Just as with last summer, The New Century School is hosting language immersion camps in both Spanish and Chinese for summer 2017 to keep students’ minds engaged and provide practice during the summer months. They’ll return to the academic school year refreshed from the break but revved up to hablar!
Spanish camp took place from June 19th through June 30th. The 2-week camp immersed campers in Spanish language—from vocabulary to activities to culture, TNCS Spanish campers improved their pronunciation, willingness to use the language, and confidence in speaking it.
Camp daily schedule!
This increased skill and fluency can be attributed to the fun students are having both inside and out of the “camp-room.” Instructors Gloria Jimenez (who is originally from Spain and already known to the TNCS community as the assistant Spanish teacher most recently in Sra. Hackshaw’s primary classroom) and Yurisan Gonzales (from the pre-primary Spanish classrooms) make sure of that. Sra. Jimenez says she believes strongly in interactive learning: “For Week 1, we were concentrating on food, so we talk, learn some food-related vocabulary, which is important for the unit, and then we cook!” They also engage in role-playing such as acting out going to a restaurant and interacting with the waitstaff. This is training for real life, she explains.
In between, campers get plenty of opportunities to “vamos” to the playground and get some physical activity in. This is essential for keeping kids happy and focused, especially because the camp roster comprises students of widely varying abilities. Some have never spoken any Spanish, while at the other end of the spectrum, others have been learning Español for 6 or more years. Sra. Jimenez nevertheless finds way to differentiate the lessons and make sure each camper is benefiting. Ages also vary from age 6 years through 9 years.
For just a “taste” of the activities they undertook, see these photos of tortilla-making . . . and eating. Note that in order to prepare this ages-old Spanish recipe that Sra. Jimenez has been making her whole life, campers needed to be able to follow instructions given in Spanish. This is no easy feat but certainly attests to their understanding of the language if the results below are any indication. Sra. Jimenez handled the actual cooking, but her campers took care of all preparations. Also note that tortilla Español is quite different from a Mexican tortilla, as it is made with eggs, onions, and potatoes and resembles an omelette. Delicioso, indeed!
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Another cultural activity Sra. Jimenez introduced her campers to was salsa dancing. She made utterly sure that her campers didn’t have time to feel bored or restless—let alone to realize how much Español they were steadily absorbing! Learning by doing is unquestionably the most effective way to learn a language. Gracias el campamento de inmersión de Español en TNCS*!
*Immersed would like to once again thank former TNCS Pre-primary Spanish Immersion Lead Teacher Raquel Alvarez for translation assistance :)!
This year, Baltimore City had the good fortune to host the 2017 NAIS conference—and The New Century School didn’t pass up the convenient opportunity to attend!
NAIS stands for The National Association of Independent Schools, a nonprofit membership association that provides services to more than 1,500 independent private K–12 schools in the United States. They define independent schools as . . . “independent in philosophy: each is driven by a unique mission. They are also independent in the way they are managed and financed . . . each is primarily supported through tuition payments . . . They are accountable to their communities and are accredited by state-approved accrediting bodies.”
NAIS’s mission, according to their website, is to empower independent schools and their students. “The association offers research and trend analysis, leadership and governance guidance, and professional development opportunities for school and board leaders.”
The NAIS Annual Conference, then, is the “premier professional development and networking event for administrators, trustees, and teachers at independent schools.” In the course of this year’s 3-day event, the theme of which was “Make Your Mission Matter: From Vision to Values,” thousands of participants attended. See highlights in the short video below.
TNCS Head of School Alicia Danyali in her bustling office.
TNCS Head of School Alicia Danyali was thrilled that the conference was in Baltimore; previous conferences have been held at various cities across the United States. She wanted to experience the conference first-hand, she said, having never been able to attend until now. She networked with various groups, visited the different vendors associated with education, and sat in on some of the speaker sessions. She describes it this way:
They have an unlimited amount of resources for independent schools. The conference is attended by well-versed, well-educated people in the field of education in every aspect. They had individual booths for everything—from admissions to school psychology to gender-specific schools to service learning to extracurriculars. Debbie Rothman, for example, had a whole day dedicated to health education. She helped us develop our health education program at TNCS.
In addition to local, well-known education experts, internationally acclaimed speakers also presented. The keynote speaker, in fact, was Sir Ken Robinson, whom Ms. Danyali calls, “one of the biggest and most respected names in education.”
His landmark 2006 TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (shown below) and subsequent follow-ups have earned him the distinction of being the most watched TED Talker in the history of TED Talks!
Ms. Danyali explains that her primary reason for going was to network, in particular about her particular professional interests:
I think about us as a young school, and I also think about what would be vital to network about in reaching out to these experts in the field who can help us to grow. Especially now that we’ve grown into a middle school, one of my focuses, of course, has been restorative, and how that looks and how people deal with behavioral issues. I’m also always going back to character development—how do we identify self as a learner? I think about students I’ve taught and people I’ve hired. What stands about them and how they’ll model behaviors to influence our population? It can be really challenging in a multicultural population. So this was a good way to get names and information.
“Another area I was very interested in was how to involve schools in helping the environment,” she said.
“The conference brought a lot of like-minded people together, and I’m grateful to have gone.” Another aspect they offer is webinars and recordings. She plans to utilize this service next year, when the NAIS conference will be held in Atlanta so she can stay closer to campus but avail herself of the presentations and break-out sessions on best independent school practices.
She also took home some great reading material thanks to the conference’s pop-up bookstore!
Since its opening for the 2010–2011 school year, The New Century School has annually offered resources to families to help prevent the “summer slide” phenomenon that can happen to kids over summer break when they might be less academically engaged than during the school year and lose scholastic ground as a consequence. Although this problem disproportionately affects underserved communities, it is nevertheless felt to a certain degree across the board, as teachers find themselves re-teaching concepts that were learned the previous year and then forgotten. Some research has shown that students can lose as much as 3 months of reading and math achievement over the course of just one summer. (See Making Summer Count for more details on relevant studies.)
The best way to slow the summer slide, according to the research, is to provide students with resources and educational activities. Head of School Alicia Danyali provides the following ideas:
1. Visit museums with your child/ren. Between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore there is an abundance of great, educational opportunities. Depending on the age of the child, together or independently, visit the museum website prior to the visit. If the museum has dedicated tabs for educators or parents, peruse to get ideas of a focus for activities to make the experience a learning one.
2. Reading is key in the summer to encourage and reinforce a love of reading in spare time, as well as discussions related to comprehension and how authors can open a wide range of interests. Visit the library weekly and allow your child/ren to choose books of interest. Forming a summer “book club” can bring like-minded kids together to make it a rewarding experience.
3. Whether it is on car rides to camp, the grocery store, at breakfast, or together time, play language, math, and vocabulary games to keep skills fresh. If you are comfortable with online platforms (elementary and up) for introducing or reinforcing topics of interest or need, Khan Academy is one of the best with its interactive and descriptive teaching tools (video, examples) built into practice.
4. We encourage you to have your child work through a supplemental workbook selected by your child’s teacher over the summer. The books are published through Singapore Math and align with the backbone curriculum taught at TNCS. They will be collected and reviewed in the first week of next school year. Parents are encouraged to review work completed periodically to ensure students are staying on the right track. Order one here.
To point #2, making sure children have access to books is something Enoch Pratt Free Library is all about in summer. Their former “Summer Reading Program” has become the Summer Reading Challenge for 2017, the challenge being to “Build a Better World.” The challenge incentivizes kids to read, read, and read some more during summer, offering related activities and even prizes.
Señora Sanzana offered these tips for continued Spanish language learning (in addition to what is shown below):
One way is reading: Scholastic’s Spanish website offers many titles for young readers that can be purchased at a low cost.
Pekegits.com is also an amazing website where you will be able to find readings, tales, games, and grammar review.
Websites by Category
TNCS students have been introduced to multiple websites throughout the year. These are either free, inexpensive, or can be easily accessed. The children should be familiar with their log-in information because they are familiar with these websites.
Math
Math skills can also be lost without regular practice. Here are websites that TNCS students can use during the summer months:
After TNCS students have worked very hard on their reading and comprehension all year long, to keep these skills sharp, try to read with your child each day and ask questions or talk about what you have read together. Here are suggested lists of unforgettable books, differentiated by grades:
To keep current on both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese skills, your kids can visit the following websites (they will already know their log-in information for some of these):
https://www.raz-kids.com (in Spanish for all grades—access by logging in to existing accounts, clicking on the book room icon, and selecting the Spanish level reader tab)
Handwriting
Students entering grades 3 and higher are expected to write in cursive. We recommend having your students continue writing throughout the summer. A fun way to do this is to have them write to friends and relatives. There are also handwriting workbooks that try to make the task fun or valuable. Here are two such books, available on Amazon:
There are a number of great apps and sites that will help to teach typing in a fun way, for students who are not yet typing by touch. This skill becomes more valuable as students advance in school.
The TNCS elementary team looks forward to seeing their students back for the 2017–2018 school year, refreshed and ready to once more hit the ground learning!
After 7 years at The New Century School, primary teacher Catherine Lawson, of the Pear Tree classroom, is embarking on an exciting new life chapter and is consequently moving from the area. Of course, it’s not unusual that teachers come and go, as life changes—changes of locale, growing families, continuing education, etc.—dictate, but what makes this particular departure so significant is that Mrs. Lawson was one of the handful of teachers who opened the school in its current location back in August 2010 and, with Adriana Duprau, is one of only two who remained from that original group, as of the 2016–2017 school year. The other original teachers were Angela Lazarony (primary); Raquel Alvarez (toddler Spanish immersion); Zhihong “Jewel” Xie (toddler Chinese immersion); Jenny Miller, now DeFusco (art teacher); and Valerie Lim (Admissions Director). Back then, the student body comprised only about 50 children from ages 2 to 6 years.
Needless to say, this will be an emotional goodbye for Mrs. Lawson, for her fellow teachers and staff, her past and present students, and their families. Being a Montessori teacher, she taught many TNCS youngsters for 3 years during an especially formative time in their development. She knows them well, and she is very dear to them.
Immersed got the chance to chat with Mrs. Lawson to reminisce a bit and give her the opportunity to tell her story. Here is a transcript of that conversation.
Immersed: What was that first year like, here at TNCS?
Mrs. Lawson: It was a little crazy [smiling], because all of our materials were out in trailers in the back. We had just the empty building. During set-up week, we moved all of the materials into our classrooms.
Immersed: How long did it take you to get in the groove?
Mrs. Lawson: We found our groove pretty quickly. As a group, we all started working really well together, and so we were able to figure out the logistics. We worked as a team—that was the big thing. When we didn’t know what to do in a given situation, we would go to each other and work it out together. We were a really strong team.
Immersed: Can you tell us about the event that precipitated your move?
Mrs. Lawson: I inherited a house sitting on 3 1/2 acres in Vienna, VA from my aunt and uncle! It’s well located—only 5 minutes from anything—but, at the same time, it’s in the woods, so it’s nice and private. We have lots of wildlife there, like deer, fox, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds like bluebirds and big woodpeckers.
Immersed: Will you continue working in some capacity?
Mrs. Lawson: Oh yes—I plan to continue teaching, but with moving and all that entails plus closing the year out here, I haven’t begun to look for a position yet. My goal is to be in the house by July 1st. My last day here at school is June 16th.
Immersed: How long have you been teaching, and have you always been a Montessori teacher?
Mrs. Lawson: I have always been a Montessori teacher. I was getting a degree in preschool education in Massachusetts and realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. My sister-in-law, who was a secretary at Julia Brown Montessori in Silver Spring, MD, urged me to come visit. So over winter break I did, and fell in love. That summer, I attended a 10-week training program and discovered how intense the preparation really is, in terms of interning and compiling albums of all the lesson plans (nowadays they just give teachers the albums already made). And, in the state of Maryland, a college degree is required to teach Montessori. I finished my senior year of college then returned to MD, interned for 2 years, and have been teaching ever since—that was in 1990.
Immersed: Would you like to share any reflections on your time here at TNCS?
Mrs. Lawson: Oh, I’m definitely going to miss the kids. One of the things that’s really wonderful about working in the school as long as I’ve been here is being able to watch them over the years, many of them from age 2, growing and maturing and becoming their own people. I also love to see the families grow, with the the second child in a family coming through my classroom and maybe even a third. But the best is watching the individual child grow and mature. Like, the other day, Mr. McGonigal’s [2nd- and 3rd-grade] students came to read my students, and some of them had been my former students! I remember teaching them their letter sounds, and here they are reading fluently to my current students who are just now beginning to learn their letter sounds. It was so cool to watch. . . seeing who these children are turning out to be. I guess the hardest part for me is not knowing what they’re ultimately going to become. That’s going to be hard, especially having been with them for so long.
Immersed: Do you anticipate being able to visit?
Mrs. Lawson: Oh yes! I’ve kept in touch with some of my former students who are now graduating high school via Facebook and hope to do the same with my TNCS students. That’s fun.
Immersed: How have you seen TNCS evolve over the years?
Mrs. Lawson: When I started here, we had a Chinese and a Spanish toddler class, three primary classes, and an elementary. Now, we have two Spanish and one Chinese toddler classrooms, four primary classrooms, a 2nd-/3rd-grade classroom, and a 4th-/5th/6th-grade classroom. That’s a big expansion. Also, the Chinese and the Spanish language learning has evolved—we used to have just one teacher of each language to cover everything. Now we have big populations of Spanish and Chinese staff members. This means that the children can really be immersed because they are being spoken to in these languages continuously throughout the day, not just in blocks. In Professor Manuel’s K/1st class, he speaks full Spanish, for example, so at that level, the students are really getting it. I have worked at schools that taught Spanish or French for 45 minutes a day before, but I’ve never experienced anything like this level of immersion.
Immersed: Do you have any closing thoughts to convey? [Cue tears.]
Mrs. Lawson: I really love The New Century School. The staff and the families are like no other. The love and support of the families and the staff are like no other. This is the eighth school that I’ve worked in, in my life, and for the first time I really feel like I’m leaving family. When I have needed support this year, everyone has stepped in and done anything they could to help me, to make me feel supported.
On behalf of the TNCS community, Mrs. Lawson, Immersed would like to say that your ninth school will be very lucky to have you. Although you will be dearly missed, we hope that your next chapter is the best one yet!
Wednesday, May 31st was a colossal day in The New Century School‘s chicken run. (No, the sky was not falling.) On this monumental occasion, two of TNCS’s small brood moved into their permanent residence after having been lovingly incubated in primary teacher Maria Mosby’s classroom and even hosted on weekends by both Ms. Mosby and Chef Emma Novashinski in their homes over the last several weeks. Having attained a size large enough to be able to weather nights and weekends without continual supervision, they were permitted to take up housekeeping in their lovely new coop and run. (“Cluck” Great Things Are Hatching at TNCS for additional details . . . and super cute pictures of TNCS students coddling their new feathered friends.)
As you’ll see, the pair took to the coop beautifully, and who can blame them? Carefully crafted by TNCS dad Blair Nahm, this structure is palatial by chicken standards. (Shouts out to the two other TNCS dads who constructed the run!)
But that’s not all. TNCS chickens have officially been named after a whole-school vote overseen by Head of School Alicia Danyali. Say hello to Sapphire and Nugget!
Chicks 3 and 4 have also been named. Mrs. Cluckington and Henrietta (aptly named by Chef Emma, a special dispensation for all of her hard work in getting this initiative up and running) hope to join the chicken run soon and look forward to meeting the TNCS community.
Without further cockle-doodle-ado, here are Sapphire and Nugget enjoying their new habitat and friends!
After 7 years at 
Wednesday, May 31st was a colossal day in