There is no place like Clairbourn! Our students love coming to school from the moment they get dropped off to greet the Head of School, Dr. Patzlaff, and walk across the beautiful campus to their locker or class. “I can’t wait for school, every day!” said a second grader with great enthusiasm. We love seeing our students on campus and enjoy their cheers, laughter, and most of all their Clairbourn connection with one another.
Seeing the creative ways our students make their Clairbourn connections is truly extraordinary. Our older students prepared bags of popcorn and delivered them to each lower grade classroom as a cheer to celebrate a week of testing and National Movie Day. Student Council initiated a handprint project to connect students across different grade levels. Each fourth through eighth grade student made a handprint inside a heart shape, and then each kindergarten through third grade student added their handprint to complete a heart. Students produced two prints so each younger student could keep one heart and each older student could keep another. Students enjoyed finding out who belonged to the other handprint!
We asked our students why they are grateful for Clairbourn: “Clairbourn is a place I call home!” answered a six grader. “I love Clairbourn because it is caring.” a second grader said. “My teachers give up their free time to help us all the time.” A fifth grader shared.
Here at Clairbourn, students motivate each other and embrace growth together. They share successes and pick each other up as a team. These hearts handprints signify the love and care we all have for our school and each other. Hand in hand and heart to heart, we are One Clairbourn!
Morning Assembly is one of Clairbourn’s long traditions. School members come together to hear announcements and start the day with gratitude and an inspirational message. The Clairbourn Code of Ethics – honesty, respect, responsibility, spirituality and citizenship — provide the basis for our Morning Assembly and students from first through eighth grade have an opportunity to work on their public speaking skills learning to confidently deliver a message in front of a large audience. It is a key component of our educational program and reinforces our core values.
Even though we can not yet return to meeting in person, our Morning Assembly tradition continues and we find new ways to celebrate this special time. Dr. Patzlaff and students record an assembly video and the classes view it each morning. We continue to thrive and stay connected as a community. The inspiration for this week’s assembly is love, which is a word used often for so many emotions.
“I love that color on you.” To a friend. “I just love pizza.” To yourself. “I love, love, love you!” To grandchildren.
According to the University of Utah Health, there are Four Types of Love: Eros (“air-rose”) is a romantic love. It can cause great joy and sorrow, like the story of Romeo and Juliet. Philia (“Fill-lee-ah”) is love of friends and equals. It can be love between siblings and friends, and helps us be resilient when hard times come. Another type of love is storge (“store-gay”). This is the love of parents and guardians for children. It is described as the most natural of loves and the foundation for happiness and contentment. The fourth type of love is agape (“ah-gah-pay”). It is the love that is given whether or not it is returned. This kind of love is important in the process of forgiveness, which is important to our mental health. Expressing love for others is the best way to be happy and find joy in your daily living.
C.S. Lewis described a mother’s love for a child in The Chronicles of Narnia as “humble.” Parents’ love for their child is not about grand gestures but the steadfast, reliable, humble care, concern, and nurturing given freely that enables children to thrive and grow. C.S. Lewis also wrote about friendship. He believed that friendships begin by finding something in common, and then was freely given. Friendships can blossom anywhere we are doing common things together: on the playground, in the classroom, on the playing field.
Love comes in many forms: it could be food in our belly, a roof over our head or simply a reassuring hug after a tough day. Love is around us all the time and we can show love every day.
Clairbourn, as a community, is grateful each and every day for the simplest things we have in life and we celebrate all kinds of love!
Growth mindset is a quality we value greatly at Clairbourn. We want our students to believe in themselves, be open-minded, be comfortable with uncertainty, show strong awareness and the ability to grow. We believe our well-rounded program will promote a growth mindset in our students. Besides a rigorous academic program, we offer robust art, music, and drama programs to support and develop all aspects of our students.
You can daily find our students busy expanding their creativity and imagination at all grade levels from JPK to eighth grade. Younger children work on dexterity and motor skill development through art. They begin by learning how to hold a brush, make marks and even mix paints with their bare hands. All of those experiences are essential for their school readiness. Older students have weekly art lessons to further their understanding in art, develop technical skills, and expand their curiosity. Students are challenged in various ways. They learn shading and sketching in different mediums to create realistic and abstract art. Students discuss different artists and their composition, values and tints. They are introduced to color theory and the concept of perspective and experiment with ceramics, photography, and much more. It is truly an amazing journey in the world of creativity!
Students sharing their art is also an important component of our program. Besides the art displays around the campus and the art show at the annual Book Fair, students also participate in the annual art exhibit in the spring. They love to discuss their art with their friends and family. We are proud of our students who come to school with an open-mind, eager to learn, and ready to be challenged and grow!
The Middle School Spanish Program at Clairbourn focuses on both written and oral Spanish, along with the culture and geography of regions where Spanish is spoken. Language is one of the most important parts of any culture and we embrace the diversity and love for languages among our students and faculty at Clairbourn.
Middle School students recently completed a Reader’s Theater activity in Mrs. Drazic’s Spanish classes. Students were grouped and assigned a story to read aloud for the class. They first read the story to themselves and were asked to think about how many characters and narrators they would need. Once they selected their roles, they planned how their play would be presented. Students asked themselves: What staging should be used? What props should be incorporated? Students decided which role they would feel the most comfortable interpreting and no memorization was required. They completed a dress rehearsal to put the final touches on their performance before presenting it to the class.
Through the Reader’s Theater, our students developed fluency, increased reading comprehension, and integrated reading, writing, speaking and listening in an authentic context. Working collaboratively also allowed the students to engage in skills that are essential for interpreting information, evaluating and solving problems, and developing management skills to create a final product. At Clairbourn, we continue to create scholars and leaders geared toward life-long learning and equipped with problem-solving skills they will need to thrive in their future endeavors.
In 1931, when Clairbourn first moved to its current location on Huntington Drive, the dominant feature hovering over the 8.5 acres was a large eucalyptus tree. Planted around 1870, this 120 foot tall blue gum eucalyptus stood as a campus landmark. The tree measured 46 feet in circumference and 12 feet in diameter at knee-level. The enormous tree was planted by Mr. D.J. Rose, an early resident who owned Sunnyslope Ranch, including the property on which Clairbourn School is now located. The eucalyptus tree was named the Clairbourn Tree and became the symbol of Clairbourn School. Students enjoyed playing around the tree at recess and enjoyed its distinct scent.
A windstorm took down the mighty 120 year old eucalyptus tree in 1988. It started to lean over throughout the night and by four in the morning, it had laid itself down between the buildings on campus without causing any damage. Portions of its branches were cut into rounds and turned into keepsakes for students and alumni to remember.
With the loss of the beloved eucalyptus came a new set of friends – the ginkgo trees! Along with a few trees in a small grove, a large ginkgo tree was planted right in the center of our quad in 1989. Our large ginkgo tree is now 33 years old and we have a total of six ginkgo trees around the campus.
Our JPK teacher Mrs. Rankin recalled she started taking students out to play in the ginkgo leaves around 1998. The Clairbourn tree legacy continued with a new tradition. Just like those students 80 years ago, Clairbourn students continue to enjoy playing around the trees. Children of all ages romping through piles of leaves and chasing after their friends has become one of the most cherished memories for our Cougars.
Next time you walk by the quad, make sure to look up at our big, friendly, giant ginkgo tree and remember the eucalyptus tree that stood before. Everyone is part of our growing Clairbourn tradition!
What’s the fastest you have gone? Seventy miles per hour on the freeway? Five hundred miles per hour on a plane? For spacecraft heading to Mars, the speed can go up to 13,000 miles per hour. It can even go as fast as 24,000 miles per hour for a spacecraft heading to the moon! Soon, the United States is going to send astronauts to land on the moon for the first time in fifty years. The program is called Artemis. In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, which was the name of our first crewed missions to the moon. The astronauts on the Artemis missions will have to slow way down in order to land safely on the surface to protect themselves and their spacecraft!
For this year’s Engineering Design Challenge, students from first through eighth grade were challenged to turn on their engineering minds to design and build a shock-absorbing system to protect two astronauts when they land. Of course, it would be tricky to build life-size spacecraft, so they used marshmallow astronauts. Just like the engineers who develop solutions to design different landing vehicles, our Cougars followed the same engineering design process to brainstorm, design, build, improve and test for this design challenge.
When building the landers, students were provided with a paper cup to use as the spacecraft and two marshmallow astronauts who had to stay in the cup when the lander was dropped. The rules were: you can’t strap the marshmallows down, nothing else was allowed inside the cup, and no covering of the cup. Our Cougars needed to think about gravity, stability, and shock-absorbing materials. How can you make sure the landers don’t tip over during landing? What kind of shock absorber can you make to soften the landing?
This Tuesday was day one when students designed and built their first attempt and tested during class. On Wednesday, we had a visit from engineer Juan Gutierrez, who spoke to the students about his inspiration to become an engineer and the projects he has worked on over the course of his career. Mr. Gutierrez encouraged the students to work on learning more than one language, including the language of math, programming and engineering, and to find opportunities to learn to lead and communicate with groups of people. As the students built their final marshmallow landers, Mr. Gutierrez visited the classrooms and gave advice about stabilizing the spacecraft, adding springs and other shock absorbers, and reducing mass to reduce force. Students then took the input and designed and built their final attempt. On Thursday, final builds were formally tested to identity the top three builds from each grade level. Friday is our last day, and students with top-scoring builds will participate in the final!
Special thank you to our Middle School science teacher Ms. Vinnedge for leading the Engineering Week! Our Clairbourn students were able to use their creativity and come up with many unique designs. They asked many questions, worked as a team and cheered for other teams. What a great week for our Cougars to demonstrate their SCHOLARSHIP and LEADERSHIP qualities with HEART!
Students prepared for our Virtual Holiday Concert by rehearsing outdoors under the trees and practicing the choreography with great enthusiasm and joy! Music curriculum was incorporated into grade-specific lessons to teach musical concepts including melody, harmony, tempo, and dynamics. Older students in band and orchestra were able to learn various instrumental techniques on percussion, violins, mallet instruments, and recorders.
2021 Clairbourn Virtual Holiday Concert (28 mins)
Our dedicated teachers spent countless hours in video production, audio recording, special effects, filming and editing. They made 117 videos and edited 92 recordings. Thank you to Mrs. Kiertzner, Ms. Mize and everyone’s tireless efforts in making this concert possible!
We hope you enjoy our 2021 Virtual Holiday Concert as much as we do! From all of us at Clairbourn School to you and yours this holiday season, we wish you Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Clairbourn School is committed to providing the best educational environment for our children. We love every moment from inspiring young minds, teaching the fundamentals, and strengthening social skills, to preparing young adults as they step into their next chapter in high school. We have accomplished so much this quarter, and here are some highlights!
While the youngest group of students in junior pre-kindergarten enjoyed imaginary play in a medieval castle and learned how to count the advent calendar, our pre-kindergarten dragonflies were engaged with sensory development activities such as making snowmen out of flour and shaving cream. In both of our kindergarten classes, the students completed their first unit of Writer’s Workshop! They wrote and revised their best story while expanding their writing skills. As authors, they got to sit in the teacher’s chair to read their story aloud to the class! At Clairbourn, public speaking is a big part of learning and it starts at a young age. Well done, Cougars!
Everyday there were a lot of exciting learning opportunities in our Lower School. First graders progressed in their reading, math and writing skills. They even discovered geography and the world around them. In second grade, our engineers put their learning into action! After studying animal adaptations, students designed and built bird feeders to attract a bird of their choice. Students shared, collaborated and supported each other by giving feedback. There was a buzz of creative energy as they decided which materials to use to make their prototypes!
Third graders completed their science unit on Forces & Motion. They had a great time with slides (friction) and magnets, andthey made paper clips “float” and opened a door using only a magnet. Our fourth and fifth graders led the Santa Paws all-school service learning project. Students collected items to support the local shelters and the animals in need.
In Middle School, fifteen math enthusiasts formed a Clairbourn Math Team. They have been coming to school early to learn problem-solving strategies and advanced math problems. Good luck on the upcoming AMC8 and Mathcount Competitions! In our Middle School science classroom, this quarter was full of hands-on labs from testing acids and bases to creating exothermic reactions that glowed in the dark! Seventh graders studied genetics and even took on the role of tRNA to string together amino acids beads to make a protein, and sixth graders studied atmosphere and climate change.
Last but not least, students enjoyed another robust quarter with many enriching extra-curricular classes. In art, students produced festive paper mache snowmen and 3D art. They worked on their shading techniques and the use of pastels, and created beautiful winter mandalas.
What a quarter it has been!Onward and upward, Cougars!
Clairbourn offers an enriching and robust language program and for the past few weeks students learned about the Dia De Los Muertos.
Our lower school students in Mrs. Rubio’s kindergarten to fifth grade classes started this unit by listening to Dia de los Muertos stories, and making flash cards of vocabulary such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead) and galleta (cookies). Students also learned new words through songs, explored the colorful Hispanic culture, and created papel picado (cut paper) to decorate their classroom. At the end of the learning journey, Lower School students got to taste the pan de muerto and decorate the skeleton cookies while calling out each color in Spanish! A third grader said, “This pan de muerto is too good! Can I have some more?”
Middle School students in Mrs. Drazic’s class read the book Tumba which takes place in Mexico during the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. Students engaged with the literature through listening, reading, writing and speaking activities, such as recording a scary ghost story and illustrating a storyboard of a traditional ‘calavera’ poem. Students also learned about the Mexican Revolution and they enjoyed drawing parallels between the colonial influence of Spain in Mexico and that of the U.S. colonial past. Students learned about the significance of calaveras (skulls), esqueletos (skeletons) and cempasúchil (marigold flowers) as they constructed an altar in the classroom using paper flowers and papel picado banners they made, and added personal elements like stuffed animals, and our favorite, Mexican candies. The best part was having Lower School students visiting the middle school altar they built!
It is wonderful to see students make their own cultural connections while learning about this tradition. At Clairbourn, we continue to celebrate the rich culture of diverse traditions!
It’s hard to believe quarter one of this new school year is complete. Our teachers were busy planning a rigorous curriculum, making sure the classrooms were ready and welcoming, while finding new ways to engage and motivate the students. Our Cougars can certainly feel the energetic vibes from our staff because, “I can’t wait for school, EVERYDAY!” quoted a second grader. Here are a few highlights from quarter one!
Preschoolers went on a Fall Scavenger Hunt with Ms. Strong and Mrs. Rankin exploring our Clairbourn campus in search of signs for Fall. They enjoyed locating all the classrooms and quickly realized there were so many beautiful areas that they didn’t know about. Mrs. Thorne’s and Mrs. Shoemake’s kindergarten classes finished their first unit in science learning about forces created by pushing and pulling. Students brainstormed different ways to move objects and discussed if objects can move on their own. They experimented, investigated, did multiple tests, and made various sketches. The conclusion is: You can accomplish surprisingly big things by playing with and thinking about forces!
First graders explored reading, writing and math centers with Ms. Dezutter and Ms. Aniszewski. They investigated light and sound during science and learned about what it means to be in a community. They explored citizenship and being a scholar and leader with heart. In second grade, students enjoyed their poetry. Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Hung worked with their students on memorizing and reciting poems. It’s important for children at this age to learn about social interactions so that is another big part of their learning journey this fall! In lower school Spanish classes, the highlight of the first quarter was learning La Araña Pequeñita (The Itsy-bitsy spider) and practicing the language through class activities.
The Economy Unit culminating with Market Day was certainly the highlight in Mrs. Ward’s third grade class! Students learned what an economy is; about resources, supply and demand. Market Day was an opportunity for the third grader to put what they learned into practice. They developed a market plan for a product they manufactured, determined the price of their product, and created their advertising posters. Final products were sold to our second grade consumers at Market Day. The students were very creative and it was a lot of fun!
Ms. Edwards’ fourth graders completed a science unit studying fungi. They discovered the role fungi play in decomposing materials and in creating soil. In the activity called Mold Terrarium, students planned and conducted an investigation to discover the factors affecting decomposition. Students observed how different variables can affect mold growth. In Mrs. Gier’s fifth grade, students were busy applying their knowledge of perimeter and area, creating presentations for their history research projects, and discovering ground water and aquifers. Learning figurative language was the highlight this quarter! Fifth graders explored using hyperboles, metaphors, alliteration, similes, idioms, and personification in their writing.
You can find Middle Schoolers getting into the Halloween spirit with a creative pencil shading jack-o-lantern project in Mrs. Ball’s 7th grade art class. Students learned about value and shading techniques with graphite to create realistic looking artwork that pops off the paper. They produced many stunning pieces of art! Academically, Middle Schoolers are also being challenged in Mrs. Messler’s math classes. Six graders used virtual fruit manipulatives to play out algebraic scenarios where they needed to combine like terms and create fruit baskets. Some students engaged in the Transformations Logo Project in which they researched, studied and created graphic marks using geometric transformations. Students who were selected to join the math competition team began their bi-weekly meetings to prepare for the two upcoming national competitions that will take place in early 2022!
So much has been accomplished in two months and Clairbourn students and staff have a lot to look forward to in the next quarter! Keep up the good work! Onward and upward, Cougars!
