Sarah Soza’s high school graduation with her parents
For anyone who’s had the privilege of watching Sarah Soza perform, there is no doubt about her extraordinary talent and her passion for music. Many of her memories from Clairbourn relate to the music program, where she loved music class and loved playing for the school ensemble. Currently, Sarah is a first year student at the University of California, Irvine, majoring in music, with a specialization in viola performance. Originally a violin player, Sarah switched over to viola at the beginning of her senior year in high school.
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.
Now that Clairbourn School students are spending all of their time at home due to COVID-19 sheltering in place, many of our parents are feeling like full-time maids on top of their overwhelming normal responsibilities. Lack of help from family members in tidying-up can lead to a breakdown in morale among family members when some don’t do their fair share. But the good news is, learning to help is part of each student’s character education and it is part of building up their inner sense of purpose and value.
Dr. Robert Myers from the Child Development Institute published an insightful article last year called, “The Reason Children Should Do Chores is Because it’s Good for Them.” He wants parents to know that, “Giving children chores can make them feel wanted, teach important life skills, and help ease the workload for parents. Recent studies have found that giving children chores from an early age will help teach them work ethic, responsibility, self-reliance, and other vital life skills.”
Author Stephanie Simpson McLellan agrees in her article, “6 Ways to Get Kids to Help Out at Home,” and explains, “It just makes sense: If your kids contribute to the mess around the house, they should help tidy it up. Not so much for your sake, but for theirs. ‘One of the biggest problems children experience is that they don’t feel needed,’ says Maggie Reigh author of 9 Ways to Bring Out the Best in You & Your Child. To help kids mature into emotionally healthy adults, ‘they need to feel that their contribution matters,” she says. “Chores are a really tangible way to do that.’”
Don’t tie chores to earning an allowance because the reward should be praise for doing the right thing and contributing to the household.
Everyone knows, however, that asking kids to do chores can result in an endless pushback and nagging cycle that creates misery for everyone. The good news is, there is a way around this major pitfall. Start Slowly!
Janet Lehman’s article, “How to Get Kids to Do Chores Without an Argument” from the website EmpoweringParents.com advises, “Focus on one chore at a time: In order to change behaviors, don’t try to take on too many things at once. It will just overload both you and your child. Pick the most bothersome problem—let’s say it’s putting their dirty clothes in the hamper—and start there. This focus will help both you and your child set realistic expectations, follow-through, and ultimately succeed.”
She continues, “With younger kids, kids with ADHD or those who lack organizational skills, you may need to help them figure out how to approach a task. Some of their resistance to your nagging may have to do with their inability to know where and how to begin. Their room may be so messy and full of stuff that they really don’t know where to begin and simply give up. You can say, “Okay, let’s start with your dirty clothes, then your bed, then the floor…” and take it from there.”
Each family has a wonderful opportunity, while sheltering in place, to help students build the skills of domestic contribution and maintenance. They will be adding to their sense of family contribution and purpose and learn new skills in the process! Our rally cry can be, “Not One Sock Left Behind!”
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.
Alumna Mei-Tung Chen. Class of 2017, shares her thoughts on living in the moment.
Our wise and deep-thinking alumna Mei-Tung Chen, from the Class of 2017, is currently a junior at Flintridge Preparatory School. Not only is she passionate about math and science, but she is also huge fan of literature—an enthusiasm first nurtured at Clairbourn, where she regularly submitted short stories and poetry to the award-winning, student-produced, literary magazine Paw Prints. Her interest in writing is most evident in her role as the Editor-in-Chief of the satire literary magazine at Prep called The Yell at Prep.
New Clairbourn Trustee Debbie Chen with Chris Chen.
Current Clairbourn parent Debbie Chen has been an important presence on campus for all of the years her son and daughter, Matthew and Natalie, have attended. This is her 13th year as a Clairbourn parent. Natalie is currently in Grade 11 at Westridge and Matthew is in Grade 8 at Clairbourn. And now, Debbie has stepped into a whole different role as the school’s newest Trustee. In order to properly introduce her to the school community, we asked her to share the following information about her life, family, and qualifications:
Jeffrey Karsh, Class of 2002, is a Partner at a Real Estate Investment Firm
Meet Jeffrey Karsh, a partner at private real estate investment firm Typerion Partners in Los Angeles, and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Jeffrey attended Clairbourn in the early 1990s, from preschool through sixth grade, before his family moved to Beverly Hills. Jeffrey recalls his time at Clairbourn as still “vivid” in his memory, where he recalls the teachers who inspired him and the friends he enjoyed and loved spending time with. Emily Coolidge, Class of 2012, interviewed Jeffrey to find out more about his cherished time at Clairbourn and how it helped boost his confidence in third grade as a top tennis player and influenced his further education. She also asked him what advice he has for those interested in a similar career path.
With an infectious laugh and effervescent personality, Taryn Johnson, Class of 2000, simply glows. Now that her daughter Harper is enrolled in the kindergarten class at Clairbourn, it marks five generations here.
The family history dates back to the mid-1940s when Taryn’s great-grandmother, Lola Wallden, started her career as a school bus driver and retired in 1982 as the Assistant Head of School. Taryn’s grandmother, Beverly Thomson, was the preschool and kindergarten teacher from 1971 until the year 2000. Taryn’s mother, Jodie Robison, is also an alum of the school and worked in the finance office for years.
Clairbourn’s school community was treated to an unforgettable production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night performed by Clairbourn 6th-8th grade students in early March. This crowd-pleasing show took place in an Old Globe Theater setting, constructed in the school’s gymnasium. Over three consecutive show dates, the production featured a variety of humorous antics, stage fighting, great costumes, original music and stand-out performances. It is noteworthy that this unabridged, unedited production was offered by young people between the ages of eleven and fourteen.
Estella B. plays “Maria, secretary to Olivia.”
The Roaring Twenties setting dazzled the audience with its costuming and jazzy tunes. Singing, live student accompaniment, dancing and action sequences—for instance, the comic boxing match—appealed to first grade students on up to adults. The young students who attended sat in the “groundlings” section where they were right on top of the action and thrills.
Clairbourn’s English teacher Janet Taylor provides an academic foundation for the production. Well before auditions occur, students learn the storyline and character relationships in English classes, and work through the meaning of unfamiliar words and terms. By the time the student-actors face their first show date, they have a good understanding of their lines (including some elements of rhetorical structure), and they have the tools to bring their performances to life with the humor and wit required of a Shakespearean comedy.
