by Mistral Dodson | Nov 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
Things MATH is not…
Math isn’t about completing endless worksheets or rote memorization – it’s about fostering critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and creativity.
When they just complete worksheets…what are they actually learning?
Math is a dynamic field that involves critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and exploration.
math is not just about rote memorization or completing endless worksheets.
Math problems often have multiple solution paths. Encouraging students to think critically about which approach to take and why helps develop analytical skills that are applicable across various disciplines.
Real-world problems rarely come neatly packaged in a worksheet format. By presenting students with open-ended problems, they learn to apply mathematical concepts to solve practical problems, preparing them for challenges they may face in their future careers.
Math offers opportunities for creativity and exploration. Allowing students to experiment, make conjectures, and explore different strategies fosters a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts and promotes a sense of ownership over their learning.
Math is deeply intertwined with other subjects such as science, engineering, art, and even music. By engaging students in multidisciplinary activities, they see how math is relevant and applicable beyond the confines of the classroom.
Math isn’t just about numbers; it’s about conveying ideas and reasoning effectively. Providing space for students to write, draw, and explain their thinking helps them develop communication skills essential for success in both academic and real-world settings.
When students are merely completing worksheets, they may miss out on these crucial aspects of mathematical learning.
Phoenix has been incorporating hands-on activities, collaborative problem-solving tasks, real-world applications, and opportunities for creativity and exploration into our math curriculum.
Our approach not only makes math more engaging and meaningful for students but also better prepares them for the challenges they’ll encounter in their academic and professional lives.
After reading this post do you agree that math education should involve more than just completing worksheets?
by Mistral Dodson | Aug 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
At The Phoenix School, we hold a simple: reading is one of the keys to unlocking a child’s potential.
Reading is…
- The gateway to realizing the mind’s potential.
- Essential for economic independence and upward mobility.
- The bedrock of our constitutional democracy.
- A right we have allowed to become a privilege.
📚 Why focus on reading?
Reading is the foundation of all learning. It helps children expand their vocabulary, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and understand the world around them. Whether they’re decoding new words or diving into an imaginative story, reading builds the confidence they need to tackle new challenges.
At The Phoenix School, our students are encouraged to read a minimum of 7 books over the summer, with each child choosing books that capture their interest. This personalized approach is designed to cultivate a love of reading and a strong reading habit that will serve them well in all areas of their education.
But we don’t just focus on reading for reading’s sake. We strive to develop critical reading skills that allow our students to analyze and better understand the stories they read. We encourage them to do something creative and informative with the content they’ve read, which fosters a deeper connection to literature.
Reading is an integral part of every aspect of our curriculum. We individualize reading, ensuring that each student reads at their appropriate level, regardless of their grade. When our students return from their summer adventures, they’ll have the opportunity to present their book projects to the entire school and pitch their favorite reads to their classmates.
At The Phoenix School, we believe that fostering a love for reading is one of the most important things we can do for our students. It’s more than just a skill; it’s the foundation for lifelong learning and success.
by Mistral Dodson | Jan 26, 2024 | Uncategorized
🌟 What sets Phoenix apart? We help students understand themselves and their role in local and global communities. Learning is a lifelong journey, and it happens everywhere they go!
Here’s how we do it 👇🏽
🔥 Learning isn’t confined to textbooks and classrooms – it’s an education that spans doing, being, exploring, experimenting, questioning, researching, designing, engineering, leadership, community, and the list goes on!
🏰 At Phoenix, students don’t just learn – they think critically, explore deeply, collaborate, contribute globally, learn from failures, and celebrate success! Students are given the tools, ideas, and encounters needed to sculpt the best versions of themselves.
🤝 Students, parents, and teachers work together in the TK-8 journey. Students feel seen, heard, and understood because we prioritize process over product. Project-based learning is the heartbeat of our interactive and curiosity-inducing curriculum.
🎓 Our roots in education disruption go back over 40 years when we started trailblazing our innovative, experience-driven learning community on Winter Island. Since then, we have been in many locations around Salem, which is one of our core values.
🌐 We aren’t confined by walls – the world is our classroom! Learning happens everywhere – at school, connecting globally, and out in the vibrant community. We spark a love for learning by cultivating curiosity, fostering exploration, and intertwining learning with life experiences.
🔥 Rolling enrollment is underway and we have limited spots (you can’t do personalized education in a 500 student school!)
by Mistral Dodson | Jul 2, 2022 | Uncategorized
On Wednesday of this year’s Adventure Week, the Phoenix Kids went to do a workshop with two self-defense instructors at Forged Martial Arts Studio. The kids did some exercises, some games, and some drills to help them do better teamwork and learn about self-defense.
The instructors started by having the kids do some warm-up exercises to get them ready and making sure everyone was excited to participate. The students were super energetic and excited while warming up, and they kept that energy through the whole day. The students were great at listening to the instructors and following the directions.
The first priority of the instructors was safety, making sure the kids were always safe. They gave very specific instructions and the kids did a great job following them. The older kids were great and helped the other kids focus their energy, and helped the instructors keep everyone safe. A lot of the focus of one of the games was teamwork and leadership; the game was for teams to silently work together to form the shape of a letter or number. The kids got the hang of it really quickly, and the older kids were great student leaders.
After all the warming up and playing tag games the instructors started teaching the kids some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But before they started they started teaching any techniques they talked to the kids about bullying. They made sure that the students knew that the point of martial arts isn’t to fight, to only use it as a last resort if someone tries to hurt you physically, and that talking should always be what you try to do first.
After they made sure all the kids understood they started practicing techniques for defending themselves if someone tries to tackle them. The kids had a lot of fun wrestling with each other on the mats while the instructors made sure everyone stayed safe. The instructors finished up by talking about the philosophy of martial arts, and how it’s about self-discipline and learning from one another. The Phoenix Kids made sure to all thank their instructors for what they learned before heading back to the school to eat lunch.
Cassandra, Montserrat Intern
by Mistral Dodson | Jun 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
Engineering is a HUGE part of our curriculum here at Phoenix. It provides the opportunity for curiosity and exploration through design, experimenting, building, testing, and trialing.
Each team or individual designed their own airplane, based on the challenge they wanted their plane to go through. First, we brainstormed ideas as a whole school.
Some challenges were to see how far the plane would fly, what height it achieved, how long it stayed in the air, and how many flips it could do.
We experimented with an app called Wind Tunnel to experiment with different shapes, aerodynamics, and wind flow.
For the older students, it was a mathematical challenge to figure out the speed of their airplane. They used testing tables and documented their data after each flight so that they could learn from their mistakes and create better designs.
by Mistral Dodson | Jun 15, 2022 | Uncategorized
I lead the Phoenix Kids in an animation workshop. Animation is my passion and my main artistic focus, and I really wanted to share my love for animation with the students. We used flip books to let the kids play and experiment with animation as an art form, the same way I did when I was little. My initial idea was to have them all start by making an animation of a bouncing ball so they could get the hang of using a flip book and learn how to animate something simple, before doing more complicated animations. I expected a lot of creativity and artistic ability from the kids, but I was shocked by how creative and driven the kids were.
The younger kids mainly focused on making a bouncing ball, and then coloring it and making a background, learning a simple animation while still expressing their creativity. The older kids were awesome, helping to teach the younger kids how to draw in a flipbook, and being really creative with the things they animated. They animated steam coming off a cup, a rocket taking off, an astronaut, and much more. It was really exciting to see how much the students loved to learn and express themselves through art and animation, and I was especially excited by how many of them had done animation with flipbooks before.
The Phoenix School has clearly fostered the same creativity and love of learning in its students that I treasure so much from my own early education. I’m excited to see what these kids do as they grow up, they’ve been well prepared for a good future. If kids with a passion for making animation keep practicing they’ll make for amazing animators, and lovely people to work with in the future.
Cassandra, Montserrat Intern
