TNCS Strengthens Community Partnerships with Southeast Baltimore Area Schools!

Summer camps at The New Century School are not just for TNCS students—any student age 2 through 8th grade is welcome to attend. This year, TNCS collaborated with the Development Committee of Patterson Park Charter School to donate two specialty camp “scholarships” as part of a raffle fundraiser for PPPCS, as shown in the flier below.

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MeHeading up the raffle was Development Coordinator Heather Savino, who describes her position as comprising two roles: “first and foremost, it’s fundraising, and, second, external communications.” She explains that the Development Committee is relatively new, and she took over as Coordinator for the 2017–2018 school year. The summer fun raffle was an effort to both raise funds for PPPCS as well as represent an activity that benefits students and families. Ms. Savino explains, “Someone on the committee mentioned that spring is the time that all of the parents are talking about where they’re sending their kids over the summer. Because not everyone at our school can afford summer camp, we decided to try to find a way to make summer camp more widely available.”

Sharing Values, Sharing Resources

Dr. Liz Obara, PPPCS’s Community School Coordinator, who oversees the school’s relationships with other Baltimore schools, organizations, and businesses, then suggested reaching out to these partners to see what kind of opportunities they could provide PPPCS families. Enter TNCS. TNCS Co-Founder/Executive Director Roberta Faux agreed to donate two summer camps for this very worthy cause: Spanish Immersion Camp and American Music System Camp. “We are very grateful for the collaboration between TNCS and PPPCS, and for TNCS’s support of our students,” said Dr. Obara. “We are all supporting this City’s children, so we recognize it’s all hands on deck—and collaboration is key. I love to see how organizations can work together to support each other.”

The raffle, which also included chances to win admission to American Visionary Art Museum, Maryland Science Center, Sky Zone, and more, was held June 15th. Tickets were $5 each, and the reception to PPPCS’s first-ever fundraiser of this kind was great. Not surprisingly, “the winners were ecstatic,” said Ms. Savino. Much of the success of the raffle is probably owing to its two-pronged approach of raising money and also providing community enrichment. “PPPCS’s vision is cultivating lifelong learners and helping families create strong neighborhoods, and so we want to make sure in everything that we do that we are striving to achieve that through our partnerships. We are so grateful to everyone who donated incredible opportunities and services for our families,” said Ms. Savino.

Meet a (Very Cute) Camp Winner!

Spanish Immersion Camp began July 23rd, and the winner of that raffle was none other than Dr. Obara’s family! As a parent of a 1st-grader at PPPCS and the PPPCS Community School Coordinator, Dr. Obara says, “I wear (at least) two hats at PPPCS, so I am doubly grateful for the donation of Spanish Camp at TNCS!”

For many important reasons, she is glad for this opportunity for her child:

As a parent, I am really looking forward to my son’s participation in the Spanish Immersion Camp. As a bilingual family, we value both our languages, but really find it difficult to sustain fluency in both languages. Spanish Immersion Camp will not only offer our son more exposure and practice in Spanish, but it will also give him such a fun association with the language—so that learning won’t be a chore! I also find it valuable that the camp will emphasize the culture of Spanish-speaking countries as well, so that the language-learning won’t be isolated from the culture. Finally, I think it’s important that my son sees the importance of language learning, and can be in the company of other kids and families that also share this value.

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PPPCS hopes to do a similar raffle next year, and TNCS will continue to support their efforts to establish positive, collaborative partnerships among southeast Baltimore schools and organizations.

Like TNCS, PPPCS is a school that recognizes its impact in a neighborhood—not just for its students, but for the whole community. Schools that are committed to ensuring this impact is beneficial to all community residents are educating students in ways that go far beyond numbers and letters. As Dr. Obara put it, “Collaboration is key.” Research backs this up: When families, community groups, businesses, and schools band together to support learning, young people achieve more in school, stay in school longer, and enjoy the experience more.

TNCS Debuts New Summer Camp: Musical Theatre!

For summer 2018, The New Century School expanded its already spectacular lineup of fun and exciting summer camps to include some new offerings. One of these was Musical Theatre camp, taught by TNCS’s amazing music director, Martellies Warren.

This camp focused on allowing campers free self-expression through exploration in set design, pairing dialogue with music and movement, and exploring the technical aspects of the performance stage.

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical—humor, pathos, love, and anger—are communicated through the words, music, movement, and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole.

Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it is distinguished by the equal importance given to the dialogue, movement, music, and other elements.

Exit Stage Left!

After first learning the all-important jargon–what upstage versus downstage means, for example—campers spent the week practicing a scripted humor piece as well as breaking out into groups to write, direct, stage, act (and even sing!) in their own short plays. They also designed their own playbills, which graced the front of the stage.

Here are two of the younger campers performing the humorous piece, to thunderous applause.

(Stars in the making?) All campers performed this piece. To see more examples of this funny little clip and maybe catch a glimpse of your rising star, visit TNCS’s YouTube Channel and look for “Annie Get Your Gun.”

Without Further Ado!

tncs-musical-theatre-summer-campAnd now for the four plays, which, to put it simply, brought down the house. They are brought to you here, scene by scene. Scene changes in between were handled by the set team of each group, and they did a wonderful job. Mr. Warren emphasized that he intervened as little as possible to let each play troupe own the production from beginning to end. He was called on to help out with some sound effects, however, and played both a very convincing doorbell as well as a rotary phone. Other props were contributed by the players themselves.

The Perfect Slice

First up was “The Perfect Slice”—a compelling food metaphor for what we all seek, deep down. (Or deep dish?)

Murder Mansion

Next up was “Murder Mansion.” tncs-musical-theatre-summer-campWatch out, Agatha—the horror genre apparently has crowned a new queen!

Warning, “Murder Mansion” may not be suitable for all audiences. Use your discretion. (Just kidding.)

One by one . . .

Finding a Pet

tncs-musical-theatre-summer-campThird on the roster was “Finding a Pet,” a delightful romp through the process of welcoming four-legged friends into the family.

It’s one that nearly everyone in the audience found relatable, and kudos to the way the actors really inhabited their roles as animals.

Watch Out for the Witch

tncs-musical-theatre-summer-campThe final performance of the day featured a solo sung by one of the actors.

“Watch Out for the Witch” starts out as a suspenseful nail biter, but, in the end, all is well. This heartwarming tale about witchcraft mixed with sisterly love is sure to have you spellbound!

(Psst—the solo is in Scene 2!)

 

Curtain!

What a wonderful week of musical theatricality and general hijinks upon the stage. Although Friday was the final act, let’s hope that summer 2019 will include an encore of this amazing camp!

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TNCS Chinese Camp 2018: Life Cycles!

Just because it’s summer, The New Century School does not stop bringing the language-learning! This week, Immersed is so happy to present this blog by Guest Blogger and TNCS Chinese Lead Teacher, Wei Li (a.k.a., “Li Laoshi”)!

The theme of 2017–2018 Chinese summer camp is “Life cycle.” The duration of this summer camp is 1 week, and the range of students’ age is from K through 8th grade. Joining me in the classroom was our brand-new intern, “Xu Laoshi” (a.k.a. “Nina”).

The main idea of the camp is combining the Chinese language and the subject of science together, with lots of fun, meaningful, hands-on activities and projects, which means our students are learning by doing. We started each day with a little movement to warm up our bodies and minds, in fact.

An important component of our camp was to encourage peer teaching. For example, we had a student who is currently in 8th grade. This student was assigned in the position of director when we were practicing our role play. She felt very proud of this and showed a lot of leadership. Other peer learning happens when students work in small-group activities since our students are both in different ages and levels.

In the camp, our students have learned three life circles: tomato, butterfly, and frog. Our students planted some tomato’ seeds on the first day for observing how they sprout and grow up. They took turns to water the seeds daily.

We next made a poster about the life cycles of tomatoes and butterflies and did a very nice presentation.

In the middle of the week, we learned a story and made a book about “Tadpoles Look for Their Mommy” and shared it in the front of whole class.

On Thursday, we went to Patterson Park for a field trip. Our students picked some leaves and made beautiful art work about the things that we have learned in the camp.

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On Friday, we we had a fun cooking activity, making (and eating!) Chinese pancakes.

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We also did Chinese painting about the story of “Tadpoles Look for Their Mommy” for reinforcement of the bookmaking we did earlier in the week.

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In addition, we put on a play, that was the culmination of all our lessons for the week. For those of you who don’t speak Mandarin Chinese, here is the script of “Tadpoles Look for Their Mommy”:

Narrator: Spring is coming. The eggs have changed to tadpoles. Tadpoles swim around and see a duck mommy.
Tadpoles: Duck mommy, duck mommy, where is our mommy?
Duck mommy: Your mommy has two big eyes and a big mouth.
Narrator: Tadpoles swim around and see a goldfish.
Tadpoles: Mommy! Mommy!
Goldfish: I am not your mommy. Your mommy has four legs.
Narrator: Tadpoles swim around and see a turtle.
Tadpoles: Mommy! Mommy!
Turtle: I am not your mommy. Your mommy has a white belly.
Narrator: Tadpoles swim around and see a goose.
Tadpoles: Mommy! Mommy!
Goose: I am not your mommy. Your mommy wears green clothes.
Narrator: Tadpoles swim around and see a frog.
Tadpoles: Mommy! Mommy!
Frog: Dear Babies, I am your mommy!

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What a great week had by all. Thank you for hosting such a wonderful camp and for contributing this fantastic blog about it, Li Laoshi! 谢谢! Xièxiè!

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