August 31, 2006

By Lauren Heaton

The Antioch School students began school on Wednesday, Aug. 30, looking ahead at a year of pursuits such as mapping the planets, hunting for fossils, crafting books and building rockets. No student or teacher ever really knows how the year will go until the children arrive in their classrooms and begin talking about their interests. But each year as students move on, teachers hope to help their students develop a deeper understanding of their place in the world they live in.

The school has 64 students enrolled this year, 24 in the Younger Group (YG), 24 in the Older Group (OG), eight students in the kindergarten, and 12 in Ann Guthrie’s preschool program. Lindie Keaton begins her first year as the new kindergarten teacher, replacing longtime teacher Jeanie Felker.

YG: dinosaurs to pioneers
The Younger Group, which covers the first, second, and third grade students, will launch the year by connecting to the fall harvest theme and the first American settlers. According to the YG teacher Kit Crawford, students begin their understanding of social studies by looking at their family and their community and then broadening their scope from what is familiar to them.

The group will sing old American folk songs and talk about the importance Ohio’s Erie Canal had in connecting the eastern United States to the newly chartered territory in the West. Students may also reproduce a pioneer kitchen and cook some of the early American food while reading stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other early settlers, Crawford said.

Segueing into a broader look at the world, students will have the opportunity to create a timeline to visualize how the different lands were peopled and how the world has changed through the decades and the centuries when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The focus will reach out even further to a study of space and the solar system, Crawford said. If they want to, students may revisit a “space walk” from several years ago, when the class scaled the solar system to the village, mapped out the planets and walked from the sun to Pluto in a day.

Where this base line curriculum leads is up to the students, Crawford said. Some students may want to use their math skills to measure how long a brontosaurus is. Others may want to focus on the great creation stories, and write some of their own. If they want, students may also visit the old Connor Schoolhouse, attend the Cincinnati Zoo’s Wildlife Discovery Days, and see Professor Gizmo’s science show at Kuss Auditorium.

“We keep filling in and enriching these ideas about ‘my village,’ ‘my state,’ ‘my country,’ ‘my planet’ and ‘my world’ and how we’re all alike and different,” Crawford said. “The curriculum may touch on all these areas in a cyclic way, and it serves to mature, broaden and enrich the children’s understanding of their place in the world.”

OG eyes Ohio, flight, Pluto
The younger students’ focus on their place in the larger world will dovetail with Older Group teacher Chris Powell’s plan for the fourth, fifth and sixth grade students, which is to study their place in the world in the context of the history and geology of Ohio. The students will visit and talk about how the landscape of the Glen Helen and Clifton Gorge were formed, and how the air in the Ohio Caverns stays a constant 55 degrees.

Powell also plans to explore the history and science of flight with the OG, weaving in history lessons on the Wright Brothers, math lessons on the height of planes, and a visit to the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum.

Much of the OG’s study of flight and geology overlaps with art and science teacher Brian Brogan’s plans for the year, which include building rockets and studying astronomy and the new non-planetary status of Pluto. Bob Brecha, an Antioch School parent, will visit the school as a scientist-in-residence this year to talk about environmental issues such as climate control and peak oil.

The point, Brogan said, is to illustrate how science is always changing and people are finding new ways to do things through innovative techniques, such as embryonic cell research. The world’s problems then become opportunities for scientists to make new discoveries, he said.

“The world is a lot more complex now, and we want kids to understand the world they live in and find tools to solve problems,” he said.

Brogan also hopes to engage both the YG and OG students in using the paper making skills learned from last year’s artist-in-residence Beth Holyoke to write, illustrate and construct their own books.

He also hopes to have students engage in community service in the Glen by maintaining trails, pulling invasive garlic mustard and maybe repairing bridges and other structures with the woodworking students, he said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com