PDS Blog

Acquiring Language

Acquiring Language Building Fluency As the father of an active and talkative one and a half year old, I’m getting a first-hand look into language acquisition. I watch my daughter pick up new words and phrases at an amazing pace.…

Next PDS PA Meeting to Focus on PDS Food Service

The next PDS Parents Association (PA) meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 1 @ 2pm in Gilkeson Center. Come along to take part in a discussion about food at PDS. This is a chance to let the school know what…

The Importance of Play for Middle Schoolers

Our Middle Schoolers delight in heading outside twice a day to seek out opportunities for unstructured play on the playground and fields at PDS. Combined, these two periods allow our students to experience forty-five minutes a day of unstructured time…

Intensive Studies

Offerings for this Semester In January, students in grades 8-12 began a new semester of intensive study courses (These classes run on a different schedule than other courses – early Jan through early May). One of the feature programs of…

Next PDS PA Meeting Taking Place on February 13!

The February 8 PDS Parents Association (PA) meeting has been rescheduled for Tuesday, February 13 @ 8:30am in Gilkeson Center. We’re pleased to announce that the first 30 minutes of the meeting will focus on the World Language program at…

Why Teach with an Interdisciplinary Approach?

Using Opportunities for Deep Learning High School English teacher, Jeffrey Fisher, chose Macbeth as the English Literature summer reading, knowing that the theater department had selected it for their Fall production.  Within the literature courses, students analyzed the play in…

The Power of a Question

Crafting Questions This weeks Moment focuses on our students as they craft questions, as part of our recent Intensive Study day. Using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (lnk), we asked them to spend 10 minutes ‘question storming’ around these…

The Extraordinary in the Everyday

When a deep learning moment is happening, it looks so natural, and flows so well that it can appear effortless. But in education, there has to be a choreographer behind the scenes intentionally moving bodies and minds to spaces that…

Making a Difference

Our Civic Engagement and Service Learning course has been focusing on issues of poverty, affordable housing and social justice on both a national and local level. As part of this process, we have partnered with Dutchess County Habitat for Humanity…

ESL Students Visit the Pre-K

Sharing Chinese Culture with the Pre-K In November, the 9/10 ESL class visited the pre-K classroom to share cultural traditions through conversation and storybooks. Before visiting, the ESL students researched children’s books about the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in China and…