This past week Long-View mathematicians were presented the following problem:
9 – 3 ÷1/3 + 1
Do you know the correct answer?
This expression went viral in Japan a few years ago and only 60% of Japanese 20-year-olds could solve it correctly.
So why is it that most of the Long-View students solved this problem correctly (during the 6th week of school, no less)? Long-View kids know to look at a complex expression and....
Read MoreBuild Weeks are a part of the rhythm of the yearly schedule at Long-View. Build Weeks periodically bridge academic blocks and open our schedule up to allow us to dive into special activities and challenges. Build Weeks help us grow intellectually, help us make connections between disciplines, give us a chance to reflect and set goals, and give us an opportunity to try new things.
During our first Build Week at the start of the year, our focus was on building our community, as well as developing the mindsets that serve Long-View learners….
Read MoreToday we celebrated how far we've come as writers in our first unit of study this year. Since the beginning of school, we have been studying, writing, exploring, telling, and revising personal narratives. We started with the idea that authors write stories from their lives and they are always collecting story ideas in their "idea file." We learned to live our lives as writers, noticing the meaningful moments all around us. Then, we studied mentor authors like Jane Yolen, Vera B. Williams, and Angela Johnson to learn how these authors magnify details for their readers and how they use craft moves to bring their stories to life....
Read MoreThis is a beautiful personal narrative written by one of our nine-year-old learners in our first writing unit of study. It so eloquently describes one of the many magical parts of our days at Long-View.
THE SINGING BOWL
Gooooong! I picked up the short, sturdy bamboo stick and rang the bowl. It’s a golden bowl that sits on a cushion. It is small and deep. And the bowl was imported from India. The singing bowl is the signal of the beginning of a day in Long-View Micro School…
Homework. Why is it all so important anyway? After all the hours you devoted to it, you barely remember any of it. Had it not been for your child having to go through elementary school as you had once, you would have been content to live without ever having to experience any of the information again. So, once again, why are children subjected to this? What is to be gained?
At Long-View Micro-School, we have committed to rethinking school, which also means that we have committed to rethinking homework. We do not assign homework at Long-View....
Read MoreSince the start of the school year, Long-View scientists have been collaborating in small groups to develop their understanding of experimental design. Because we will be using these skills in our science practice all year, it is important to start off with a strong basic grasp of how to how to design and perform a fair test experiment, how to look for patterns and trends in our data, and how to make evidence-based claims that answer the questions we explore with our work. In order to support sense-making of what our data is actually revealing to us about our questions, we also spent time learning about science concepts like force, velocity, gravity and friction.
This models the approach to science that we take at Long-View....
Read MoreVisitors in our Long-View math classes often inquire about the ages of the children, because it is surprising to see such young children engaged in high-level content. How is it that an 8-year-old can do that?
The answer begins with letting go of developmental constraints previously imposed on young learners. Because our classrooms are multi-age and our instructional planning does not start from an assumption that children can only do as much as a generic textbook says their grade level can accomplish, we move much further and much deeper, traversing some very interesting mathematical terrain…
Read MoreIn Harvard Ed's magazine last month, Karen Mapp, a senior lecturer of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, compared traditional back-to-school events to cattle drives. Parents “start in the cafeteria to hear rules for 20 minutes about bussing and about the cafeteria before being herded to classrooms to hear more rules by teachers.” Open houses, Mapp shares, should be more linked to learning.
It's almost as if Dr. Mapp sat in on Long-View's Big Picture Night the evening of September 15th....
Read MoreWe have had a wonderful start to the year in literacy and are excited by what our readers and writers will accomplish this year. Our literacy block consists of reading and writing, and we use a workshop format to teach both. We stand on the shoulders of the great work of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project out of Columbia University to inspire us and inform our practices. This organization has an amazing research base and a strong focus on helping kids do the work of real readers and real writers…
Read MoreWe kicked off the year with a Build Week. At Long-View, Build Weeks periodically bridge academic blocks and open our schedule up to allow us to dive into special activities and challenges. Build Weeks help us grow intellectually, help us make connections between disciplines, give us a chance to reflect and set goals, and give us an opportunity to try new things.
During this first Build Week, our focus was on building our community and building the "mindsets" that will help us learn at Long-View. Kids had the chance to try many new things and also get to know our learning environment...
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