6 minute read
Around Campus
AroundCampus
EARLY CHILDHOOD | LOWER SCHOOL | MIDDLE SCHOOL | UPPER SCHOOL
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New Senior Tradtitions
The Class of 2021 has left its mark on campus as they started a new tradition with their mural on the wall of the art room courtyard. Above the daisies and into the clouds, the seniors left a handprint and their name. The seniors spent their last three days at Tatnall participating in service projects around campus. Four projects ran concurrently: improvements to the outdoor classrooms, painting a mural for the EC, ridding the Bookman trail of invasive plants, and creating a video of Tatnall memories. Together, the senior class worked hard, bonded, and left their mark on the Tatnall community.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
This question was a topic of conversation among the kindergarten children, and like time, has still gone unanswered. For the second year, the Early Childhood science classes have partnered with the University of Delaware Animal Sciences department, and incubated and hatched chicks. The children practice the star value of patience as they wait 21 long days. During this time, they learn about candling and daily egg development. Ask any kindergarten student and they could probably tell you what happens in a chicken egg on day 14! During the process, we add a webcam to watch as the chicks hatch from their eggs, and then we watch them grow in the brooder box. While they are only with us in science class for a few weeks, the biggest highlight is of course holding and petting them, and laughing as they run around the classroom.
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Market Day
Our third and fourth grade entrepreneurs wrote business plans, conducted market research, created hand-made products, and built online stores in this year’s COVID-safe mini-society! This integrated STEM project combines reading, writing, mathematics, financial literacy, website-building, and tons of collaboration, as students learn to persevere through the challenges of owning their own business. LS STEM Coordinator Heather Brooks, loves how the real-life application of economic concepts, such as supply and demand, advertising analysis, and monetary systems, can be rolled into such a fun and relevant experience. Students spent their profits bidding on books at our annual book auction.
Battle of the Books
This year’s fourth and fifth graders brought their A-game to win this year’s Tri-Cup Battle of the Books! Competing against students from nearby schools, our Tatnall readers answered rapid-fire questions about books they read above and beyond their class reads. Students enjoy the camaraderie of reading books together in a mega book club, while also racing to beat the clock against their own goals, their team’s expectations, and their competitors’ skills. Congratulations to our Hornets for a great Battle season!
New Music Initiative
Step aside COVID, our musicians want to play! Instrumental music has been an integral part of Tatnall’s music curricula for many decades, but this year’s protocols restricted our typical means. So, when an opportunity arose to get ukuleles for fourth and fifth graders, we jumped on it! The Music and Advancement Teams partnered to apply for a World Music Initiative grant from the Anthony Penna Charitable Fund. Thanks to the fund and Tatnall’s Home & School Association, we were able to secure funding to purchase ukuleles for every fourth and fifth grade student. This 1:1 program provided students an opportunity to explore instrumental music while still maintaining health and safety directives. Students enjoyed both the independence of individual playing time as well as the chance to make music together within their homerooms. The culmination of the year was having the fifth graders play along to Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” at their Lower School Moving Up Day. We look forward to jamming out for many years to come.
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Presenting “Peter and the Wolf”
Part of our Tatnall Kindergarten curriculum includes an acting and musical performance. Due to COVID protocols and procedures, we had to abandon our usual collaboration between the orange and yellow room to maintain cohorts. This led us to do something different to provide the children with their acting and musical experience while maintaining safety. By sticking with the music curriculum for each class, taught by Linda Champagne, and adding simple costumes and props, we were able to produce two amazing shows that were filmed and shared with all families. The characters were chosen by the children and they acted out the parts by feeling the music. There were no lines to remember, just listening to the narrator, knowing their positions, taking cues, and the music took them away!
Playbill: The Show Will Go On!
Tatnall students once again proved that the show must go on in 2021. In preparation for the May production, the Playbill performers selected a song of their choice and on May 1, and participated in Master Class where they received coaching from Broadway stars, directors and composer/lyricists, including Tatnall’s own Tim Huang ’93. The Broadway professionals were blown away by what they saw, and you will be too. The Tantall Production team videotaped each performer and compiled the videos into one spectacular performance, which was streamed to the community on May 21. Miss the premier? Get your popcorn and click on the QR code to enjoy the show today!
Nurse Mary Garrett, whose indefatigable work ethic, professionalism, and expertise were integral to our health and safety this year, was presented with the inaugural Tatnall School Excellence in Service Award by Dr. Andy Martire at this year’s Commencement. The Award will be given annually to a member of the faculty and staff for outstanding performance and exemplary teamwork during the course of that academic year.
Readers’ Theater
This year’s Readers Theater production represents a pared down and simplified version of our traditional sixth grade play, allowing us to give the students a shared theatrical experience while still adhering to Tatnall’s health and safety regulations. This year, students worked in their small groups on timing, clarity, expression, and humor. They also collaborated to find ways to personalize their scenes and learned to support each other and think on their feet in front of the camera. Please use this QR code to enjoy the sixth graders’ production of “Fractured Fairytales!”
Third Grade Computer Science Researchers
Our third grade technology teams learned to program using MIT’s Scratch interface. Combining programming and reading, students created programs revealing the clues they found in their mystery book clubs. These lessons, written by LS STEM Coordinator Heather Brooks as part of the CS4DE research program at the University of Delaware, are part of a National Science Foundation research study on the integration of computational thinking in disciplinary coursework. Our third graders not only learned how to code, their ideas— shared in surveys and focus groups with University of Delaware professors and doctoral students—will also guide professional development in computer science for the State of Delaware.
