Eighth Grade Moves Up
The Class of 2021 has finished its middle school years and is getting ready for high school.
On June 12, we celebrated this rite of passage at our Middle School Moving Up event. Here are my opening remarks, sending them…
Eventful MS Weekend
The final performance of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” took place on Friday evening in the James Earl Jones Theater. Students ran the entire show– not only acting, but also as set designers, sound and lighting technicians, and costume…
How CAN We Help You?
The sixth grade is in the final two days before the big Food Bowl build on Friday evening (March 3) at the Poughkeepsie Galleria!
Behind the scenes, the students have to practice. What looks like simple stacking has to carefully…
Reading to Build a Bridge
This month I’ve invited parents of grade 5 students to visit with me, tour the Holford Learning Commons and hear about the middle school program. Of special interest are parts of the program that work to build a bridge between…
Are We Running Out of Juice?
Early in the faculty meetings planning for this year, Jake Lahey, our 7-8 history teacher, wondered if we might create an interdisciplinary study that asked students to consider the history and processes that humans use to get energy from the…
Build a Machine to Get to Know You
Because we prize community at PDS, we deliberately set aside time to gather in multi-age groups for an activity about once a month. We end our small group activity with a whole school gathering.
Septembers have “firsts” with great frequency,…
Essential Questions: Starting the First Week off Right
In a school like PDS, where teachers are advisors, and where we spend so much time getting to know students well, it doesn’t take long to “get down to work,” in the subject areas. In all classes, teachers and students…
A Day on the Fields for Middle School
https://animoto.com/play/8T32McaAFn8rzw6f7r1t7A
It’s a long tradition that near to the start of the year, the middle school students and advisors spend a day outside. Students work to solve game-like problems together, engage in some team races and basically just enjoy getting…
Eighth Grade Ends the Year…and Middle School
By the end of each school year, the teachers and I can all glimpse the future high schoolers that the eighth graders will soon become. At this point in the year, they have registered for their high school courses, and…
Seventh Graders Deepen Learning at the End of the Year
While grade six works on research papers and presents Lego missions, grade seven is deep in the midst of grappling with proportional thinking in math and literary analysis in English.
Of all the concepts in middle school math, the leap…