PowerPoint) .”

Hasbro CS (1280x799)

Su received an enthusiastic welcome from the Hasbro team. She explained that play is not just something children do for fun or to pass the time. Play enables children to make sense of the world and it establishes the foundation of future learning. Unstructured, imaginative play activates the entire brain resulting in the building of new neural pathways. Activities practiced in play that are associated with communication, memory, self regulation, and problem solving, help to develop the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning and critical thinking. Play is also essential in learning how to interact with others, promoting social as well as self development. Children learn by exploring their environment through their senses, translating what they see and feel into a picture of the world and their place within it. For healthy development, it is important to surround the young child with beautiful and meaningful experiences that encourage trust and confidence in the goodness of the world.

Su told the group that children learn predominantly from imitation in their early years. They are not ‘little adults’, although they are driven by a strong desire to behave like the adults around them. Children imitate daily living when playing with dolls or stuffed animals, thoughtfully recapitulating the tending and caring they themselves have experienced. Children as young as one year old can be seen bending over a little crib to kiss a doll. New skills are also learned in this way. When feeding, brushing hair, or dressing their ‘babies’, children are learning how to care for themselves.

Dolls appear throughout history and in every culture, made from a wide variety of materials including cloth, grass, corn husks, plastic and clay. Children’s touch is sensitive so the intrinsically warm qualities of natural materials, such as wood or silk, make for a deeper connection than might be formed with toys made of synthetic materials. Children also see themselves in the doll, bringing it to life through their own imagination. Waldorf dolls have tiny eyes and, perhaps, a simple stitch for a mouth. Su described how these small, neutral features allow the child to explore a wider range of emotions and experiences through creative play.

Six months later, the Hasbro group is still talking about the insights Su provided. Building on the knowledge that play where the child takes the role of nurturing a toy is instinctual, they are considering ways to augment imaginary play instead of replacing it with lights, sounds, and motion.  Ceileidh surmises, “Su really made it abundantly clear that the power of play and imagination is the strongest force in childhood, and the foundation for growth and success later in life.”

Ceileidh calls Meadowbrook the place where she learned how to learn. She credits Meadowbrook with helping to develop her innate internal motivation and is convinced that Waldorf Education’s consistent focus on what you do with knowledge, rather than on reciting the facts you know, resulted in her being very well prepared for work in the innovation era. “At Hasbro”, she says, “We have the privilege and responsibility for making some of the world’s best play experiences”. When it comes to the essential business of children’s play, that sense of ethical responsibility carries great importance. No word yet on what changes will be made to Baby Alive and FurReal Friends but, as a Waldorf alum leading the way, Ceileidh will likely succeed with her persistent request that a toy be just as much fun when the batteries are dead.

Click here to see some of the photos Su showed at Hasbro