Education is best when students talk with their teachers-and each other.
The March closing took many by surprise, but we had a plan and the agility to deliver it. Though our doors closed, distance learning opened in new classrooms - family homes - and conversations were shared on computers over Zoom - and with the personal interaction necessary for learning. Continuing our daily schedules, completing our planned curriculum, and holding students accountable with quizzes, papers, and tests were imperative for us; it meant that we could lean on our community in these challenging times and preserve a sense of normalcy that would carry our students through.
It is difficult to say what the coming school year will look like, but we can say with certainty that our commitment to educating our students is stronger than ever.
It is difficult to say what the coming school year will look like, but we can say with certainty that our commitment to educating our students is stronger than ever.
Early childhood program
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Students in our Early Childhood Program engage in the following:
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Advice from Teachers for Working with Young Children
Whether you are a parent, an educator or both parent and educator the new normal has taken us ALL by surprise. I hear my friends worry about how they will teach their children or what their plan entails to facilitate their new learning classroom. Teachers might be slightly stressed by new technological demands to be learned, mastered and implemented over night. To both groups I ask the following:
First, please continue to keep the lines of communication open. Now more than ever, due to the physical distance between us, communication is SO helpful. Please reach out to teachers with questions if something does not go as expected. Teachers respond with suggestions, knowing outside the box thinking right now can go a LONG way. Both groups truly need to remain connected!
Second, the need for routine still exists. Even our youngest of learners look for a routine. Routine is helpful and allows the students to understand they are still in school, even though the school looks like home. Set up a schedule with regular times for learning, breaks and snacks/lunch. While the routine does not have to exactly match the one the student had in school, it will allow them to know each day- when the learning needs to take place and when it is over. A set routine also enables the student to know how the day will unfold in a predictable way.
Lastly, more than anything, a little bit of grace goes a long way. Grace allows for us to understand when things do not go as planned. The unintended hic-cup, when the wifi cuts out, the students blank stare, the video link not working and we can go on and on. A little bit of grace allows us to keep on trying, to celebrate our successes and continue to move our community forward.
-Emily Brown, Director of the ECP Program
Engaging Students on an Online Platform
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JK5 is staying in touch with our "adopted" senior center (Cave Spring Place) by sending photos and videos that the students made. They have responded with appreciation and pictures of the residents enjoying our shared art (pictures at right). On "Wonderful Wednesdays", my assistant Arran (he's in JK3 this year) and I demonstrate a science and/or art project using materials found in most households (video at right). JK5 has twice-weekly Zoom meetings in which we share greetings, do themed show-and-tells, and other interactive activities (for instance, next week we're learning a song together and doing some directed drawings in real-time). We are studying insects and specifically the butterfly life cycle right now. I ordered caterpillars and the students are following their growth via photo/video and writing observations in their own journals. In a few weeks, we will begin studying plants. I am mailing 6 sugar-snap pea seeds to each of my students, and giving video instructions on how to plant them in eggshells (to be transplanted later, when they are larger). We will observe and compare the growth of each of our peas. -Lily Angus, JK5 Teacher |
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Distance Learning at its most comfortable! Even our littlest Raiders get to see their teachers every day via daily Loom videos. At right, Anna Belle watches JK3 teacher Mrs. Luckay teach a lesson on “at” words, like “bat” and “cat.”
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Physical Education
Academic classes aren’t the only things happening on Zoom - our P.E. teachers are also hosting periodic virtual P.E. classes, in addition to the weekly challenges they create and send home! |
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Music with Mr. Rudolph
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Library with Mrs. Holley
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Mr. Horner's Corner
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first through third grades
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Students in first, second, and third grade engage in the following:
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Engaging Students on an Online Platform
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I started "small" with a weekly goal of including my normal classroom "Rug Routine" each morning (5-10 minutes), while Laura Gamble and I could still assign work from the initial 2-week hardcopy packet we sent home with students on March 12th. For those who don't know, "Rug Routine" is a huge part of First Grade and one of my favorite times of the day! We sneak in Spanish, number patterns, calendar sense, place value, numbers bonds, time, money, morning stretches, yoga, etc. during this 15 minute period each morning when at school!
Thinking ahead for the worst case scenario of not returning to school this year, I grabbed my classroom calendar, pointer, big Judy clock, birthday sun, class bank, and place value pocket chart, and began setting-up a pretend classroom in my basement (pictured at right). The first night I got Loom set up to make my first video, I must have gone through a million takes. It was so weird seeing myself on camera, hearing my recorded voice, and knowing this would end up somewhere on the internet for everyone to see. The first video was "fine", but I soon realized if I was going to do this each morning for my students, I needed it to be way more fun, playful, and engaging - a jazzed up version! Thus, the daily themes began! I've always heard you can be ANYTHING you want when you grow up, and believe me - I now feel like I have been everything imaginable, haha! I've dressed up as a chef, Olympic athlete, superhero, Great Gatsby inspired character, Scottish Highlander, fisherman, dinosaur, Polynesian dancer, dog trainer, doctor, etc. My goal with my morning rug routine videos is to either make students laugh and/or teach them something new each day! For example, on April 15, we observed "World Art Day" and I acted as a curator as I took students around my house to share paintings in my home. (video at right) I adore teaching writing, and teaching from home has allowed me to include artifacts I can share with students to show them how I would get inspired. The video to the right shows how I began my Haiku Lesson for first graders. Teaching math with limited resources has taught me to be really creative! Math happens most days on the side of my refrigerator so I can use my magnetic ten rods and ones cubes. We've also been using a lot of pretzel sticks and marshmallows recently to substitute for manipulatives students normally have access to in their math tool kits at school. Here is a video (at right) on estimation! -Annie Robertson, 1st Grade Teacher |
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Mr. Bear is our stuffed animal class pet. He has his own chair in our classroom. I took him home with me when school was cancelled for our second graders to have another connection to school. It has been great interacting with him for some math lessons. He gives our students a connection to school through seeing an "old friend", some humor through Mr. Bear's personality, and provides them with information for math lessons. He changes outfits often: he has a party hat to celebrate birthdays, a thinking cap for tricky word problems, etc., and this helps keep our students engaged in learning new concepts. He has worn a baker's outfit, fishing outfit, golfing outfit, NCS Raiders outfit, and more since we started. We have also used BrainPOP Jr. videos, as well as Epic books and videos, PowerPoint presentations, Zoom sessions for word study and class meetings, and more. We have been using a variety of sites, projects, games, etc. to give a balanced presentation of concepts across the curriculum. -Sharon Daly, 2nd Grade Teacher |
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Second grade has been learning about recycling and Earth Day throughout April. To wrap up their studies, they each wrote a creative story about a superhero who was going to help save planet Earth. To go along with the story, they also created a sculpture of their superhero using only recycled materials found around their house. This project is an excellent example of the the ways in which our teachers work to collaborate and create meaningful assignments that span multiple disciplines - in this case, Language Arts, Science, and Art! At right, second grader Aubree introduces her super hero AND super villain!
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This years’s 3rd grade classes couldn’t go on their usual field trip to Monticello, so they did the next best thing - they took a virtual field trip! Of course, the first part of any good field trip is the transportation, so their first task was a STEM challenge to build a bus! Check out a few of the fantastic bus designs they came up with at right.
After completing their bus activity, they played a card game, just as they would have on the long bus ride to Monticello. When they “arrived,” they had a Zoom picnic together and then went on a virtual Monticello tour! They even got to see the second and third floors, which NCS 3rd graders have never gotten to do before! As they toured, they completed a scavenger hunt and learned all kinds of fun facts about Jefferson and Monticello. |
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Spanish with Señora Hermosilla
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Sometimes, the student picks a topic and we work around that topic and develop the Spanish needed for the lesson. One second grader wanted to describe his pet snakes in Spanish so we did a couple of lessons about that.
Doing Total Physical Response in the 2nd grade using our screen "rectangles" is fun, too!
We also sometimes incorporate dancing and movement! Under normal circumstances, the students would be learning a routine for the annual Spanish Festival. Despite the festival being cancelled this year, the students are still enjoying their dances at home!
Doing Total Physical Response in the 2nd grade using our screen "rectangles" is fun, too!
We also sometimes incorporate dancing and movement! Under normal circumstances, the students would be learning a routine for the annual Spanish Festival. Despite the festival being cancelled this year, the students are still enjoying their dances at home!
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Music with Mr. Rudolph
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Library with Mrs. Holley
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fourth and fifth grades
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Students in fourth and fifth grade engage in the following:
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Engaging Students on an Online Platform
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Here are all of the ways I have been engaging students: I created my own avatar to give students feedback (at right). The second one is the girls' favorite. We did a lesson using memes. I created my own first and then they could create their own too. My "artists" could even draw memes. Some examples are included at right (the first is mine). Students could also pick a cool rap, song, or chant that helps them understand a grammar component that is usually difficult and/or boring. They worked with Youtube. Examples included definite/indefinite articles set to the tune of “Single Ladies,” conjugating the present tense set to the tune of “Black or White,” and a novel rap on the use of ser and estar. We will play Live Spanish Jeopardy next time we Zoom with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Last time we met, we did silly faces every time I prompted a "key" word to make it more fun maybe after a long day of Zooming with other classes. 4th and 5th graders we will do a Lip Sync Battle. Students will have about 4 days to practice and we will have another fun Zoom session. -Mariana Hermosilla, Lower School Spanish Teacher & Director of Lower School Global Studies |
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Sixth through eighth grades
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Students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade engage in the following:
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Engaging Students on an Online Platform
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We all know that when children think of science, they think of experiments. As a middle school department that prioritizes hands-on, exploratory learning, we wanted to make sure that in the transition to online education we didn’t forgo this key element to our program. As we developed a distance learning curriculum, our focus was on engagement and purposefully building in plenty of opportunities for learning that mimics play.
Our first unit covered the physics of simple machines. Levers, pulleys, wheels and axles--all the simple machines--are easily accessible and lend themselves to experiential activities that are grounded in solid conceptual understandings like mechanical advantage, systems, and forces. As students worked through the simple machine unit, we provided videos and experiments that utilized common household supplies, and had opportunities to collaborate via Zoom. Eager to spiral through different disciplines of science, we also wove in interesting science articles that showcased the integration of simple machines in disciplines like biology and medicine. The culminating activity had students apply their understanding of simple machines in the design of a Rube Goldberg cartoon or machine (video at right). Throughout the process students brainstormed, tinkered, and hopefully had fun! We are currently knee-deep in an engineering unit that showcases a reverse engineering, take-apart activity and an invention convention. Our final unit on sound will have kids participating in an online ornithology activity out of Cornell University, and give them an opportunity to construct a musical instrument that plays three distinct notes!" -Shelly Basile and Sandy Patterson, Middle School Science Teachers |
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Carrie Greer, Middle School Spanish teacher, has been using Flipgrid with her students to make comparisons in Spanish. Students draw pictures on a whiteboard while their voice is recorded describing their comparisons. This is a fun way to practice a new grammatical structure and increase interaction. The example at right is a student's illustration of the comparison "Mi perro corre tan rápido como mi hermano" or "My brother runs as fast as my dog."
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Ninth through twelfth grades
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Students in ninth-twelfth grade engage in the following:
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Learning a New Skill Now That Will Help You Later
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When North Cross had to switch rapidly to a distance learning arrangement, the math department was faced with the question of how students could produce documents with mathematical notation that could be sent to their teachers. While taking photographs of handwritten work has been effective, the current circumstance has presented an opportunity for students to get acquainted with a platform for producing electronic documents containing sophisticated mathematical notation.
One standard tool in academic and professional fields is LaTeX, a typesetting system that uses a markup language to specify what the document should contain. This allows the user to concentrate on the content of the document while the software ensures that it is formatted clearly and correctly, no matter how complicated the symbols get. By getting familiar with this now, students in the STEM program and those planning to pursue careers in fields that use mathematics heavily will be ready to present their future work in a highly readable format that is standard in these fields. In addition, students interested in computer programming can use LaTeX as a way to diversity their skill set, and students interested in design can see how core typographic principles are applied in these technical subjects. Finally, students who just want to be able to type their math homework will get the chance to learn how. |
Providing Meaningful Assessments
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One of the pressing questions that teachers sought to address as we switched to distance learning was how to adapt assessment materials in a way that would best reflect what students were learning while considering the need for all test materials to be securely distributed and collected online.
Google Forms has provided a reliable option for short quizzes, and teachers can easily tailor each question to be multiple choice, checkbox, true or false, and short answer. Teachers have the option to create an answer key as they go and assign point values to each question, which allows the form to automatically assess all choice-based answers. Google Forms also gives teachers the option to allow the assessment to be taken in locked-down browsers only and to restrict students from editing their individual forms once they have been submitted. “I have used Google Forms to administer quizzes to check for comprehension as we continue moving through Hamlet,” Upper School English teacher Nicki Dabney explained. “I can design a 15-question quiz that is a combination of choice-based answers and short response in the same time that it usually takes me to produce a paper quiz, and I appreciate that I can then grade the quizzes immediately after class and have the scores and my feedback on incorrect answers sent directly to students via school email. I have found that restricting the quiz to approximately 20 minutes ensures that students have to know the material well in advance, and the short answer questions are helpful for evaluating students’ ability to reflect on material from our class discussions,” Dabney added. For science and math, subjects that require specific notation, other platforms are needed. “In Algebra 2, we have been using Test Wizard to conduct quizzes and tests remotely. Since it comes with built-in tools for incorporating standard mathematical notation into these assessments, the Algebra 2 classes have not had to change their curriculum even though the spring term includes topics that require complex symbolism. As a result, when students encounter this material in future math and science courses and on the SAT, ACT, and AP exams, they will not have trouble adapting what they first encountered in a remote-classroom setting,” Dr. Mike Koss said. Chemistry teacher Jennifer Landry has also used Test Wizard, which is now free for all teachers. She also suggests ClassMarker for administering a variety of quizzes, though the free version comes with restrictions on the number of quizzes that can be created. Landry has also created a number of new assessments that meet the needs of all students, including those who struggle with traditional testing. Landry’s interactive Google Doc-based assessment helps students better understand concepts by asking them to provide an explanation along with the correct answer. This mode of testing allows Landry to provide direct feedback by adding comments to the shared document. For students in Honors Chemistry, rather than taking a traditional test for their unit on Nuclear Chemistry, students will be creating their own virtual museums. Stay tuned for the final products! For Upper School French teacher Chris Brandon, assessments have also come in the format of synthesis and visual rhetoric assignments. “While reading stories and listening to songs to maintain comprehension levels, I’ve moved towards asking students to then express visually and with commentary different parts of what we encounter. Some days, this looks like any scene of choice re-enacted with household items (the sillier and more dramatic the better). Other days, we might make memes to express a key idea in French--putting together speaking and writing to demonstrate understanding,” Brandon explained. Check out this amazing video created by French student Adoria Sanders '22. |
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Engaging Students on an Online Platform
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This is an offshoot of a project in AP World that I've been doing for a while, in which students take on a history topic (biography or event or historical process) in the time era that we are studying and create a song with original lyrics that uses an existing song's rhyme and beat structure (ex: The Story of Louis XIV to 'Nuthin' But a G Thang' by Doctor Dre). That project evolved from students performing live to some students using iMovie or other apps to create music videos. Some were so good that I wanted to do the song project in this format alone, filming videos, with the students putting the lyrics on screen and using images to go along with their voices. From there, and because I occasionally show a Crash Course World History Youtube video in class, we evolved into creating John Green-style Crash Course videos about any topic in history the students had a passion for. -Victor Lamas, Head of Lower School & AP World History Teacher |
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Crosswalk for learning differences
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Students in the CrossWalk program engage in the following:
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Staying connected as a community
While education is our primary focus at North Cross, we understand that the best learning is fostered within a community that is cohesive, nurturing, and fun. While our teachers have been hard at work preparing engaging lessons, many staff members and students have been working tirelessly to keep the bonds of our North Cross family strong.
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COVID-19 Updates
April 24: An Update from the Head of School
March 23: Gov. Northam's Decision to Close Schools and its Affect on North Cross
March 17: North Cross to Enter Dormant Phase in Physical Operations
March 13: State-Mandated School Suspension for Two Weeks
March 12: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 12: Update and Information about tomorrow, Friday
March 11: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 10: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 9: An Update Regarding Our Preparation and Response to the Coronavirus
February 26: Update on Shanghai Campus and Procedures for Coronavirus
March 23: Gov. Northam's Decision to Close Schools and its Affect on North Cross
March 17: North Cross to Enter Dormant Phase in Physical Operations
March 13: State-Mandated School Suspension for Two Weeks
March 12: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 12: Update and Information about tomorrow, Friday
March 11: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 10: Daily Update to COVID-19 Preparation
March 9: An Update Regarding Our Preparation and Response to the Coronavirus
February 26: Update on Shanghai Campus and Procedures for Coronavirus
Parent resources
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Running out of books to read? Apply for a library card for our local library system here. This will allow you to check out eBooks and read a variety of magazines for free. You will also be able to access resources like Mango Languages.
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Click here to view our full selection of carefully curated resources on our Hancock Library LibGuide.