How do you properly honor a group of 8th grade students, full of achievements and ready to graduate, who have spent as many as 11 years of their childhood at one school? Due to the pandemic of 2020, normal graduation ceremonies and gatherings were not allowed, but Clairbourn found a way to honor each student with a special family graduation appointment. Using the spacious center quad to present diplomas was perfect because it allowed for social distancing, beautiful photographs, a symbolic graduation walk, and contactless delivery of the diplomas because parents were asked to hand the diplomas to their children and shake their hands.
Put your leisure time this summer to good use! Read up expert child-raising advice.
Have you ever wondered what Clairbourn’s Leadership Team members, Dr. Patzlaff, Janet Taylor, and Karen Paciorek, as well as the teachers, and even our own parents are reading and watching on the subjects of education and raising children? As summer approaches, it is a great time for parents to find out. Throughout the school year, curated and inspiring content is published for our parents in the Parenting Partner Playlist Group on Clairbourn’s CougarNet intranet website!
Imagine yourself, over the next eight weeks, poolside—the picture of relaxation—but you’re actually using that time to become a super parent, checking in on what education experts are saying, getting inspiration from research, and learning about strategies for raising children. As your children grow, you’ll be one step ahead of them knowing what they need to thrive!
Here are the current resources to explore: (If you have a favorite video, article, or book that you think should be shared with your fellow parents, email the information to info@clairbourn.org and put “Parenting Partner Playlist” in the email’s subject title. If you need help finding this content in CougarNet, see the instructions at the end of this article.)
According to an April 2020 Gallup poll, regarding the pandemic’s negative financial, physical, and mental effects, 23% of Americans reported feeling they were already in a mental health crisis or just a few weeks away from having one. An additional 19% felt they could hold out for a few months at best. This is not good news considering no one knows the duration of the pandemic or how long social distancing will need to be practiced.
Clairbourn School has a long history of partnering with its parents to ensure that the whole school community remains healthy, strong, and productive even in times of difficulty. As an educational institution, it is natural to turn to the experts and discover what they have to teach us so we’re mentally equipped for tough times. The good news is, there are plenty of proven ways to bounce back from, or thrive in hardship and break away from frustration, depression, and burnout. The data shows we have the ability to control up to 40% of our happiness, and the strategies we can learn are surprisingly accessible and achievable!
Gratitude is a word we hear a lot at Clairbourn School—especially at the start of May when students celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week and submitted thank you notes, drawings, and videos to honor the work of their teachers. After such a heartfelt and bountiful outpouring of thanks, it can be easy to feel satisfied about our community’s understanding and practice of gratitude. So why is it important to unpack it and take a deeper look? Because this single word represents a much bigger concept than sincere thank-yous and heartfelt feelings.
Gratitude is a power that we can exert over our immediate experience to bring about changes for the better. It is scientifically proven to relieve our minds and bodies from the negative effects of dissatisfaction, stress, disappointment, delay, and devastation—struggles especially associated with the current COVID-19 losses, economic fallout, and restrictions.
Grateful Clairbourn students made special thank-you cards to honor and appreciate their hard working teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week in May.Continue reading “What is Gratitude Doing to You?”
Thanks to the pandemic, screen time is dominating our lives right now, which means balancing strategies are needed to ensure we aren’t always plugged-in. Clairbourn School teachers are great at this. Even in traditional school, our teachers help students find balance so they stay productive. Cara Barker’s middle school classes (featured in the video below) are a great example of using the “brain breaks” strategy to make sure students stay healthy, productive, and focused—and this is something everyone can easily do at home to recharge and rebalance their minds and bodies.
Teacher Cara Barker’s students in Grade 6 and Grade 7 take a Mannequin Challenge brain break to boost their focus on the learning material.
Did you know that brain breaks not only help students burn off pent-up energy, but these activities also improve behavior, engagement with instruction, and cognitive performance? Brain breaks may look like play, but according to SimplyKinder’s article, “Brain Breaks Old School & Kindergarten Style,” the smiling, laughing, and activity associated with play activate parts of the brain associated with learning. Those interested in the research can check out these links, sourced by SimplyKinder.com, showing that brain breaks improve behavior, engagement and cognitive performance.
When a child shows signs of sinking into states of low energy or distraction, those are indicators that it’s time for a brain break. Here are some resources for quality brain break ideas:
For students in Grades K through 5, try these feel-good, educational dance break videos like “Banana Banana Meatball” and “Clap it Out” from content creators Blazer Fresh. Middle school students will enjoy the challenge of learning Finger Tutting (finger dancing) or some TikTok dance challenge components like the “C-Walk.” Cheery movement videos from The Wiggles like “Open, Shut Them,” or “Say the Dance, Do the Dance” are perfect for preschool children.
Brain breaks videos for all ages can be found on YouTube. Check out content from Blazer Fresh, The Wiggles, and even TikTok dance tutorials, all of which can help remote-learning students refresh their minds and bodies.
It is easy to get started—and once you learn the dances or other brain break activities, you can skip the video accompaniment. Find additional inspiration from this Pinterest page and record the activities your child will like on this handy downloadable chart from ActionForHealthyKids.org.
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.
If you are a fan of vintage American sitcoms, you may have seen the show Hogan’s Heroes which depicts a scrappy group of Allied prisoners in a German POW camp who managed to run countless special operation campaigns under the noses of their jailers. The main character was Colonel Hogan, an effective and clever leader with tremendous morale-boosting skills. His well-oiled machine of dedicated men knew how to cooperate, stay safe, and simultaneously do some good even when the odds were severely stacked against them.
Is it crazy to think that this show has something to teach us as we find ourselves confined in our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic? There is no doubt that, after considering the hardships faced by frontline healthcare professionals, essential workers, and small business owners, parents are the next group under tremendous strain trying to meet the intense demands of their households. This situation has dragged on with no clear end in sight, and the uncertainty is taking its toll on everyone’s emotions and ability to cope.
Clairbourn School students already know a lot about doing good deeds and alleviating distress in the community, and many of them are supporting healthcare workers and first-responders. But there is now a new frontline in the larger battle which is our very own doorsteps. These times call for a deeper level of service to precious family members who we often take for granted. The need of the hour is to make family care and balance a priority. So take a moment to imagine, how quickly the atmosphere in your home would change if you could take a tip from the military and assign a Morale Officer to take care of each person in the family?
If people—specifically children—were similar to computers, then giving them a quality education could be likened to a straightforward system of installing robust processing components, memory, and storage capacity as well as loading them with the right software, information input, and maybe even artificial intelligence necessary to turn them into problem-solving powerhouses.
But, when student are treated like computers to be “loaded,” and are shaped into impressive towers of narrowly-focused achievement, there is an associated risk of their tower crumbling to the ground when life gets difficult. In order to build a student that will withstand the challenges of life, there needs to be an ongoing, sincere investment in the qualities, habits, and connections that build true resilience and that will carry them through major challenges like the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Even though it would be simpler to function like computers, the truth is, we all have emotions that need to be managed. We all have a need for social connection that can’t be denied. We all need a sense of purpose that extends beyond our current talents. More importantly, we all need to cultivate a connection to a “Source” so we can find good ideas when we have exhausted our own efforts to handle a problem.
Clairbourn teachers, like most educators across the globe, spent late March and early April converting their lessons over to an online format so students could continue to make progress in their studies during the COVID-19 crisis. The Internet has so many tools and resources to help with the transition, but Clairbourn is a close-knit community, and nothing can replace the human connection. With teachers missing seeing their students in person, they worked together to make a printable poster message to say hello and give their students added encouragement.
Clairbourn Teachers and Staff Made this Poster to Greet and Support Clairbourn Students.
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.
Outer space, with its jewel-like planets, shimmering stars, and astronauts with their cool technology, is very exciting to the imagination! Naturally, Clairbourn School preschoolers dove right in to their STEM unit about space with great enthusiasm. The whole class got busy learning about the Milky Way, our solar system, and the planets—and some students even learned the planet names in order!
This was an immersive unit with academic, artistic, and hands-on components. One of the features included a visit from Outreach Coordinator and Astronomer Dr. Jeff Rich from Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, who came to Clairbourn with an inflatable planetarium that fit the entire class inside. A film projector animated the inside of the dark dome with popular wonders of the night sky, and the students were educated about how to locate and identify well-known stars and planets.
Clairbourn students, with Dr. Rich from Carnegie Observatories, entered the inflatable planetarium where projections of planets and stars were projected onto the ceiling of the dome.
In the classroom, students learned solar system terminology—made more engaging by letting the students choose their own word to learn each morning. They also had homework assignments to build a miniature rocket ship and present it to the class by sharing what materials they used, who helped them, and if it was hard to make. They had to share a fun fact about each planet, research who was the first man on The Moon and find out how astronauts sleep, eat, and shower in the space ship.
Left – a student practices writing the space words learned in class each morning. Center – two classmates play “astronaut” during activity time. Right – While wearing an astronaut costume, a student makes a painting of the moon’s cratered surface.
It soon became
obvious that all of the students wanted to identify as astronauts, so not only
did they make art pieces where their faces were combined with astronaut
pictures, but they were able to wear full astronaut costumes with helmets in
the classroom’s Space Activity Center. One inspired preschool parent, Yue Ma,
enhanced the activity center by building a kid-sized, 3D, cardboard rocket ship
playhouse and also a wooden-cutout rocket ship with scenic background that all
the children could use.
Left – The rocket ship wooden cutout, painted by parent Yue Ma, helped students bring their space dreams to life. Right – Moms play astronaut with their children during Mothers Visiting Day. (On the back wall, student-made rocketships provide additional decoration to the classroom’s Space Activity Center.
When the rocket ships props showed up, Preschool Teacher Sayra Rubio became inspired to make a movie with the students playing astronauts in space talking about the planets. Using the school’s video room and Communications Department staff, the filming and editing took place over a two-week time span.
Preschool students were filmed “floating in space” in the school’s green-screen video room. (Note the 3D cardboard spaceship playhouse on set, built by parent Yue Ma, which was used in the filming.)
The parent-made spaceships and the classroom astronaut costumes were all used in the movie, and each student had time on camera either walking on the moon or pretending to float in space in front of a green screen. Afterwards, the students’ own narration of space facts was recorded and combined with the footage. The final movie was shown to students and parents on Mothers and Grandparents Visiting Day, and all the moms were given a copy of the movie for their family memories.
Clairbourn Preschool students have been studying the planets. They learned planet names and facts, dressed up like astronauts, played in a classroom spaceship made of cardboard, and filmed green-screen video segments to help create this presentation.
Watch Clairbourn preschoolers what they know about outer space, the planets, and black holes in their very own movie production!
Additional
memorable moments from the Space STEM Unit included a student asking their
parents take them to a museum so they could see a real rocket ship! Two other students decided to create their
own solar system using clay and Play Doh to interest their fellow
classmates. And, one additional student
took the initiative to make a self-narrated slide presentation about black
holes just so she could share her excitement about the subject with the
class.
This kind of enthusiastic subject exploration is the result of the teacher and child-initiated programming opportunities offered by Clairbourn’s preschool program, with the end goal to create pre-academic readiness and a life-long love of learning in each student.
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.
