DISCOVERY
in the . . .
DIVISION HEADS remark on the joys of DISCOVERY this year
The Preschool Balanced Approach to Learning involves play through wonder and discovery with a balance of direct instruction. Our annual theme suits Preschool perfectly because our program promotes and integrates learning through hands-on discovery each day. From discoveries in their environment, each other, and their community, our youngest students begin to understand individual differences in projects like paper doll art and sharing family traditions. They learn about biology and ecology in the world with units like Growing Things and trips to the Dallas World Aquarium and Dallas Arboretum. The MindUp curriculum has engaged the children in discovering core breathing to calm their bodies in the classrooms and during transition time.
PRESCHOOL
This year, we even have a new discovery on our playground! Junior Lane Herbert, for her Girl Scout Gold Award, has partnered with Preschool and the facility department to install a rainwater barrel and irrigation system using collected water to feed the beautiful butterfly garden on the Preschool playground. Thanks to Lane, all our preschoolers will further discover and understand the importance of harvesting rainwater and channeling water resources.
Netra Fitzgerald Head of Preschool
The joy we have as educators is in capitalizing on our students’ natural curiosity and providing the frameworks and experiences for them to begin to build an understanding of the world and themselves. For us, discovery is a concept that defines the experience of our children in terms of academics, growing self-knowledge, and development of social awareness. Children need time to play with ideas, explore, and create. It could be searching through an owl pellet in the second grade science lab. It might be learning about the design process and building prototypes with the expectation to discover what information failure can provide. Discovery happens when a math problem that seemed complicated can be systematically tackled — and that those problem-solving skills can be applied to other problems, too! Our fourth graders take a whole year to explore the concept of leadership and its many facets through reading, discussion, and experiences.
LOWER SCHOOL Michael Simpson Head of Lower School
Students have the opportunity to discover strengths, notice and address areas of challenge, and be exposed to new interests. A student in art class may say they are not good at drawing and then discover they have many other artistic capabilities. A student anxious about leading a Lower School assembly discovers that she can do it, and then ends up being a featured speaker at the Fourth Grade Farewell Ceremony. Perhaps most importantly, we want our children to develop a “growth mindset,” discovering that they can learn anything with effort, that their abilities are not fixed. We love working with students whose curiosity, earnestness, and innocence appears every day. This year’s chosen theme reinforces our passion for working with our youngest Hornets, and we are having a wonderful year of discovering the joy of viewing the world through a young child’s eyes. 45
