National attention for PASA's Summer Scholars program

I wish I had more than my scanty free time to learn about education in Providence and if I did, I would have spent time getting to know more about Providence After School Alliance's Summer Scholars program, which is bringing experiential learning into summer studies for middle school students and capturing national attention. See PBS's video and audio coverage here.

PASA's summer program is in its second year; I haven't had direct experience with it in any way, though I wish I did as it sounds like the kind of approach we should be taking in order to use engagement to accelerate learning not only in the summer but also year-round. Getting young people out of the classroom so that they can use their minds well and experience what their communities have to offer is critical, and not always available to all kids. 

ProJo also wrote about the Summer Scholars program in July in an article that rounded up a few different summer learning approaches around the state. It's here.

Back to School: media and unplugging

Or commit self-righteous graffiti.

As summer winds down (one week until the first day of school!), we have been thinking about how to get ready for the school year, with thoughts on homework earlier this month and today, with our family's approach to free time. I had originally planned this to be a post about tv/computers/video games/other devices. However, conversations with the kids during vacation made me realize that these screen-enabled devices are the bull in the china shop of free time.

I'll start with the bull, which represents the media devices that we use for entertainment. In our house, we have three tvs (one connected to the internet), three laptops, one desktop computer, two iPads, three iPhone Touches, two iPhones, a Wii, and a PS3. Good Lord, I have never collected everything up in a list like that. Crazy. I am tempted to put qualifications on the devices (what's used for work and what's a junker and so on) but it's probably better to leave the list as is, because it represents the electronic behemoth appropriately.

Despite the proliferation of devices, the kids don't have free rein to use them. We have guidelines in place: no tv before 6pm, no tv after dinner (which is usually around 7) without permission (generally, we skip it). No tv in the morning except for weekends, at which time, to tv/devices before 8am (otherwise, at least one kid would set his alarm to get extra video game time). We haven't allowed video or computer games during the week at all.  That's been the template, and it has worked more or less effectively. Thus far, there have rarely if ever been clashes between tv/other devices and school responsibilities. When a kid hasn't been able to get to his homework, it comes first, before any media consumption happens.

This school year, we're changing it up a bit by adding one screen-free night a week for everyone, including Kevin and me and our often ubiquitous iPhones. We're doing this for reasons that are fairly obvious. Even though the kids don't watch a ton of tv/use other devices all the time, the devices loom large and are totally consuming. They get fixated. There is individual variation from kid to kid, but in general, fixated is not too strong a description. They count down until 6pm and eschew other options. And really, it's often easier for us. During the work week, I get home at 6 and make dinner most nights. To get that done, it's convenient to have the guys squared away watching something or other, with the promise of decent family time at dinner.

Nevertheless, breaking the pattern feels like the right thing to do. If it's tv time, the guys often don't want to be in the kitchen and therefore don't participate in making dinner. They don't want to run over to the community garden with me. They don't go (or stay) outside past 6pm for fear of missing their precious screen time. There is a little bit of an addiction thing going on, and it seems wise to shake things up.

So we're going to try a media free night per week and see how it goes. We discussed this at breakfast during the final day of vacation and the kids were mostly okay with it, with two conditions:

1. The media-freedom applies to adults too.

2. They get access to video games for one additional night during the week.

We readily agreed to the first condition and reluctantly to the second. We decided to give it a try in the spirit of compromise.

So that's the bull. The china shop is actually in fairly good shape otherwise. They play outside a lot, play board games with each other, go off into their separate corners to do their thing: to read, do Legos, draw, daydream. I am hoping that our media free night will allow us all to read together. We're planning to use it as homework check in night; while we already quickly check their work nightly, this will be the night that we help them think through how to deal with anything they're struggling with, plan for long term assignments, etc.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I do yearn sometimes to get rid of all of the devices and have a media-free house. However, unless we make other radical changes to our lives in terms of work and where we live, that's not going to happen and despite my Little House on the Prairie fantasies, I don't think that it should happen. We live in a media-intensive world and our job as parents is to help our kids negotiate that world. I think that the off switch the best feature of any of these devices, and we try hard to teach the kids to use it and to value what happens as a result.  We may indulge the media-free lifestyle next year by going camping. I'd like that. I'd like to know what happens to our brains if we unplug for a week. But until then, unplugging for an evening a week seems more reasonable.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thinking about back to school...

School starts for my kids and their 23,000+ peers in the Providence Public Schools in a month, on August 28. Right now, we're deep into our summer routine, such as it is. Bedtime is a moving target. The guys are reading according to their own initiative (see this for the prickly relationship that our family has with required summer reading). Leo is obsessing about fantasy baseball and Henry about Legos. So their minds are at work. I am cool with them and they seem pretty cool with themselves. As Anne Lamott might put it, right now, most of the time, their minds are hospitable neighborhoods in which they are safe alone. I credit the laid back pace of summer for that.

Elias is at camp for nearly a month, totally out of my clutches. From his letters, we're getting little glimpses here and there but I don't need those to know he's learning big--about other people, life outside his family, how to take care or himself, self-reliance, coping without tv and other comforts of home, probably about archery and kayaking and I can't wait to find out what else.

The other guys are having fun at their camp (this week it's soccer, hence last night's late night scramble for shin guards). We're watching a whole lot of Olympics and pursuing the learning that comes from that, which includes frequent reference to an atlas and lots of conversation about the rules of various sports, competition, setting and achieving goals, world records, and more speculation than I ever thought possible on whether body hair really does slow someone down in the pool THAT much (if this topic fascinates you as much as it fascinates Leo, you are welcome to take it up with him and spare me another explanation of friction and milliseconds).

However, I've been in the game for long enough to know that now is the time to get our heads (mine, for starters) into getting ready for school. Because in one way or another this is an annual rite of passage for all of us with kids at school, during the coming days and weeks, I'll to share bits and pieces of our family's transition back to school during the coming weeks. What's on my mind now:

• establishing routines and rituals 
• setting up the house to encourage and invite learning 
• figuring out the best way to deal with the sometimes glorious distractions of tv and computers 
• getting our parental heads around their upcoming curriculum and learning expectations 
• school supplies, clothes, etc. 
• afterschool activities 
• figuring out schedules, buses, transportation, and babysitting/afterschool care

All that and more is on my mind, so if you're reading this, it's probably on yours too. So let's do this. Soon. Today, though, we have a sprinkler to run through.

Final 2012-2013 Providence Public Schools calendar

Last month, in this post, I was all hot and bothered about the Providence School Board's inability to approve the 2012-2013 calendar. I am now, belatedly, following up to say that the board did indeed vote on this and the final version of the calendar can be found here as a PDF and below for your school year planning purposes.

Some observations:

• Wow, that is one fragmented September. Parents with work outside of the home, plan your vacations accordingly (doing just that earlier today is what reminded me to share the final version).
• The Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) are back. Wonder why? They were gone for the past 2 years (or so).
• Not one month without at least one school day off which means...
• The end of the year is late - June 19. I sure do want some snow after last year's no-snow winter, but let's not hope for much (nor hurricanes or any other dramatic weather or disasters) or kids will be in school for-ev-er.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled summer. Happy first day! And longest day of the year. Go enjoy it.

Time to Unwind - July East Side Monthly column

I wrote these thoughts on summer learning for the July 2012 issue of East Side Monthly which is available here online and in all of the usual locations around town. 

Time to Unwind

Illustration by Jessica Pollak

For most of us who parent and teach school-aged kids, July stands alone – pristine summer perfection, entirely unsullied by formal schooling. Kids are happily enjoying not doing homework and not worrying about grades – and parents share that pleasure. It’s lovely to say, “Hey kid, what’s shaking?” in greeting to my children rather that barking, “Have you done your homework?” (That had become my rote greeting for most of the school year.) I do not miss that at all. Likewise, teachers are appreciating freedom from homework grading, lesson planning and the relentless focus on their students’ intellectual development. For many teachers, July is a time to engage in intensive professional development and to savor the unique pleasure of thinking uninterrupted thoughts.

Some argue that a summer break is an obsolete hangover from a mainly agrarian society. We don’t need to keep our kids’ days free to work on the farm. Indeed, a long break from school during the summer does not make much sense nowadays. Viewed through the lens of the well-documented phenomenon of summer learning loss, our current extended school summer vacations jeopardize academic achievement, particularly among struggling students and English language learners. In response to the threat posed by so many weeks away from formal learning, many summer programs feature some core area subject support, and families are encouraged to make sure that children read and practice math skills. Some kids will come home with a folder of worksheets meant for keeping their heads in the school game and most will have a summer reading list for optional or mandatory summer- time consumption.

Oh, those summer reading lists languishing on our kitchen bulletin board, now obscured by camp schedules and Iggy’s Doughboys coupons. My kids disdain those summer reading lists. Those books, thoughtfully and lovingly chosen by librarians and teachers, are roundly ignored. The cleverest thing I could do, really, is to hide the damn lists and artfully leave the books in our home’s lounging and leisure spots. (Note to self: you could still do this; it’s not as if the kids have actually looked at the lists.) Then my children may well read some of those books because reading per se is not a problem. They read plenty, sometimes even voraciously. They are easy readers, these kids. What they are not, in the summer, is the least bit interested in being told what to read.

These children are generally compliant and often enthusiastic students during the academic year. But when summer vacation starts, they are wildly resistant to the intrusion of anything with the whiff of formal education.

Instead, they are learning all kinds of things in ways that the frantically paced school year doesn’t permit. In camp, they learn archery and art. At home, they read when and what they want to. They learn to skateboard. They take piano lessons, with enough time and space in the day to get into a good routine of practicing without a lot of other competing demands. They work on their fantasy baseball teams and play plenty of real baseball games. They are planning a backyard party for their friends that will be, I hear, epic. They are allowing their minds to settle where they may, which, at least for a few weeks of the year, seems right.

Chats with friends – all full-time working parents like us with elementary and middle school aged kids – have yielded fairly similar responses. All of us agree that a little bit goes a long way during the summer. Some kids actually love the summer reading lists and rip through them, often encouraged by programs that provided prizes and recognition for the most prolific readers. Many parents spoke highly of regular library visits and the Providence Public Library Summer Reading Program; its theme this year is “Dream Big, Read!” which sounds excellent. You can visit a library branch or the Providence Public Library website for more. Others are experimenting with online learning. We’re doing that. With our kids, we have been having fun with math learning on the Khan Academy website.

And of course, what’s right in the summer is different for every family and every child. One friend mentioned that her kid, who has ADHD, needs a little more structure, which she provides by saying, “Let’s get half-an-hour of reading done before you watch television today.” Another friend has kids in a dual-language elementary school and wants to keep the parts of their brains engaged in Spanish language learning up to speed, so she plans to work on that.

What all of us are looking forward to the most is time to hang out with our kids. An unrushed (except perhaps by the need to evade mosquitoes) picnic dinner in the backyard, with s’mores made in a firepit; this cannot be beat, and cannot be had with any regularity during the rush of the school year. We’re making memories, and I think that counts for a lot.

back for summer vacation...almost

At least I provided some fair warning that I'd be gone. I didn't expect to be a month's worth of gone, but attention had to be paid to work, the end of the school year (which was last Thursday, June 14), and baseball x 3.

As these things happen, now that school is over, I have more time to think and write about it. So here we re-begin. But first, a vacation day with the kids at

The one in MA, not the one in RI.

It's not going to be hot enough but one must seize one's fun while one may. We think it's a good day for fun seizing precisely because (not going to be superhot) + (some school districts are still in session) = no lines.

So, tomorrow, after a dozen trips down the water slide clear my head, back to thinking about schools.

Happy summer, everyone!

Proposed 2012-2013 PPSD calendar

Up above is the draft version of the 2012-2013 Providence Public Schools academic year calendar that was supposed to be approved at last night's school board meeting. Click on the image to see a larger version. It's available as part of the publicly posted school board meeting agenda, which can be found here: http://www.providenceschools.org/pesb/.

However, this calendar wasn't approved because only three of nine school board members were in attendance - not a quorum, so they could not vote. Three out of nine! I don't know which three were there. Thanks for showing up, whoever you are. And the rest of you? What's the deal? Who am I to ask, you could ask - after all, I wasn't there either. But hey, I'm not on the school board.

School board members, show up so that business can get done, even basic business such as approving this calendar. Families urgently need this information in order to plan our summers. Let's assume it will be approved as is, which means that the first day of school will be Tuesday, August 28.

I'll guess that approving this calendar was not even the most urgent business that needed to get done. But because it's what I was waiting for, I'll invest a few minutes in this little fuss, and also offer up the draft as a likely indicator of what next year looks like for our kids.

And while I'm in ranty territory, I'll hang out here a bit longer to ask why Providence School Board meetings (and other public meetings) aren't broadcast on the web for people to view if they cannot attend. Due to family obligations, I can't often make it to school board meetings. If the meetings were webcast, you can be damn sure I'd tune in, or at the very least watch recordings. That the ProJo nor other local media do not cover the school board meetings is frustrating, too - though the need for such coverage would be less urgent if we were able to take advantage of easily implemented technology to make the meetings more accessible--and the school board more accountable--to many more citizens.

I imagine I'm not the only one who wants this and I would love to know if there's any energy inside (or outside) City Hall to put school board and perhaps other meetings online. If not, why not?

Now leaving Rantopolis.


UPDATE: The ProJo, object of my complaining, did report on the meeting nonattendance. Thanks for that, and the the story shares that Keith Oliveira, Nina Pande, and Barbara Wong were in attendance last night. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Tom.

Hope High School students: what did you do this summer? Read on to find out!

Summer can be a tremendous time for learning for students, as evidenced by the intense projects on which some Hope High School students have been working. During the past month, students from Hope High School's H2O After School programs participated in "The Experience," a four-week program in which they honed their entrepreneurial skills as product developers and marketers. Channel 6 ABC news reported on their efforts, and if you're on Facebook, you visit Hope H2O's Facebook page to learn more both about "The Experience" and Hope H2O's work in general.

And as I've written about previously, other Hope students in Edinburgh, Scotland to perform Laurie Brooks' "Triangle" at the American High School Theater Festival that's part of Edinburgh's Fringe Festival. They're performing this week, so send excellent vibes across the ocean! Recent local press coverage from GoLocalProv is here, and Rhode Island College's PR office covered the production in detail here; both Christine Auxier, a drama teacher at Hope and "Triangle" director and the production's technical director, Alonzo Jones, are RIC grads. Jones is also a Hope High School graduate.

Rock on, Hope High School!!!

Providence City Summer Lunch Program, July 5-August 19

Starting July 5, the City of Providence will serve lunch (and, at one site, breakfast) to kids who are 18 years old and younger. Lunches are served Monday through Friday through August 19. More info on the City of Providence's website here.

During the 2010-2012 school year, 88% of Providence's school children were (and for this the final week of school still are) eligible for free and reduced lunch during the school year. The city expect to feed 5,000 kids per day during the summer at the following locations:

Davey Lopes Pool
227 Dudley Street
11:30AM – 1:30PM

Fox Point Waterpark
Wickenden Street
11:45AM – 1:45PM

George J. West Waterpark
Chalkstone/Mount Pleasant Avenue
10:45AM – 12:45PM

Joslin Recreation Center Pool
17 Hyat Street
11:00AM – 1:00PM

Harriet and Sayles Waterpark
199 Oxford Street
11:45AM – 1:45PM

Neutaconkanut Recreation Center Pool
675 Plainfield Street
11:45AM – 1:45PM

Recreation Department – Main Building Waterpark
11 West Drive
11:45AM – 1:15PM

Pleasant Street Waterpark
Pleasant Street
12:00 – 1:30PM

Sackett Street Waterpark
159 Sackett Street
11:00AM – 12:45PM

Selim-Rogers Recreation Center Pool
60 Camden Avenue
10:45AM – 12:45PM

Southside Waterpark
674 Prairie Avenue
11:15AM – 1:15PM

West End Recreation Center Bucklin Pool
109 Bucklin Street
12:00 – 1:30PM

Zuccolo Recreation Center Pool
11 Gesler Street
12:00 – 1:30PM

Elmwood Community Center
155 Niagara
10:30AM – 12:30PM

Lockwood Plaza
50 Prairie Avenue
11:30AM – 1:30PM

Billy Taylor Playground
Camp Street
11:45AM – 1:45PM

Candace Street Playground
Candace & Orms Street
10:30AM – 12:30PM

Dexter Training Ground
73 Dexter Street
10:30AM – 12:30PM

Fargnoli Park
Across 950 Smith Street
11:00AM – 1:00PM

Mattie Smith Playground
Glenham & Taylor Street
8:00 – 9:00AM (Breakfast)
11:30AM – 1:00PM (Lunch)

O’Brien Park
Corner of Regent Street & River Avenue
10:30AM – 12:30PM

Pearl Street Playground
Pearl & Providence Streets
11:15AM – 1:15PM

Riverside Park
50 Aleppo Street
11:15AM – 1:15PM

Wiggins Village
207 Cranston Street
11:00AM – 1:00PM

Donigian Park
247 Valley Street
11:30AM – 1:30PM

Summer Learning Opportunities - Providence and Statewide

Related to my question yesterday about low- or no-cost opportunities for summer fun and learning for kids in Providence, I have three resources to share:

1. Providence After School Alliance (PASA) is offering summer opportunities for Providence middle school students during July. You can access PASA's summer AfterZone brochure here. 

2. Mt. Hope Learning Center is offering a low-cost summer camp for kids in grades K-5. Information available here - and for more on Mt. Hope Learning Center's work, you can read this from March 2011's East Side Monthly.

Rhode Island After School Plus Alliance's Summer Learning Map

3. My friends at Rhode Island After School Plus Alliance (RIASPA) reminded me of a map that they've created that provides information about summer learning opportunities statewide; you can access the map through this link on RIASPA's site.

The summer learning opportunities map is a great source of comprehensive information about summer opportunities for kids that combine fun and learning - and for more on that, RIASPA's policy brief on summer learning is well worth a read. You can download the PDF here.

I am happy to help spread the word about other opportunities for fun, meaningful summer learning in and around Providence, particularly low- and no-cost options. Thanks for these suggestions, and I welcome more! Post in the comments or email me at jill(dot)davidson(at)gmail.com.

Providence Parks and Recreation Department summer sports programs for kids

As my own kids remind me as frequently as possible, just 9 days of school left! My fifth grader has calculated that amount to the hour, minute, and second, exclusive of lunch, recess, and gym, which in his judgment "don't count." It's a thoughtful calculation, executed with confidence and accuracy. PPSD's mathematics curriculum and pedagogy in action!

Onto summer! Information about Providence Parks and Recreation Department's summer sports programs for kids can be found here, and you can click on the flier to the left for program info. The youth sports programs are free, with free lunch provided, and most are available for kids age 9-12. 

In a future post, I'll pull together information about other low- or no-cost summer options. If anyone has already compiled or knows of such a list, please give me a heads up.

So what's up with Providence's libraries?

Yesterday, in the context of a post about Providence Public Schools' summer reading lists and the Providence Community Libraries' summer programming, I mentioned a conflict that's threatening our libraries.

For those who want to know more, WPRI's Ted Nesi ran through the facilities dispute between Providence Community Library and Providence Public Library that's triggered PCL to send layoff notices to all of its employees and may imperil community use of the library starting July 1.  It's the clearest presentation that I have read of the conflict, its origins, and what Mayor Taveras, District 4 State Representative Gordon Fox, and City Council members are doing to find resolution to keep our libraries open this summer so that kids and adults can access the world of ideas.

Providence Schools' 2011 Summer Reading Lists - the actual lists

These are the Providence Schools' 2011 summer reading lists for grades K-8 that I referred to in the previous post; original in PDF form is here on the Providence Community Libraries site. 

Grades K & 1
Anansi books / various authors

Jamela's Dress and other Jamela books / Nikki Daly

Moon Rope and other titles / Lois Ehlert

Koala Lou and other titles / Mem Fox

One Afternoon / Yumi Heo

A Cool Drink of Water and other titles / Barbara Kerley

The Owl and the Pussycat / Edward Lear

One Leaf Rides the Wind / Celeste Mannis

Please Malese / Amy McDonald

Uno Dos Tres / Pat Mora

Just a Minute and Just in Case / Yuyi Morales

Bikes for Rent / Isaac Olaleye

A is for Africa and other titles / Ifeoma Onyefulu

Bee-Bim-Bop / Linda Sue Park

Mice and Beans / Pam Munoz Ryan

All the World / Elizabeth Garton Scanlon

Madlenka and other Madlenka books / Peter Sis

Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten and other Miss Bindergarten books / Joseph Slate

Jack and the Box / Art Speigelman and other TOON books

Apples, Apples, Apples and other titles / Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Bunnies on the Go / Rick Walton

Yoko and My Kindergarten / Rosemary Wells

We Are in a Book and other Elephant and Piggie books / Mo Willems

Seven Blind Mice / Ed Young


K-1 Spanish/Bilingual

The Party for Papa Luis = La Fiesta para Papa Luis / Diane Gonzales Bertrand

Oh, Crumps! = Ay, Caramba! / Lee Bock

Magda's Tortillas = Las Tortillas de Magda / Becky Chavarria-Chairez

Freight Train = Tren de Carga / Donald Crews

Dia de mercado y los otros / Lois Ehlert

La primera luna llena de gatita / Kevin Henkes

Uno Dos Tres / Pat Mora

Arroz con frijoles-- y unos amables ratones / Pam Munoz Ryan

Donde viven los monstruos / Maurice Sendak

Leale a su conjito / Rosemary Wells


Grades 2 & 3
Juan Bobo folktales / various authors

My Painted House or Kofi and His Magic / Maya Angelou

Frantastic Voyage and other Franny K. Stein books / Jim Benton

Going, Going, Gone! with the Pain and the Great One and other “the Pain and the Great One” books / Judy Blume

The Intrepid Canadian Expedition and other Flat Stanley books / Jeff Brown

Runaway Rice Cake / Ying Chang Compestine

Bink and Gollie / Kate DiCamillo

Around the World: Who's Been Here and other "Whose been here" books / Lindsay Barrett George

Never Smile at a Monkey and other books / Steve Jenkins

We’re Sailing Down the Nile / Laurie Kreb

Pop / Meghan McCarthy

Adele and Simon / Barbara McClintock

Bad News for Outlaws / Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

On the Road and other "Down Girl and Sit"books / Lucy Nolan

Pictures from Our Vacation / Lynn Rae Perkins

Mirror, Mirror / Marilyn Singer

The Karate Mouse and other titles / Geronimo or Thea Stilton

Chato Goes Cruising and other Chato books / Gary Soto

Lulu and the Brontosaurus / Judith Viorst

Coming to America: A Muslim Family’s Story and other titles / Bernard Wolf


2-3 Spanish/Bilingual

The Princess and the Pea = La Princesa y el Guisante / Francesc Boada

Rene Has Two Last Names = Rene tiene dos apellidos / Rene Colato Lainez

Family Pictures = Cuadros de Familia / Carmen Lomas Garza

The Bossy Gallito = El gallo de bodas / Lucia M. Gonzalez

I Wish I Had Freckles Like Abby = Quisiera tener pecas como Abby y los otros / Kathryn
Heling y Deborah Hembrook

Frederick / Leo Lionni

La verdadera historia de los tres cerditos / Jon Scieszka

Chato y su cena / Gary Soto

Carlos and the Cornfield = Carlos y la milpa de maiz / Jan Romero Stevens

Sonia Sotomayor: a Judge in the Bronx = la juez que cresio en el Bronx / Jonah Winter


Grades 4 & 5
From the Bellybutton of the Moon and other titles / Francisco X. Alarcon

How Tia Lola Came to Visit Stay and other Tia Lola books / Julia Alvarez

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and other titles / Lynn Curlee

Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School / Candace Fleming

Nory Ryan’s Song or Maggie’s Door / Patricia Reilly Giff

Turtle in Paradise / Jennifer L. Holm

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon / Grace Lin

Touch Blue / Cynthia Lord

Emily’s Fortune / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Boys of Steel: the Creators of Superman / Marc Tyler Nobleman

Come with Me: Poems for a Journey and other titles / Naomi Shihab Nye

Masters of Disaster / Gary Paulsen

Junkyard Wonders / Patricia Polacco

Green / Laura Peyton Roberts

Erika-San and other titles / Allen Say

How I Learned Geography / Uri Shulevitz

Dancing Pancake / Eileen Spinelli

What Happened on Fox Street / Tricia Springstubb

Gator on the Loose / Susan Stauffacher

My Life as a Book / Janet Tashjian


Grades 6-8
Chains or Forge / Laurie Halse Anderson

Strange Case of Origami Yoda / Tom Angleberger

Anything but Typical / Nora Raleigh Baskin

Warriors Don't Cry : a Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High / Melba Pattillo Beals

Chasing Vermeer/ Blue Balliett

Colibri / Ann Cameron

Breadwinner / Deborah Ellis

The Graveyard Book / Neil Gaiman

Letters from Rifka / Karen Hesse

Scat / Carl Hiassen

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf : A Year Told through Stuff / Jennifer L. Holm

Across Five Aprils / Irene Hunt

Color of My Words / Lynn Joseph

The Merchant of Death and other Pendragon books / D.J. MacHale

A Dream of Freedom : the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 / Diane McWhorter

A Single Shard / Linda Sue Park

Voyage of the Frog / Gary Paulsen

True Meaning of Smekday / Adam Rex

The River Between Us / Richard Peck

Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi

Keeping Corner / Kashmira Sheth

When You Reach Me / Rebecca Stead

One Crazy Summer / Rita Garcia Williams

American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang

Back to School on Kidoinfo.com!

Hope everyone is set to enjoy the second week of school. It's a short one for our family; yesterday off for Labor Day (which we spent delightfully at Goosewing Beach) and then Thursday out of school for Rosh Hashana. See this recent Providence Schools blog post for more on that, and Providence Public Schools' decision to keep schools open during the Jewish High Holy Days this year.

With so much focus on getting the kids back into their school routine--and on everything else! busy times lately--that I am only now posting a note here about a new piece from me, "Back to School Advice," which ran on Kidoinfo.com last week. Featuring tips for easing kids back into their school routines from Learning Community teacher Maureen Nosal, I think it helped a few of us shift from la-ti-da summer mode to a more structured routine. Helped our family, at least! Thanks, again, Maureen, for speaking with me and sharing your thoughts.

"Back to School Advice" is infused with assumptions about the ways kids and their families spend time in the summer. Because of that, I turned to a teacher working with a population of kids that's not quite the same as my own, and while that alternate--and professional--perspective serves the short Kidoinfo.com article just fine, I've been left wondering about the variety of ways Providence kids experience summer. Sadly, I don't have time to research that now, so am putting it out there as a flag for future exploration and understanding.


In the meantime, what are you tips and thoughts for getting your kids transitioned from summer to school? Has it been a big deal or an easy shift? What's working, what's challenging, and what changes will you be making to get your kids off to school with their--and your--sanity more or less intact?

summer unschool

Three more days left for kids in this school year, make-up snow days at this point. If any teachers are still planning lessons and working on content and creating powerful teaching and learning at this point in the year, wow, my hat is off to you.

Elias, my third grader and Leo, my kindergartener, both students at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School, are looking forward to summer (and, with this terrible weather we've been having, aren't we all) and sad that school is ending. Elias is captivated by science, for which we have his teacher, Kathy Sullivan, and Brown University's K-12 science program to thank. Science has replaced gym as the highlight of his week. Leo mostly talks about missing his friends, but is also reluctant to part with gym, and centers, and the routines of his classroom. I am sad that his wonderful teacher, Joan Abrames, is retiring even as I am gratified that she, and teaching assistant Ms. Eileen, and everyone at King has given Leo such a great first year of school.

Next week, I'll talk with them about what they want to learn and explore this summer. Elias wants to experiment with bridge building, and he has two research projects inspired by music, to investigate the names and places cited in "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Harvey Haddix. I think that Leo wants to work on math and numbers, and also explore beaches and learn how they work and what's there. I think we may get down to DC, so need to get more immersed in space so we can have a great experience at the Air and Space Museums. I'll post about what they're learning this summer, and how we find ways to support that while also having fun and allowing their minds to run free. And - how we find time to support them as fulltime working parents of three young kids. I want to find a way to give them ways to explore a subject in some depth, in a project-based way, so they know how to do that and what that feels like.

And I'll get back to post about what's happening at PPSD and Providence students, including looking at summer programs and learning--both intentional programmed learning, and the great, mundane, terrible, life-shaping learning that happens no matter what. What are Providence kids learning this summer? I hope to have better citywide insight into that question by September.

(I don't want to overlook three year old Henry--he's starting camp fulltime at the JCC and will be learning what it's like to spend the day out of the house, learning a new routine, bringing his own lunch. Exciting stuff! He is fired up. I think he'll be learning a lot more; we'll be working on the alphabet and numbers through sensory stimulation now and then.)