Pre-first Student Urges her Schoolmates to be Good Stewards of … › ikK5Jqh2Zwsv9SVMAC2T0bNSiCdV6vU0U9... · 2015-12-29 · May 8, 2015 Edition Pre-first Student Urges her Schoolmates

May 8, 2015 Edition

Pre-first Student Urges her Schoolmates to be Good Stewards of our New CampusEvery day is Earth Day, according to Brookfield Pre-first Student, Annamika Bains, who took her EarthDay lessons about conservation and stewardship to heart. Annamika spent part of her weekend makingbeautiful signs to post around campus to remind her fellow students to respect our environment, recycle,and keep our beautiful new campus clean. Thank you, Anna! As the grass takes hold in the soccer field,the flowers come into bloom in the planters, and the primary students go on imaginary flights on the newairplane/teeter-totter, it’s important to remember that maintaining our beautiful 5-acre campus is every-one’s responsibility.

Rising to the Challenge!

Mr. Bernard Marks, a Holocaust survivor, sponsors an annual essay contest, that encourages young people to learnabout this tragic event in history, and to honor those who died in the Holocaust , as well as those whose effortssaved the lives of Jewish citizens during the Nazi regime. Pictured left are our school’s runner up and co-winner,Queenie Lee and Riya Shergill, who were recognized at a special “Day of Remembrance” held at B’nai Israel Con-gregation. On the left are all the students who participated in the essay contest, with our other co-winner, MatthewGunning and our English Teacher, Dr. Tracy, who includes this essay contest as part of the student’s writing as-signments. Thank you to Mr. Marks for providing our students with the opportunity to participate.

The Fourth Grade Class came by to bug Dr. Jo (literally!) in her office with their creative renditions of variousinsects. Each student shared at least one interesting fact about his or her bug. The students' fun critters were con-structed from a curious variety of materials, including cucumbers, pipe cleaners, kiwi fruit, and socks!

Welcome to the Brookfield Prairie…Second graders enjoyed culminating their studyof Laura Ingles Wilder’s book, Little House onthe Prairie, with fun stations where they triedsome activities that were popular with pioneerchildren. Parents assisted with butter making,carding and spinning yarn activities, doll making,playground games, and more!

More photos on next page...

More Pioneer Day Fun!Students sampled corn bread and made homemade but-ter, made simple toys and dolls like those pioneer chil-dren used in play. Thank you to Mrs. Laborde LaGraveand her parent volunteer helpers for organizing this funmorning for our students!

Twenty states in our country have policies that prohibit “early enrollment” in kindergarten. California isone of those states. As principal of an accelerated school, I question who has the right to make that deter-mination? Is it in the best interest of children to ban those who are developmentally ready to start schoolbased on an arbitrary birth date? Whose interests are being served?

The trend in our state is to push up the starting age for kindergarten, and in many cases, to postpone the start ofkindergarten even more by advising parents to enroll their children in transitional kindergarten. I’ve observed thistrend in both public and private schools in our region. One of my grandsons was recommended to transitionalkindergarten at his Catholic school based solely on his birth date. This is a child who was starting to read, hadhighly-developed fine motor skills, and excellent focus. I recommended that his parents push for admission tokindergarten. I sound like a pushy grandma, don’t I? Well, that little fellow is now in second grade, and while heis the youngest child in his class by nearly a year, he is also the highest performer. As a person who spends muchof her time screening children for admission and placement in our accelerated school, I knew my grandson wasready, and more importantly, I knew that delaying his start would do more harm than good. Education is NOTone-size-fits-all. Experience has taught me that children should be placed in kindergarten when they are ready,and readiness has very little to do with one’s date of birth.

So what is behind the trend to start “real school” later and later? A 2006 study (Bedard and Dhuey) may havemisled well-meaning educators. The study concluded that there was “substantial evidence that initial maturitydifferences have long lasting effects on student performance,” and that “the youngest members of each group (of4th graders studied) scored 4-12 percentiles lower than the oldest members.” Additionally, this study extrapo-lated data from Canada and the United States to predict that the youngest members of each class are less likely toattend college. That’s a frightening assumption!

Studies like this one were likely to spur the trend to delay kindergarten, but more recent studies contradict, or atleast put these other studies into perspective. One such study published in 2012 (Pellizzari and Billari), intro-duced a control for potential selection effects as well as for differences in cognitive ability, as measured by anattitudinal entry test. With the control in place that started with a group of bright children who demonstratedearly readiness, the Pellizzari and Billari study concluded that “contrary to most of the existing evidence foryounger pupils, we document that at the undergraduate level, youngest students perform better compared withtheir oldest peers. This finding is only partly explained by differences in cognitive ability and rather seems to beassociated with differences in social activities.” These early-starters not only went to college, they actually per-formed better than their older peers!

Additionally, a longitudinal study , A Nation Empowered, that was conducted by researchers at the University ofIowa, examined decades-long data and concluded that acceleration can have a very positive impact on some stu-dents. As one of the study’s authors points out, “There’s a huge paradox out there where we know accelerationworks, but we have actual policies against it.” Another contributor noted that ,“When high-achieving childrenaren’t challenged, they get bored and run the risk of becoming disengaged.” As the principal of an acceleratedschool, I love to see bored, disengaged children who transfer to Brookfield suddenly rediscover their love oflearning. Even classroom behavioral problems seem to melt away when bright children are appropriately chal-lenged. The old proverb, “an idle mind is the Devil’s playground,” comes to mind!

Every child who is admitted to Brookfield is carefully screened for readiness and placed in the class/grade levelthat is socially and cognitively appropriate for that individual. The child’s birth date is not a determining factor.For this reason, you will find an age gap of approximately two years between the youngest and oldest child ineach class. Contrary to the belief that placing younger children in classes with older, larger, and “more devel-oped” children is harmful, I have found that very bright children tend to gravitate to older children as companionswhen they can’t relate well to their classmates, due to their advanced social and cognitive maturity. Brookfieldstudents benefit from being part of a community of “like-minded peers.” To quote one of our students who trans-ferred to our school, “I finally have friends in my class who are just like me!”

- Dr. Jo

Brookfield Third Graders created wonderful projects from Newbery Award Winning books that they read duringthe month of April. Do you see one of your favorites represented in these sculptures? Preston included photo-graphs of his work in progress. The finished bust of the main character is at the far right. The projects includedstudent-created newspapers, mobiles, and even a “live” TV commercial. What a great way to get children excitedabout reading high quality literature!

Brookfield Third Graders Share their Newbery Book Projects

The 7th and 8th Grade classes enjoyed a week in Yosemite as an outdoor education trip. Everyone had an awe-some time. The y had great weather which allowed for spectacular views throughout the trip, and enjoyed stayingin Curry Village , surrounded by Granite Point, Half Dome, North Dome, and Yosemite Falls.

The group hiked many miles and explored just a fraction of this wonderful National treasure - Mirror Lake (about5 1/2 miles), Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls (11+ miles) and a trek to El Capitan (shuttle to Camp 4 and then 5 orso miles). The parent chaperones report that our students were wonderfully behaved.

The 6th Grade Class had ablast and learned to dependon each other and work to-gether as they participated ina climbing and rope chal-lenge at Sacramento State.Some students managed toovercome their fear ofheights with their peers’encouragement and support.It was a great day!

We (literally) rose to the challenge!

Students in all grade levels had funshowing off their groovy disco rou-tines to their parents on Disco In-ferno Day, an event that is rapidlybecoming a favorite Brookfield tra-dition! PE Teacher, Mr. Flolo, chal-lenged the students to choreographoriginal dance routines that featuredstrength, balance, and conditioningmoves in their dances. The endproducts were both impressive andhilarious! These photos featuresome fancy moves from students ingrades 2 and 3. Watch some videoclips on our website:Www.brookfieldschool.org

Many classes planned special tributes for their mothers on May 8th, when students sang songs, per-formed recitations and skits, or pampered mom with a nice manicure. Here are some of our Pre-firststudents enjoying the day with their mommies. Happy Mother’s Day to all our Brookfield Moms!