Category: Uncategorized

The Pre-Kindergarten class Butterfly Unit included watching caterpillars spin a cocoon and change into butterflies, making butterfly wings that each student could wear, and a release of the insects in the butterfly garden.

Clairbourn School Provides Private School Education for Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, and Middle School Grades | Serving Families in the Pasadena, California, Area and Surrounding Cities (K-12 Private Schools) | Clairbourn is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Click here to request information. 

Junior Pre-K through Grade 5 students experienced the culinary joy of using fresh raw ingredients from the garden to make a healthy and tasty snack.  Dan Allen from Farmscape showed them how to make a nut and dairy free version of pesto with basil, garlic, and olive oil, seasoned with a little bit of salt and pepper. Students smashed garlic and fresh-picked basil using a mortar and pestle and then added in the other ingredients.  They tasted the pesto on carrots and peas to round out the experience.

Clairbourn School Provides Private School Education for Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, and Middle School Grades | Serving Families in the Pasadena, California, Area and Surrounding Cities (K-12 Private Schools) | Clairbourn is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Click here to request information.

As part of their STEM studies on Friday, middle school students were challenged to design a sail car, powered by wind from a large fan. Students designed a variety of sails – ranging from traditional sails to inventive sails with wings.  Some groups were so successful that the cars rolled over 12 meters. The overall winning team that made it the farthest with the fastest time was Barbie Z. , Jenny C., and Cyanne J. . Great work!

The following teams had the best score in their grades: 6^th Jake & Anthony C. – 1180 cm. 7^th Barbie Z., Jenny C., & Cyanne J. – 1257 cm. 8^th Brandon O., Blake W., & Jason L. – 1257 cm.

Clairbourn School Provides Private School Education for Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, and Middle School Grades | Serving Families in the Pasadena, California, Area and Surrounding Cities (K-12 Private Schools) | Clairbourn is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Click here to request information.

The Annual Instrumental Concert (Grades 4 to 8), is Clairbourn’s student showcase for demonstrating knowledge of and progress with playing a string or wind instrument. On Thursday May 23, the beginning, intermediate, and advanced groups for strings and winds presented three songs apiece to a packed house filled with younger students, parents, and staff. Each group that performed demonstrated the students’ learning journey through Clairbourn’s music program. Students in the beginning levels presented simple folksongs like “Mary Ann” and “Polly Wolly Doodle,” while advanced students played more complex and harmonized pieces like, “Apollo 13” and “Jurassic Park.” Thanks go to Clairbourn music teachers Rosemary Kiertzner and Ann Mize for organizing this memorable and moving concert.

Clairbourn School Provides Private School Education for Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, and Middle School Grades | Serving Families in the Pasadena, California, Area and Surrounding Cities (K-12 Private Schools) | Clairbourn is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Click here to request information.

Fourth-graders put on a live show in the Clairbourn Multi-Purpose Building dressed as famous explorers on Wednesday, May 29. Parent and student visitors were free to choose from a circle of student exhibits and could listen to memorized 30-second biography speeches activated by pressing the “on buttons.” Dressed in hand-made costumes, each student shared fascinating highlights from the lives of their explorer, made great eye-contact, and practiced their speech projection skills so everyone could hear them in the room buzzing with exciting explorer tales.

Clairbourn School Provides Private School Education for Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, and Middle School Grades | Serving Families in the Pasadena, California, Area and Surrounding Cities (K-12 Private Schools) | Clairbourn is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Click here to request information.

New CFA President, Stephanie Nava, the Executive Board, and the CFA Chairs were installed in their new 2019-2020 school year positions at a special luncheon held at the Rose Tea Garden in Pasadena.  Outgoing CFA president Stephanie Chang presented a check to Head of School Dr. Amy Patzlaff for $137,000 worth of proceeds from CFA events which the school gratefully received. She then gave a moving speech summarizing the CFA’s accomplishments from the current school year and thanked all the parents who went above and beyond to decorate, serve lunches, plan events, and to make a million other things run on campus.

Third grade students are studying the Oregon trail in their Pioneer Unit at Clairbourn. Thanks to first-hand accounts from journals kept by about 2,500 pioneers, they have been learning how a “dream for a better life” captivated half-a-million people to plunge into a journey filled with extreme hardships and sacrifice. This mass migration also resulted in serious and devastating effects to the Native American population and the physical environment. (The Oregon Trail was a journey of 1,932 miles that extended from Missouri to Oregon. The Federal Government opened up the state of Oregon for people to claim land, and over 500,000 people set out to stake a claim.  50,000 people died along the way from drowning, disease, animal attack, bullet wounds, and even starvation.) 

Clairbourn’s second grade class successfully completed their 20th consecutive service learning fundraiser for the Door of Hope homeless shelter for families in Pasadena. They presented a check for $1,137.67 to the Door of Hope Executive Director Megan Katerjian, on Friday April 26, 2019, at the school’s Morning Assembly.

Their presentation included highlights from their week of sorting, counting, and weighing the donated coins and bills which they collected from the Clairbourn.  They found all kinds of entertaining donations, in addition to US coins.  They found coins from Costa Rica, Mexico, Serbia, Hong Kong, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and Slovakia. They also found flattened pennies, tokens for Disneyland, and even the bottom half of a broken key.  Overall they counted and sorted $371.67 in coins and $766 in bills, all of which will be used by the Door of Hope to feed families in their care for a little over four months. 

Jane and Jerry Marks have a long and happy history with Clairbourn School. Jane Marks currently serves on Clairbourn’s Board of Trustees, and the Marks’ three children, Jordan ’08, Taylor ’11, and Christian *20, loved their time at Clairbourn and benefited from outstanding teachers along the way.