Elementary School

Big Blue Blocks

by Chris Hollinger, PE Teacher & Director of AfterCare and Enrichment Programs

The Big Blue Blocks (BBBs) are here, and are capturing hearts and minds of the Friends School community! During the past week and a half, grades Kindergarten through fifth have had the opportunity to become familiar with this new and awesome addition to our playground. Each grade was separately introduced to the BBB’s. This served several purposes, including providing a low-stress environment when first using the equipment, age-appropriate comprehensive and inclusive discussions about safety and respecting school equipment, free play with like ages, and getting all kids involved in the pack-up process (cleaning up and storing BBBs).  

Already the kids have been using the BBB’s to:

• create forts with water systems
• organize and play their own sports games
• create and problem solve ball ramps
• engage in fair-trading
• build items from speeder bikes to lawn mowers to giant cats

We are excited to introduce the BBBs to the community at large!  You will see your child engage in unstructured, child-directed free play.  And when weather permits, we’ll bring them outside.

This kind of play is critical to a child’s intellectual, social, physical and emotional development. The three core elements to the BBB’s are: Loose parts, a manipulable environment and “Play Associates” (“Play Associates” are your loving teachers and staff, trained to oversee an open setting where children can direct their own play, while maintaining a safe and welcoming environment). A changing collection of moveable or “loose” parts lets children make each play session a new experience. Children play most creatively in settings that they can manipulate..  

Warning: With Big Blue Blocks, children are highly likely to have fun and learn!

Enjoy this short video of our students engaged in play with the BBB’s.

Third graders join Antarctica Expedition

by Meg Hansen, Director of Marketing and Communications

Third grade teacher Caroline Long is always looking for the next great adventure and thinking of ways she might weave it into an interesting lesson for her students. It’s just one of the things our students and parents love about Caroline and what makes her a great teacher.

3rd graders during one of their weekly video calls with the ship

Back in December, the great uncle of one of Caroline’s students shared something that sparked her interest. A 45-day expedition to Antarctica was about to take place and her students had the chance to be part of it. Through modern technology, a crew of scientists and marine exploration experts were allowing students around the world to track and interact with them via weekly video conferences as they boarded the S.A. Agulhas II on the Weddell Sea Expedition in Antarctica.

This program, offered through Reach the World, a nonprofit global education organization out of New York, connects schools with explorers and scientists around the world. It was the perfect segue to Caroline’s upcoming units on weather, explorers and other cultures. She started researching and even studied for a technical test she had to take over winter break in order to be considered for the program. She passed and she and her third graders were accepted into the program.

Caroline picked this particular expedition to share with her students for two reasons (with its connection to her curriculum):

One of the live video calls with the ship

1. Environmental impact– The explorers were looking at the Larsen Sea ice shelf that broke off near the Weddell Sea in Antarctica in 2017. In particular, they were studying global warming’s effect on Antarctica and the broken ice shelf’s impact on water levels, the environment and the rich sea life that exists in this region. (Curriculum link: The class is studying weather and, in particular, they are looking at how climate change impacts weather and changes the overall climate in the U.S.)
2. Finding the Endurance Shipwreck– Additionally, these explorers hope to use Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to be the first to find Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which was lost in an ice floe off Antarctica in 1915 and never found again. All members of Shackleton’s crew survived, but all missions to find the ship have failed. (Curriculum link: The class is studying explorers, namely the Spanish and French explorers who settled in Colorado, their country of origin, and what it took to travel all the way to Colorado.)

Weekly Expedition Notes from the ship

Caroline receives an email from the ship every Friday and on the following Monday the students learn of their assignment and plan their weeks around the call with a variety of experts on the expedition. Soon the students made connections with Holly, the main scientist on the ship, and began following her blog (many of our students used their time during Readers Workshop to read about the expedition). John Shears, one of the scientists on the ship, offered his thoughts on the expedition and the kids surprisingly learned that John won the Polar Medal from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Wow! The students began keeping logs of what they were learning, and a list of questions and what they wanted to learn from the explorers. They wanted to know a lot. For example:

1. What makes this expedition different from Shackleton’s Endurance and what would happen if the SA. Agulhas II got stuck just like the Endurance?
2. How on earth do they get all that safety equipment and people to Antarctica?
3. How do planes stop when they are landing on a sheet of ice?
4. What were the scientists learning about wildlife in Antarctica?
5. What does Antarctica have to do with Mars?
6. What are the explorers learning about other cultures since they are mostly just encountering animals?
7. We know a lot about collaboration at Friends School, but why is collaboration in Antarctica so important?
8. Tell us where flexibility, adaptability and unpredictability lessons were part of this expedition?

The answers are fascinating! See one of our third grader experts who would be happy to share answers to these questions and all they’ve learned about this project. (Teaser: You can’t touch or hug a penguin in Antarctica unless it’s on the runway, and NASA is studying Antarctica in the hopes it will help astronauts one day live on Mars.)

The students are particularly excited about their last video conference which will be a YouTube live stream with John Shears reflecting back on everything they learned on their voyage: has the climate changed and what are the effects, has the ice gotten thinner, and…did they find the Endurance? We can’t wait to find out! 

Alumna Phoebe Norman shares stories of her trip to Africa with 3rd graders!

It turns out modern-day explorers are all around us.You don’t have to go to Antarctica to be an explorer. Visits from two Friends alumni will bring modern-day expeditions right into the classroom. Phoebe Norman (Friends School Fifth Grade Class of 2011) visited 3rd grade last week, and Michael Hansen (Friends School Fifth Grade Class of 2007) will visit soon to share their own experiences of exploring the world and learning about new cultures. Through Where There Be Dragons, Phoebe went to Senegal and Guinea for three months and stayed with two different host families. She shared with the students about adapting to a new religion, living in different homes, eating/cooking different food in different ways, and learning new languages. The kids were all surprised to hear that in some places there wasn’t technology or access to WIFI and phones and that she was only able to communicate back home a few times via email. They loved seeing her pictures and learning about a new country and her experiences

Alumnus Michael Hansen at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

as an explorer. Michael will be visiting the students in March to talk with them about his annual college trips to Argentina to study their culture and business economy. After graduating from college, he traveled to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro where he was immersed in the African culture and completed this expedition that was both physically and mentally challenging. There were challenges and surprises along the way and times where he needed to adjust the course of his travels. But all of them were worth it for the people he met, the places he saw, and some of the unidentifiably delicious food he ate. 

Whether it’s Antarctica or Africa or just around our beautiful state, Caroline is always challenging her students to reach beyond their own cultures and learn more about our larger world. She hopes the Weddell Sea Expedition project and the real-life expeditions of their Friends classmates who walked our halls long ago spark a desire to continue to explore and discover new lands and cultures. It’s easy to search online for any place on earth these days. While technology can help us explore different lands and cultures, true exploration happens by actually physically traveling to lands near and far and immersing yourself in the culture.   

Which one of our current third graders’ future expeditions will inspire the next generation of Friends students to explore our greater world?

Coffee, anyone?

By Meg Hansen, Director of Marketing and Communications

The Coffee Cart

We all know that Friends School teachers, like their students, are lifelong learners. Constantly honing their craft and looking for new ways to engage their students, 4th grade teacher Emma Thomas and 5th grade teacher Leigh Houser put their skills and expertise together this fall to try something new at Friends School.  What resulted was a real-world lesson plan that provided not only a worthwhile hands-on learning experience for our students, but also gave our parents and staff a jolt to start their mornings.

Both Leigh and Emma began the year teaching all subjects to their respective students to establish community, rituals, and routines in their classrooms. They soon realized the benefit of each teacher sharing their own expertise with the other’s students. So began “content specializing” with Leigh teaching math to both 4th and 5th graders, Emma teaching literacy to both groups, and both teachers teaching combined 4th/5th classes in science and social studies. This thoughtful and meaningful approach to teaching gently introduces this age group to how middle school works, and the students get the best of both teachers.

So began the Coffee Cart project.

As part of content specializing as well as project-based learning, Leigh charged her students with coming up with a real-world business that they could set up and run by themselves, integrating all aspects of math. The business needed to anchor within it first unit of study in math, such as operations and numbers sense, addition/subtraction, division/multiplication. The students researched the best items to sell to our community including lemonade and baked goods and finally settled on coffee. Why coffee? What better way for our parents and staff to start their days on chilly autumn mornings than with a steaming cup of coffee. It turns out, it was the perfect product for our coffee-loving customers.

A few goals were set:

•     Kids do it all: prep, brew coffee (with adult supervision), grind beans, sell
•     All math is done without a calculator
•     Adult-only customers (sorry, coffee-loving kids)
•     Daily supplies are limited – when it sells out, we close for the morning

Preparation began several weeks in advance of the business’s opening day: Math, math and more math! Leigh worked with the kids on measurements, ratios, costs, and profits. Emma began working with the students on flyer and brochure design and writing persuasive pitches on buying our coffee vs. the other guy’s (focused on advocating for a particular “Be the Change” project that the coffee cart proceeds would support). Oh yeah, the coffee. What kind of coffee should they sell?

The students contacted Josh Crane of The Coffee Ride, a Boulder-based business that roasts and offers weekly bike-delivered coffee beans to local Boulder coffee lovers. Josh was excited to help the kids with their project and taught them everything they needed to know from how to brew coffee using the French Press, the ratio of grounds to water used, the different kinds of coffee beans, how to roast them, and finally what goes in to labeling and packaging the beans. Josh shared some of the real-life problems a business owner faces and of the ways he uses math on a daily basis to solve problems and run a successful business. He and Leigh even created “problems of the week” which the kids worked diligently to solve.

The students also learned about materials cost and calculating profit, based on those costs. Josh sold his beans to the students at cost and will be reimbursed from the profits they make from their weekly sales. Cups and lids were generously donated by EcoCup and school chef Dacia Horn supplied the sugar. After the purchase of four French presses and a supply of milk, they were ready for opening day.

The Coffee Cart opened for business on October 15 and served its final cup of coffee on December 20. For those two months, twice a week before school, rotating groups of 4 students held specific jobs including brewer (with adult supervision and delivery), sales, barista, price calculator (without using a calculator), cashier, and customer service. On those mornings, parents gathered with their cups of delicious steaming coffee while they took a few extra moments to enjoy conversation with each other. Teachers rushed over before the start of class to get their cup of enjoyment. A time or two, a thoughtful parent delivered a piping hot beverage to the staff on parking lot duty. The vibe on the steps of the elementary front porch was the same as a buzzing, happily bustling coffee shop.  

The profits:

The students received weekly accountings of their sales and studied gross and net sales, tips, and even replied to happy customer reviews through their sales app. After weighing all of their options, they decided that proceeds would fund their campaign to Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots project. Roots and Shoots is a youth service program that challenges students to map their community to determine its potential problems and help make a change. Leigh and Emma’s students will focus on homelessness as their community project and their work on the Roots and Shoots project will tie into the 4th/5th grade current social studies “Be The Change” unit.

Leigh already has plans for future hands-on math units anchored in real-life projects including fractions (cooking), geometry (tiny houses, raised garden beds), data and probability (games and surveys). Emma’s upcoming literacy lessons include narrative writing (witness statements and character writing for our upcoming government unit), a book club focusing on different kinds of American experiences, and a deep dive into the following questions: Who has power in the US? How did they get their power? How do we use our power? 

Yes, content specializing by our dynamic teaching duo of Leigh and Emma, and projects like The Coffee Cart, prepare our students for middle school and gives them a chance to interact with a larger social group. Perhaps more important are the real-life skills like collaboration, communication, relationship building, and teamwork that, mixed with rich academics, prepare kids to thrive beyond the Friends School walls to become engaging, contributing, life-loving citizens. Just what this world needs right now. Pass the cream and sugar, please.

Wing Art Project

Art is everywhere at Friends School! These beautiful wings are a collaborative project by Kindergarten through 3rd grade (in the coming months, look for permanent wings on the playground). Meanwhile, 4th grade is “tagging” the playground with positive messages using chalk spray paint and homemade stencils. Look on the 5th grade windows to see their “hopes and dreams” outlines/portraits. Want your own wing photo? Go to the Art & Music room!