Weekly Update: January 31, 2025

Thursday evening our 8th graders performed an original play titled Who we were, Who we are, Who we are waiting for. It is about the history of the women’s suffrage movement, and is a truly inspired work centering the experiences of Black women. Our capable and hard working students were brave, bold, collaborative, creative and showed off their smarts! It will be performed one more time, in the OSS gym, this Tuesday February 4th at 12:30pm, and we invite you to join us.

At staff meeting this morning when we reviewed our “pillars of instruction”, we noticed that the performance is an example of how we can meet all of our instructional goals: collaborate as a community, develop the whole learner, cultivate critical consciousness, teach for understanding, foster an academic mindset, assess for learning and design for engagement - in one cohesive unit!

Below you can see more examples of how we focus our time on other, equally meaningful learning experiences including presentations of student learning, field trips, hands on experiences like learning how to do medical stiches. Today we even hosted an event we call a Dendrites Conference - where we consider the art of learning. We explored learning strategies and considered the power of having a “growth mindset”. Thanks to Zoe’s dad, we even hosted a guest speaker who is a brain scientist and many students bravely held a human brain in their (gloved) hands. Awesome.

Veterinarian Visit

Margot Penney returns to 7th grade science!  This week, Veterinarian Margot Penney brought in suture kits and taught us how to suture up a “wounded” banana!

Calendar

This link to the calendar on our OSS website is a valuable reference tool.  Listed below are events you definitely want to keep in mind:

Sat. Feb 1st, Community meeting at Lawler Library “Protecting Our Students: Safety and Support for Immigrant Families.” 11-12:30pm

Wed Feb 5th, Required Family Meeting ~ Zoom, 5:30-6:30pm

Fri. Feb 7th, Boulder Union with Nativity. RSVP required. 5-7 pm

Spirit Week Feb 10-14

Thurs. Feb 13, All School Art Show at Groundworks, 5:00-6:30pm

Feb 17-21 February Break; No School

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms. Herman and the OSS Team

Whaling Museum and Fishing Heritage Center Field Trip

6th graders, immersed in their place-based study of the history of New Bedford and the whaling industry have enjoyed their recent visits to the Whaling Museum. Highlights included getting to see the jellies they created on display, as well as trying on safety gear at the Fishing Heritage Center! The photos are fabulous…