Dear Harbor Families,

You may have noticed, in the arrival line yesterday morning, that the lead teachers were not outside greeting the students. The reason? Following a full faculty meeting with KID Museum educators, teachers stayed upstairs to further develop plans for our collaboration, which will begin next week!

Next Thursday morning, along with their teachers, students in all grades will explore various skill-building workshops, ranging from weaving and hand-sewing, cardboard construction, using our 3D printer, print-making, and coding with a robotics tool called Hummingbird. These skills will lay the groundwork for maker-centered projects that will emerge from students' interests, guided by the teachers and with support from our KID Museum partners.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Spiral curriculum is that we don’t know the direction our inquiry will go! As classes engage in the design cycle together - exploring, creating, and iterating - they make discoveries and develop understandings, all the while applying skills of reading, writing, math, science, technology and engineering, social studies, and the arts.

Over the years, through our professional collaboration with the KID Museum, teachers have explored what KID defines as “the mind of a maker”, dispositions that we intentionally develop and help grow that will serve students throughout their lives. There are eight dispositions that we will continue to revisit in our planning throughout the inquiry process - imagination, reflection, perseverance, skill building, exploration, initiative, teamwork, and perspective taking. I’m sure you will agree that each of these are essential to success in a complex world, whether you are three years old or nine years old - or for that matter, an adult.

In the beginning phases of our Spiral experience, students have expressed interest in a variety of topics related to Nautical Exploration, including marine animals (both modern and extinct), transportation (I understand that submarines have been mentioned a lot!), and marine navigation. Throughout the upcoming weeks, our classes’ inquiries will develop and take shape, as they continue to ask questions and explore various resources. Using the skills they develop in next week’s workshops with our KID colleagues, they will create projects to represent the depth of their learning (no pun intended).

It was a pleasure to have many of you join us at last Friday’s Open Classrooms event to brainstorm ideas of topics with the students. If you (or a friend or relative) are willing to share your knowledge of or experience related to anything nautical with the students, we would love to hear from you!

Warm regards,

Leah Musico
Head of School