On May 3rd, our five local Invention Convention winners along with 22 of their second grade peers descended on the University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus.

First our expert inventors began their day-long journey of presenting their ideas to the judges.  Each student was part of a judging circle where they received feedback from not only their official judges, but their peers as well.  After that, the students were able to enjoy displays by major technology firms and view the other inventions.

While our expert inventors were busy at work, our other second graders took an extensive campus tour that led them through the library, admissions building, to the school of education and through the engineering department.  These students then returned to Gampel Pavilion to show their support for our five representatives and were able to tour the floor.  We ended our day with a trip to the music buildings and a concert by A Completely Different Note, a student a cappella group.

We were so proud of all our students and especially our expert inventors who were excellent representatives of our school.  One of our inventors even received an award from the 3M company.  We are all excited to begin the process all over again next year.

-Mr. Reed-Swale

You may or may not know that three members of our amazing PreK team spent Friday, May 16^th teaching other educators about what inquiry looks like at the PreK level.  As presenters at the Magnet Schools of America conference, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Granahan, and Mrs. Smith-Horn led a hands-on activity showing others how to build inquiry explorations.  What does that look like?  Instead of asking a student what would happen if they used a red block in their tower, a teacher might ask,  “How could you make your structure taller, stronger, or more stable?”  Instead of asking a student how many small cups it would take to fill a larger cup in the water station, a teacher might ask, “How could you fill up that big cup?”  The more open ended the questions, the more thinking is needed to be done by the student.

Using the knowledge they gained at Cultivating Young Scientists (CYS), a graduate level program for PreK educators in the area of inquiry-based instruction, our teachers engaged a class of teachers and administrators from around the country.  Through hands-on explorations, they served as expert mentors, sharing insights from their own classrooms as well as the background knowledge necessary to implement such a program.

We are all so proud of our whole PreK team which has taken on CYS.  Each teacher takes three semesters of graduate-level work in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities.  Their hard work is seen each an every day.  Friday was just a way for the rest of the world to see just how amazing our team is!

Below are some pictures from their workshop.  It sure looked like folks were having a great time!

-Mr. Reed-Swale