The school is preparing to chase the winter blues away with another Wellness Day December 8th. The half-day events will include teacher and student-led workshops on all aspects of health, from creativity, yoga, hiking, story-time, athleticism, writing, arts, and relaxation. The Wellness Workshops help students tap into adaptive skills necessary for handling stress through positive outlets like physical activity, conversations, baking, theater, drawing, and other creative expressions.
Upper school students in Ms. Foster’s Red Hearts club are committed to community service to better the lives of the school community and the community outside our doors. They created care packages for Thanksgiving to show gratitude for the school’s janitorial and cafeteria staff to show gratitude for the hard work that keeps our community working every day. The club also takes part in activities geared to serving the homeless, elderly D.C. residents, and other at-risk groups in our city.
Students in several classes are working on creating scripts, using their original ideas and literature for inspiration. In Mr. Baldwin’s fifth grade theater class, students used props to improvise original storylines. In his sixth grade theater class, students utilized character archetypes from Comedia Del Arte to showcase various relationships from classical comedic scripts. In Ms. Reed’s sixth grade classes, students wrote scripts and videotaped dialogue adapted from the Jason Reynolds novel Ghost, which they had read in class. In eighth grade English, Ms. Haywood and Ms. Breitman’s students performed scenes from the play Inherit the Wind, and improvised scripted dialogue between characters imagining how the conflicts of the story continued in imagined scenes. By taking on the role of playwright, students get a lens into the creative process and dig deeper into the emotions and motivations for the characters they have learned about.
Middle school students participated in the first Model UN conference before Thanksgiving, hosted by the DC Global Classrooms. The conference took place today as part of a training session for students who were new to the Model UN experience, and students debated the topic of “Preventing Future Pandemics.” Participants included sixth grader Michael Lewis, and seventh graders Sarah Murphy, Neri Portilla Marchiori, Jocelyn Gill, and Zane Wood, along with 8th grader Carys Gill. Students represented various countries from South Africa, to South Sudan, Portugal, and Russia. The team is advised by 7th grade history teacher Reggie Wills.
Students shared gratitude and good food with an MPR Thanksgiving feast for upper schoolers during advisory lunch for seniors. Teachers helped serve food to seniors, who piled their plates high with turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn bread, and salad, among other tasty desserts. The advisors opened the meal with a brief thought about togetherness or community. Students had thank you cards as their seating cards to sit together as a group. Thanks to the senior advisors, who made this delicious and moving event happen.
All the world’s a stage, and several classrooms are full of poor players, strutting and fretting their moments on the stage. The theater rooms are busy with preparation for Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” which will premiere in December. The play, directed by theater teacher Mr. Birkenhead, features performances by seniors Nalla Diallo, Kayla Park, Keith Stancil, and Kayla Freedman, along with juniors Sam Regardie, Zoe Woods-Arthur and Paulina Inglima, freshmen August Heim and Ruby-Rae McCants, and eighth grader J.D. Miller. Meanwhile, preparations for the spring musical are underway. Students will perform “Pippin,” by Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson. Student performers include junior Genaba Diallo, senior Cameron Parker, and sophomore Devyn Scott.
