Squeeze the Day By Jillian Offermann Grade IV has celebrated a beloved Shady Hill tradition, Lemon Day, for roughly 40 years and the events of the day have evolved and grown each year. Longtime teacher Jane Prescott, who taught at Shady Hill from 1953-1991, loved lemons and brought that passion into her classroom. Since the fruitful day lemons were introduced into classrooms, our dynamic teachers took the opportunity to squeeze them into the curriculum to foster joyful, active learning. What started as a fun way to inspire students to write poetry and stories expanded into a myriad of hands-on lessons. Students began naming their lemons then creating a world for them along the way. Gradeheads and art department faculty added many more activities throughout the years, including students generating as many words as possible from the letters in the word “lemonade,” painting watercolor lemon portraits, building tiny homes for the citrus residents, and singing lemon-themed songs. Math and science teachers added to the interdisciplinary learning with lessons like measuring the lemons’ circumference, volume, and mass. Today, the zest for joy and exploration continues. Each student takes the time to truly discover their lemon from top to bottom and use this unique opportunity to practice developing an understanding of identity and belonging. The qualities they discover and describe go far beyond physical features. Students discuss how their lemon came to
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SHADY HILL SCHOOL
THE 2021-2022 IS SUE
