Charlie Chaplin Comes to Edgewood

Final scene from City Lights

     Launching along side Edgewood University, the program of special interest courses that runs every Friday for six weeks (Jan 6 - Feb 10), is the Edgewood Film Festival. The Festival features conversations and clips from about a dozen Depression era movies. The purpose of these discussions is for students to understand how children coped with poverty during the Depression.
     One of the films featured in the Festival is Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931). It's a funny and touching love story in which the little guy and the little girl, despite the misfortunes slung at them, nurture hope long enough to find that one thing in life for which they most yearn.

Charlie Chaplin still makes
children laugh

     I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Chaplin's visual humor played to an audience of 7 year olds, more than 80 years after its first run. Here's a sample of what made them laugh. Watch this scene from City Lights in which Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character provides a visual commentary on a society of haves and have nots.
- Paul Tomizawa

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

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

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

Sculpting an Act of Faith and Charity

   

4th grade donated over 700 cans
of food with this sculpture.

     At the holiday assembly, the 4th grade unveiled an impressive sculpture of the American Flag. It was a work of art consisting of 373 cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup and 174 cans of Starkist tuna cans. But like any collaborative project or novel approach to learning, there were doubts. Would it work? Would it be appreciated? And considering the many needs of building a classroom community, teaching/learning the curriculum, and meeting the diverse needs and interests of an energetic student body, would it be a worth the time invested in this learning experience? So the teachers, Mrs. Aberman, Mrs. Mraz, Mrs. Nedwick, and myself and our students, slogged through the doubts, looking for reasons to believe and persevere.
    Students and teachers discussed construction strategies, engineering and mathematics, elements of design, and we experimented in the computer lab by building short towers of cans and wondered how high we could build, before they toppled. We had begun collecting cans in early November. Parents quickly responded to our requests for donations. And while we had ambitious designs on completing the sculpture in time for the Thanksgiving assembly, things...you know... happen. Still we persisted and took advantage of the extra time to sort through questions across the grade level and experiment with ideas that were sprouting across the grade level. We debated whether we should build a single layer construction or a double layer.
    The original Canstruction sculpture from which we drew our inspiration, used a double layer. But a double layer meant asking parents for nearly 100 additional soup cans, to match our original goal. A single layer could be built against a backboard, but would probably mean that we'd lose the bend in our sculpture that would make our flag look like it was waving in the breeze. It was clear that students wanted to keep the flag-wave, but acknowledged that we didn't have time to collect more cans. Fortunately, in visiting the rules for creating Canstruction sculptures, we learned we could use tape. YES! So teams of students began binding the cans that we had and later stacked them in columns on stage.
    Today, this sculpture only lives in memories and photos. Shortly after we unveiled this beautiful work of art, we deconstructed it, and donated over 700 cans of food to the Soup Kitchen at St. Peter's Church in Portchester, NY. Looking back, it was clear that this project was not just about collaboration, engineering, and design. It was an act of conscience shared by parents, students, and their teachers.  - Paul Tomizawa

Knitting Club

The Knitting Club meets weekly
during lunch.

     The Edgewood Knitting Club, which meets during lunch, is in full production mode. It is safe to say we not only eat lunch and socialize, we use our listening skills to learn how to knit and purl. We follow directions and repeat the same stitch over and over until it is committed to memory. We knit until we complete a 36-inch strip that is measured using a yardstick until we reach that magic length. The strips are sewn together to make a baby blanket that will be donated to a charity. Some us have learned to purl and interpret written directions and have made hats, scarves, headbands, and leg warmers. The Knitting Club is more than meets the eye for 4th and 5th grade boys and girls. - Ellen Fiorella