Liz’s Class Notes

We learned a great deal from our workshop with Ava Locks and Elka Rifkin of Access Ambassadors on demystifying disabilities by building awareness, empathy, and action. This was an interactive workshop in which the kids learned that "disability" is not a bad word and ways to communicate respectfully and appropriately through scenario-based explorations of visible and non-apparent disabilities.

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Lucy's Class Notes

Lucy’s group has been keeping busy with curating the Hayground Museum! After meeting with experts in the curating field, the students developed ideas on what the layout of their museum should look like. They have been discussing what materials they will need for different aspects of their museum and how Hayground history should be displayed.

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Amy's Class Notes

So many exciting investigations are going on in Amy's classroom! For instance, we have observed that the bunny eats everything, including a preference for books, needs places hide or calm spots, and needs to have freedom to roam. Armed with these thoughts in mind, the class came up with building Harvey a safe and healthy naturalist habitat for him to enjoy.

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Marybeth & Elijah’s Class Notes

Our Class book is complete and off to the printing press! The Mouse House; A Treasury of Stories will be submitted to The Hampton Library as part of their 2024 Budding Authors program. We will also mail a copy to the Mouse Mansion Museum in Amsterdam which inspired this wonderful project. Now that the work is complete, the children have been joyfully playing with their mice and the rooms they built for them.

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Liz's Class Notes

Our residency at The Watermill Center with Philippe Cheng concluded with our in-process exhibition last week. Our living self-portaits inspired by Andy Warhol's experimental films were on display as was our abstract map of our connections to places in our extended family histories.

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Lucy's Class Notes

Lucy’s group went to the Southampton African American Museum twice this month. The students started their first day with a digital tapestry. Using a visual and auditory device was the perfect way to get the students comfortable with the space because it allowed them to work at their own pace and, as my students put it, “feel like you were taken back into the historical time.”

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Amy's Class Notes

Amy's class naturalists are hard at work studying flora and fauna for this year's in-depth project! Each child had the opportunity to choose both a plant and an animal to study, with the only requirement being something that they are personally interested in researching.

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Julie’s Class Notes

The advent of our first real snowfall has made this the perfect time to settle in with a good book as part of a book club. Students have started reading and discussing their books, paying close attention to the author’s craft in developing characters, and plot.

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Lucy’s Class Notes

Our class successfully curated a museum about whaling and maritime history. Every Hayground student and faculty member visited the museum and went on a tour led by the students in my group. Each student had the opportunity to learn self-reliance when making decisions for the museum and speaking about their topic to the visitors on their own.

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Julie's Class Notes

Every day I am more impressed with the students’ investment in our class endeavor; The Hayground Market. Our second sale featured seasonal products, like eco-printed tea towels, natural inks, relaxing candles, and wish pillows, among other carefully made items.

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Marybeth & Elijah’s Class Notes

Preparations are underway for this week’s Feast of the Remembrance. The children have been exploring the language in Joy Harjo’s poem, Remember, and have created artwork with partners in Tohanash and Lora’s class. The children will share their work at our Feast. They have also written about and illustrated their own memories, which are displayed on our “Wall of Remembrance” in the gathering space—be sure to take a look. We have been reading about the Thanksgiving story from various points-of-view in order to develop a more complete and meaningful understanding of the upcoming holiday.

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