Schoolwide Program
Student activities often go beyond the boundaries of the classroom, and they sometimes involve multiple grade levels or the entire school. Some examples include:
Art Show
In spring, classrooms hold an open-house art show. Parents and students are invited to view artwork, made throughout the school year, in classrooms, common rooms, and hallways. This event offers each child a chance to be an artist and have their work on display. The campus comes alive with beautiful, creative, and thought-provoking pieces.
Buddies
McAuliffe’s lower-grade children are paired with upper-graders for a year of regularly scheduled, mixed-age activities. Engaging in writing and reading stories to each other and doing art projects together afford both the older and younger children a unique learning opportunity.
Community Singing Assemblies
Singing songs together gives us a common language at McAuliffe. Several times a year, students participate in school-wide assemblies where McAuliffe songs, such as "Country Roads" and "Walls", are sung together.
Cooking
Our cooking curriculum embodies McAuliffe’s philosophy. Children learn by doing and experiencing age-appropriate recipes and techniques. A trained parent is assigned to support each group of 5-6 children. Children are exposed to dishes from various cultures. Here is an example of a one-year program in Kindergarten: Fruit Salad, Apple Sauce, Pumpkin Soup, Fresh Pasta, Petit Burger, Potato Latkes, Rice Cake Balls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Stone Soup, My Pizza, Hamantaschen, Binsu, Palak Paneer, Pink Yink Ink.
Creative Explorations & Electives
The highlight of many a primary-grade child’s week is Creative Explorations. This time is set aside weekly for open-ended exploration of a STEAM area in conjunction with other classes. Parents actively develop and lead these activities in cooperation with teachers. Past activities range from marble painting to bubble science to jazz dance.
In upper grades, children participate in Electives. Similar in spirit and implementation to Creative Explorations, electives last several weeks. Children choose from a menu of activities that could range from sewing (with sewing machines), photography, woodworking, crocheting, role-playing game design, computer programming, animation, and beading.
Day Field Trips
Field trips are intended to enhance and expand McAuliffe's curriculum. We believe that the world is our classroom. We take advantage of the opportunities to explore the curriculum in real settings.
Field trips vary from year to year and from class to class. Trips are most often taken to complement the science and social studies curriculum as well as the arts.
Gardening
Our gardening curriculum embodies McAuliffe’s philosophy in that children learn by doing and experiencing age-appropriate work in the field. Here is an example of a one-year program at a Kindergarten: Composting, Earthworms, Seedlings (Pumpkin, Beans), Planting Seeds (Turnip bulb, Carrot, Beans, Herbs, Radish, Wildflower, Broccoli, Strawberry), Seed quiz, Nature activities, Identifying Fruits and Vegetables, Fairy house door, Re-growing cut vegetables, Roly-Poly racing, Flower Diagrams, Seeds on the window, Scavenger hunt, and of course, Harvesting!
Morning Message
Every morning, children start their day with a message from their classroom teachers in front of their classroom door. It can be a preview of the day, what's happening around them, riddles, or checking students' moods. This small ritual promotes a sense of belonging. Did you notice that children are called “friends” by teachers? Visitors are often surprised to see children calling their teachers, including the principal, by their first names. We respect each other regardless of age or title.
Overnight Field Trip
Beginning in third grade, McAuliffe students take overnight field trips together with the teacher and parent chaperones. Some trips, such as fall beach trips, are for building community. Others may extend the social studies or science curriculum.
School-wide Math Problems
Several times a year, children are challenged with non-routine math problems to apply their long-term problem-solving skills. All children get the same problem, which is divided into levels of difficulty to scaffold and challenge everyone from TK beginners to 8th-grade Geometry experts. Each problem stretches students to go deeper into mathematical complexity.
In real life, a problem is a situation that confronts you and you don’t have an idea of where to even start. We encourage children to approach the math problems of the month in the same way they would face a real-life problem.
Student Production
Participation in class productions are considered an important piece of the McAuliffe curriculum. Some grade-level examples:
- Kindergarten does a reader’s theater production
- 3rd Grade has a poetry jam where every student memorizes and presents two poems on stage
- 5th Grade has a student play some years; other years a middle school Drama Club is offered
We do it to give the children some unique opportunities:
- To produce something as a team that is big; bigger than any individual
- To jointly create something extraordinary out of nothing
- To have experience with a project that is boundless in terms of time
- To learn new skills, such as music, dance, carpentry, video, or sewing
- To experience the energy of working on something authentic
- To build a lasting memory and a sense of accomplishment: to be able to say, “Remember when we did that play? Wasn’t that great what we did!”
Variety Show
This is an annual event featuring all the children who wish to perform in the school! The show provides our children with the chance to take a risk and share their special talents with others: jokes, dance, singing, skits, magic, and instruments. Children can go solo or team up with their friends for an act. Shows are performed in both daytime assemblies and night performances, and are often guided, directed and led by Middle School students.