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Spring 2006 Newsletter
From Mary Ellen Kenny, Lower School Head

Greetings,

Hooray! The days are getting longer and warmer; spring is really here. It has been a pleasure to welcome the children back from our recent vacation. They seem rested, a little bigger and very happy to be together again. With only eight weeks remaining in the school year, momentum will surely build as students and teachers work together on culminating activities that help bring satisfaction and closure. It's a busy time at PDS! I hope the following information is useful as you look ahead to the remainder of the school year.

Classroom news
As year-long studies draw closer to an end, students will engage in projects and activities that help them reflect on their own learning as well as group accomplishments. Here's a glimpse of what you might encounter in the coming weeks:

pre-k Our youngest students are working on individual Family Books . They draw pictures of their families and write or dictate captions that describe ways in which each family member is special. Experimentation in the block area has caused several pre-k students to become intrigued with inclines. Recently, when 5-6 buddies came to visit they joined forces to build inclines using cardboard tubes, tape and building blocks. You've never seen more spectacular marble chutes! Walks in the woods and planting seeds will also be part of springtime activities in the pre-k.

• k The dramatic play corner has been transformed into a bakery. A trip to Sprout Creek Farm, that included bread baking, inspired the kindergarteners to expand their culinary repertoire. Stop by and see them hard at work in their originally designed baker's garb. They will also be preparing and planting garden beds and charting the growth of sprouting seedlings in the weeks to come.
• 1-2 Hope you had a chance to see the boats the children built with materials gathered at the Hudson Valley Materials Exchange Center. They were inspired by stories about various explorers and travelers who navigated the Hudson and were enhanced with a good deal of imagination. The children will soon participate in a dockside program on the Mystic Whaler.
  Each class will also host an Author's Breakfast to give the young writers a chance to share their work with a supportive, enthusiastic audience.
• 3-4 The recent trip to the NY Botanical Garden was a highlight of the year as most children were able to see, first hand, a specimen of the plant from the Mayan homeland they are currently researching in school. Currently, the children are involved in dramatic retellings of Mayan myths and folktales for the lower school musical and will soon be selecting favorite poems to recite at the annual meeting of the Eagle Society.
• All The children are working on drafts and illustrations for this year's final edition of Writer' s Choice. It will be our third publication this year.

On Tuesday, April 3 we had our first ever Senior Visiting Day. This year's senior class requested a designated time to visit lower school classes before leaving campus on May 1 to participate in senior internships. The twelfth graders divided into small groups and spent the morning visiting, reminiscing and helping out in lower school classes. It was great fun for all and especially delightful for the teachers who have known the senio

Faculty news
Literacy specialist Adrienne Houk-Maley attended two professional conferences in recent weeks. In March she went to NYC to participate in the International Dyslexia Association Conference and earlier in 2006 she attended a session sponsored by the New York State Association of Independent Schools called: "A Look at Learning Disabilities and Strategies for Success".

Rebecca Santner(1-2) has been honing her writing and teaching skills through her on-going involvement with the Hudson Valley Writing Project. In March she attended a HVWP workshop with Bill Ayers and on May 13 she will conduct the spring Writing Retreat at the John Buroughs Sanctuary in West Park.

Ellen DeLong (3-4), Lenae Madonna (1-2), Robbie Puglisi (k) and Shirley Rinaldi (on sabbatical) took a train ride to NYC to spend a day at The School at Columbia University. The three-year-old school features state of the art technology and teaching practices that reflect current research in education.

Nan Moran will attend the annual NYSAIS Diversity Conference in NYC. She will participate in two workshops: "Assessing Diversity Beyond the Numbers" and "Social Justice Projects in the Classroom: Links to Literature and Mission".

Looking ahead

• As the school year begins to wind down, it's natural to begin to look ahead to next year. We anticipate very healthy enrollment in the lower school and look forward to welcoming new students and families to the PDS community. This year, interest in some grades is much higher than usual and at other levels it's a bit lower; a classic case of Murphy's Law at work. Trends of this sort seem to have little rhyme or reason. The consequence of a shifting enrollment pattern is that it is somewhat difficult to forecast the configuration and location of classes as well as specific teaching assignments with precision, at this point. For example, the unexpected surge in kindergarten applicants will likely mean a shift from one class of sixteen to two classes with about twelve students per class. A lower number of first and second graders might mean scaling back to one larger group of 1-2s and one smaller group, as we had several years ago. Our goal is to accommodate as many wonderful students as possible, while keeping true to our commitment to low student/teacher ratios and small class sizes. Among our excellent faculty are many veteran teachers who have experience at a variety of stages along the developmental continuum. We keep you informed as a clearer picture emerges. Meanwhile, we all look forward to welcoming Josie Holford as our next head of school. Josie spent a day at PDS right before the spring vacation. She met with the entire student body, faculty and parents and expressed her eagerness to join the PDS community. There will be many opportunities to get to know Josie in the coming months. Josie officially begins her work at PDS on July 1. Working together to make PDS the best place possible for our students will undoubtedly bring us together often.
• After six years as vital member of the lower school faculty, Rebecca Santner will be moving on in June. Rebecca's talents and dedication to children are second to none. She will be dearly missed. We wish her well on her next adventure in teaching, in the public school sector.
• Bill Fiore (a.k.a. Bindle Stick Bill) will be back in the classroom in September. During his year long sabbatical Bill was engaged in song writing and performing in the Hudson Valley. He also joined former PDS teacher Jill Olesker and current Spanish teacher Helen Valdes for and Art and Music Festival on the island of St. John.

Best to all!