The Frosty Diversion

The Edgewood Winter Assembly is never without surprises. But this year's was probably the most stunning of them all. There were outstanding performances from vocalists Christina Semple and William Goh, as well as the Edgewood String Ensemble. And there was Sajiv Mehta, this year's Teacher-in-Charge for a Day, who tag teamed with Teacher-in-Charge Mr. Yang to emcee the program with Dr. Houseknecht. But let there be no mistake. The Winter Assembly has become known for one haunting question-- "Who do you think will play Frosty in this year's Winter Assembly?"

Edgewood News runs an online poll in the days prior to the assembly. The voting is wild and never predicts the actual winner, but it's fun to watch the tallies roll in! Among the highest votes went to Nurse Duffy and 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Nedwick. In the end, our Frosty turned out to be Mrs. Pinto's teacher's aide, Mr. Destefano, who called in "sick" that day giving us this one unforgettable moment as Mrs. Pinto's students erupted in sheer jubilation after Frosty's identity was revealed onstage. Happy Holidays everyone!
- Paul Tomizawa

Watch Video of Frosty Dancing

Being Thankful

Mr. Brown and Ms. Forte lead
4th grade chorus

During the Thanksgiving Assembly, the fourth grade chorus sent its audience a reminder, intentional or not after a testy presidential election, that despite our differences, people have more in common than they realize. Here's a sampling of the lyrics from their song Colors of the Wind.

You think the only people who are people

Are the people who look and think like you

But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger

You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Nice touch before sending the Edgewood community into a holiday weekend filled with reflection and gratitude.

Classical Cafe: Tablas

For the first time in the history of Edgewood's Classical Cafe, we heard a performance featuring the Indian percussion instrument called tablas. Our Edgewood reporter, Christina Semple, sat down with Ronak Sheth and compiled this piece for Edgewood News.

Have you ever heard of the Tablas? Our friend Ronak in Mr. DelMonaco’s fifth grade class has not only heard of them, but he plays them beautifully!! Ronak recently performed at Classical Cafe on the Tablas, and of course, he was amazing!! We spoke to Ronak after his performance. He talked about about the Tablas and his personal experiences with them! Listen here.

Redesigning Room 18: A CfI Grant

Room 18 Grant

What Could we do with Room 18? It’s what we’re asking of Edgewood students and teachers. Take an empty classroom and contemplate the use of space. Remove the classic classroom structures and redesign the room to encourage contemporary thoughts on learning and teaching.

Room 18, which was formerly used as a classroom, has become our laboratory for experimental thinking on instructional redesign. The lead research team includes Marilyn Blackley (4th grade), Matthew Fitzpatrick (art), Lisa Forte (music), and Paul Tomizawa (technology). The team is supported by Dr. Scott Houseknecht and William Yang, along with other staff.

Our goal, with the support of a Center for Innovation grant, is to use this space to springboard ideas that seek to re-envision existing classrooms and prompt thinking on how space impacts teaching and learning. Room 18 is an environment that will provide flexible learning spaces and materials to help us develop collaborative and problem solving skills.

It’s where, through the principles of Design Thinking, we can research and tackle problems, whether they are located globally or in our own classrooms. It’s where teachers and students can imagine the potential inside their own classrooms.

Teachers are perpetually intrigued with reconfiguring their rooms, for the sake of igniting student activity, but the exercise of moving and removing pieces of furniture, often leaves teachers faced with the dread of eliminating the structures that support a longstanding curriculum.

Our hope is that Room 18 becomes the antidote to that dread, providing a sandbox for redesigning classroom space and curriculum experiences, while better meeting the needs of today’s diverse learners. Our hope is that this space is where teachers and students will come to be inspired, using the tools and materials they will need to some day contemplate the question: “What could we do with our own classroom?” -- Paul Tomizawa

Team Special

The tallest nest tower at 15"!

What does the first day of school sound like? At Edgewood this year, it included over a hundred children shouting encouragement to their teammates during a special collaborative event in the gym. For the second year in a row, the out of the classroom teachers banded together for a unique Scarsdale event. These "special" teachers --Mr. Brown, (music), Ms. Forte (music), Ms. Houston (Spanish), Mr. Fitzpatrick (art), Mrs. Stokes (library), Mr. Weigel (PE), and myself (technology), organized two interactive events on the first day of school. One for students in Grades 1 & 2 and a second for grades 3-5.

Students were randomly selected to represent their teams, Blue versus White (yes, our school colors) to compete in activities that reflected their knowledge and skills in our special areas.

Students showcased their Spanish knowledge by slapping a fly swatter on top of images that matched the spoken words. They were challenged to alphabetize themselves by their last names. They shot free throws and tossed balls through hoops taped to the wall. They organized simulated "lunch waste" into the appropriate compost and trash bins. They pushed themselves to engineer a tall nest made of pipe cleaners to provide a safe haven for an eagle's egg. And they screamed encouragement to their classmates as they scrambled to arrange the bars of a xylophone in the correct musical order, shown below.

We're told this event only happens at Edgewood. And we know it afforded our classroom teaching colleagues a common preparation window, which is especially needed at the start of the new school year. But most important, we watched highly motivated students compete with skill, knowledge, and a strong sense of team. Go Edgewood!

Paul Tomizawa

Our Song

At the Moving Up ceremony, graduating 5th graders sang the Edgewood School Song one last time. It's always moving and fascinating to see Edgewood students singing their school anthem from memory and with pride. Mostly because Edgewood is the only school in Scarsdale where students routinely sing their song. In fact, it's believed that only two of the elementary schools have their own songs. Former Edgewood music teachers Dorothy Bench and Ernest Villas wrote this song in 1979 to commemorate the school's 60th anniversary. Little did they know that the song they had written to honor Edgewood's history, would one day become a beloved part of it. -- Paul Tomizawa

The Edgewood School Song
Words and Music by Dorothy Bench and Ernest Villas (1979)

Ernest Villas (1979)

In Scarsdale town there’s a special place called Edgewood

Where friendly people live on tree-lined streets

And children’s voices fill the air with laughter and in play

About a place that we would surely say…

Edgewood School is the finest place to be
Edgewood School kids and teachers all agree

That we’re number one both in school and fun

Edgewood School’s the place to be

Edgewood School where our friendships grow each day

Edgewood School both in class and where we play

And our friends we’ll see by the rock at three

Pals forever we will be

All these memories we will cherish

And in future years we’ll sing:

Oh Edgewood School you’re the best of everything!

Edgewood School where our talents all have grown

Edgewood School through the teachers we have known

Dorothy Bench (2008)

And the Fair in May by the PTA

Is the highlight of the year

Edgewood School we will someday say goodbye

Edgewood School and in junior, senior high

We will hail the fame and salute the name 

Of our dear old Edgewood School!

Passing the Torch

Graduating 5th graders pass torch
to 4th grade Torch Bearers.

     One of the younger traditions at Edgewood is the Passing of the Torch. The torch signifies the attributes that we admire in an Edgewood student and it is passed on from 5th grade to 4th grade at the final assembly of the year. Dr. Houseknecht reflected on how this tradition got started.
     "About six or seven years ago in Student Council we were discussing the end-of-year assembly, and I asked the kids what things it should include. A fifth grader said we should have the torch. I said, 'Why would we have the torch?  That's for the Olympics." And his response was something like this, 'Well, the torch is symbolic of everything we value at Edgewood.  It's about doing our best and the way we treat each other, and the fifth graders are sort of the role models for that to the younger students. Since we're leaving we could pass that down to the fourth graders who will be in fifth grade next year!' And, ever since then, we have the torch.' So each year a 4th grader was chosen to be the bearer of the torch. A boy one year, a girl the next. Until last year when it was pointed out by one student that alternating by gender would be unfair to some deserving kids. Dr. Houseknecht continues.     
     "After receiving a letter from a student about the potential inequity of choosing a boy one year and a girl the next, she suggested that we choose another method (because some students would never get a chance to be considered). So we discussed lots of options over two meetings.The kids know that it's random, but some thought that was OK to have either sex, but if the same was picked two or three years in a row, then it should just go to the other. Finally at the 11th hour of the second meeting, one student, James Miller said, 'Why not have a boy and a girl?'"
     And so this year, for the second in a row, we had a 4th grade boy and girl receive the torch. We wish them and all of our fourth grade students luck in their leadership roles next year. We know they will make us proud. And all the best to our graduating Class of 2016 as they move into Middle School and beyond.  Be healthy, hopeful, and prosperous, but just as important, wherever you go, always be proud ambassadors of Edgewood School. -- Paul Tomizawa

Talent Show Collaboration

Each successful talent show act
depends on teamwork

   At the last Talent Show, brothers Andre and Eian performed Pachelbel's Canon, side by side. Andre on violin, Eian on cello. While I'm sure at home they have their sibling rivalry moments, when you listen to their backstage interview, you know this performance was all about collaboration. That's a theme that runs through all of our talent shows. Without the team effort from the entire production or performance crew, our shows would certainly flounder. But when our stage hands and performers are locked in together, we all make beautiful music, like Andre and Eian. --Paul Tomizawa

Colonial Fair

Colonial Fair at Edgewood

The annual Colonial Fair came to Edgewood this past week. Through games, crafts, cooking, music, and dancing, the Fair brings the 18th century to life for Edgewood's fourth graders. Students, along with their parents and teachers, dipped into the past, wearing period costumes and somewhat experienced life in Colonial America. Many students will always remember the activities from the daylong event. But for some, like Emily Levine, this event revealed a cultural milestone from more than two centuries ago. And that while girls and women today are still striving to be treated fairly compared with boys and men, it sure beats the Colonial days. -- Paul Tomizawa

(Emily's audio transcript)
"For lunch we had the food they would've eaten and it helps you to learn about it. Before we were just reading about it and now we're feeling it. (Does that make a difference for your learning?) Yes. It's easier to understand when we do it because if we don't do it then we're like 'oh Jamestown schools must not have been good.' But when we experience it, we're like "Wow!" And how boys and girls were treated unfairly because girls, when we did the spelling bee, we had to spell cat and bat. And boys had to spell independence and declaration and like Philadelphia. And so their words were a lot harder so it helped to understand the difference in what they did. (There was a difference between how boys and girls were taught in school?) Yeah. Boys learned much more. Girls at a young age stopped going to school and learned to sew and clean and cook and take care of the household instead of learning. Instead of getting a good education."

Listen to Emily

Why Nina the Dog Matters

     Nina is a poodle in Mrs. Lamonaca's first grade class. Everything about her is a dog. She eats. Plays. Sleeps in a bed. And provides her friends with love and companionship. Nina is about as real as a dog can be, even if she's made out of pillow stuffing and fabric. These two classmates (pictured on the right) fashioned her out of supplies from the classroom materials center and then gave her an identity and a heart, as one would expect children to do. Nina is what happens when students are motivated to learn more than what is required by the curriculum. The possibility of Nina inspires creativity, collaboration, the use of language, while preserving a child's innate desire to make the imagined world part of her real one.
-- Paul Tomizawa

New Talent Show Technology

Talent Show production crew silently
communicates with Today's Meet

In the final February Talent Show the production crew experimented with new technology. It's a site called Today's Meet. The audience didn't see or hear it, but it kept the adult and student production team on the same page. Today's Meet is an online "backchannel" tool. The balcony and backstage crew used it to silently share information through on screen texts. For instance, the backstage "projector" light is still on or the emcee is causing feedback when he talks into the mic while underneath the PA speaker or giving the whole crew a heads up on an unplanned stage entrance. In a live show, scripted events change and the production crew needs to be ready to jump in, make adjustments, and keep the show rolling. People come out to watch our talented young performers, but the behind-the-scenes work of the backstage and balcony crew is in itself a performance worth seating an audience. Whether their work involves adjusting wireless microphones on stage or balancing vocals with recorded music through a mixer in the sound booth, each production crew member, working outside the spotlight, contributes to the show's successes. And Today's Meet, I think, will make our jobs this much easier. -- Paul Tomizawa

Lunar New Year Celebration

     Edgewood celebrated the Lunar New Year with the traditional Chinese Dragon parade led by our first graders. Throughout the building, teachers and students spilled into the hallway, lining the parade route to greet students chanting "Gung Hay Fat Choy." Festivities continued in the New Meeting Room where our wonderful parents adorned the room with festive red streamers and table stations that invited visitors to see how the new year is greeted in China and Korea. What an entertaining event! And thanks for the delicious dumplings! Xièxie! Kamsahamnida!
-- Paul Tomizawa

The Annual Chinese Dragon Parade

Celebrating the Year of the Monkey
with "Fireworks"

Science Fair

     Edgewood’s first student-initiated Science Fair took place during lunch on Wednesday, January 27th. The event, which was conceived by members of the school’s Student Involvement Council, took place during lunch and was attended by the entire student body.

     The idea for the show came from students, who wanted to find an outlet for students interested in Science, similar to the opportunity provided to students through the Talent Shows. Students then designed an event that would be non-competitive, student organized, and supported through student run jobs. A planning committee, composed of teachers and student volunteers, developed an application for interested students, held interviews for

students or groups to present their ideas, and then developed a schedule for the event. On the day of the show a student run committee helped set up the room, greeted participants as they arrived to direct them to their assigned area, took photographs of the event in progress, and presided over the event by directing the audience.
     The success of a venture such as this is less the science expertise that was demonstrated by participants, although that too was impressive, but more the ability of our students to come up with an idea for an event, figure out an organizational plan to make it happen, and preside over it all during their lunch time. -- Scott Houseknecht

Lending a Hand

Early school-wide PA call for donations

This month we launched a partnership with a non-profit group called the USA/Africa Children's Fellowship. A representative from this organization talked to us at our January 5th anniversary assembly. He spoke about his experiences in Africa. Impoverished villages. Poorly equipped schools. He also talked about happy school children who would light up when receiving something new or gently used from America. These children took little for granted and were raised to waste nothing, while sharing everything. Their teacher made this point when he took a bundle of donated pencils and promptly broke each in half, so that every child could have a one.

These stories resonated with our students. Soon after, they formed a committee, along with teachers Lisa Houston and Malu Gonzalez. They hung posters, made signs, and delivered early morning PA announcements reminding students to donate their new or gently used toys, books, clothing and school supplies. Within two weeks, schoolmates have answered the call, filling more than 80 boxes with donated goods for our new friends in Africa. We'll continue collecting for the African fellowship until February 12. Impressive work everyone! -- Paul Tomizawa

Girls Who Engineer Their Future

Girls design 3D models in Tinkercad.

About 20 girls took part in our first lunchtime Coding & Design club of the year. These girls will engage in coding with Scratch and/or Tynker, but we began our lunch sessions in design. In Mr. Fitzpatrick's art studio (STEAM Lab), the girls used Tinkercad, an online 3D modeling program, to create artifacts that represent Edgewood history. Our school just turned 97 years old on January 5 and with our Centennial seemingly just around the corner and with the upcoming launch of the Edgewood History Club, the 3D design work seemed timely.

This club is available to both girls and boys, but as the old saying goes...girls first. It's well-known that while girls are drawn towards the creative problem-solving and "making" aspect of the STEM fields, keeping them in these fields as they get older is a challenge. But educators and corporate experts believe it's possible to attract girls for the long haul.

We agree. - Paul Tomizawa

Countdown to 100

A cross cut of copper beech tree
shows timeline of Edgewood history.

     Today we celebrated Edgewood School's 97th birthday. At a school assembly we reflected on nearly a century of learning at Edgewood, through the life of a single copper beech tree. That tree was a mere sapling, when Edgewood opened its doors on January 5, 1919. Last year, after years of providing shade over the Roosevelt Place lawn, it was cut down, dying from a fungal disease. Our Edgewood News reporters first brought us this story last year. It was known as our "Witness Tree." And oh, what it must've seen through the years.
     Recently, Mr. Fitz and several students counted the rings of a preserved cross-cut section from the tree. And they matched those rings with the timeline of some memorable events in Edgewood history. For instance, we remembered Professor Carl Schorske, who was enrolled at Edgewood as a kindergartener in 1919. As Professor Schorske told us during his visit to us in 2007, back then, after a few days in kindergarten, he was promoted to first grade. Apparently, a 5 year old singing a German ballad, a couple years after the end of World War I, is enough to offend a kindergarten teacher and get booted from class. Fortunately, Mrs. Mary Piedalue, Edgewood's first principal, recognized young Carl's intelligence and talent and promoted him to first grade. We also heard an audio recording of Lou Lustenberger, Julie Leerburger, Juliette Goldsmith, and James Conlan talking about life in the neighborhood during World War II. And then there was William Reilly, current 3rd grade teacher and former Edgewood student in the 70s who was inspired to sing by his music teacher at the time.
    Finally, Dr. Houseknecht talked about the Edgewood time capsule that was assembled in 1994 for Edgewood's 75th anniversary. It was installed under the first floor steps closest to Mrs. Lamonaca's room and there it remains until our centennial celebration in 2019. Can't wait to see what's inside!
- Paul Tomizawa

Happy Anniversary Edgewood!

Edgewood's first principal,
Mrs. Mary Piedalue.

     On January 5, Edgewood School turns 97 years old. In 1919, Edgewood School, set amid bountiful Russet "rustycoat" apple trees, opened its doors to become Scarsdale's second elementary school (Greenacres celebrated its 100th earlier this school year). Mrs. Mary Piedalue was the first principal of Edgewood, a school that produced a number of famous alumni including Pulitzer Prize winning author Carl Schorske; his sister Florence Schorske Wald, credited with opening the first hospice in the United States; and venerable world statesman and 7-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Richard Holbrooke. Not to mention several Edgewood students who will someday make their mark on the world. Read more about our school's history. Happy Birthday Edgewood! The Centennial celebration is just around the corner. -- Paul Tomizawa