Visitors from England 

This Thursday the school hosted 23 educators from Wellington College in England, sharing our best educational practices, showing off the amazing work in our classrooms, and demonstrating our data driven practices. Following classroom visits, the educators listened to a panel of student ambassadors and teachers share their experiences of teaching and learning at Conservatory Lab.  The visitors were deeply impressed with our school and the ethos that drives our collective work.

Wellington College is a British High School which for over 150 years has educated children of all backgrounds with an emphasis on leadership, service, and a global perspective. Conservatory Lab was their eighth stop on an American tour of celebrated charter schools, and in the words of one educator, "the most memorable and most spectacular!"

We hope this is the beginning of a strong trans-atlantic partnership that can spread our practices abroad.  In return, we seek ways to learn from our visitors as well. 

K2 performs at the Boston Children's Museum

On Wednesday, October 24th, K-2 began the first of a three part series of performances that they will be given at the Boston's Children's Museum this academic year. This series is designed to share the earliest process Conservatory Lab students follow to become part of the orchestra. This first performance was comprised of singing such favorites as "The Rainbow Connection", "The Garden Song" and "I've Got Rhythm". These crowd pleasers were presented to a happy audience of 40+ toddlers and parents. The K-2 students shone in their clear, bright and musical performance exuding confidence and joy. The audience members later joined in during the participatory singing.

The 2nd Presentation will be in January and will be a demonstration of a charming little skit entitled ":Are You My Instrument?" fashioned after the well-loved children's book "Are You My Mother?"

The 3rd and final presentation to be held in April will be the  Paper Orchestra graduation ceremony.

Tantalizing Tango

What's fast, slow, spontaneous, exciting, calm, upbeat, lyrical, beautiful, magnificent, and so GROOVY? With these words, sixth graders described a tango music and dance performance at the Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on Friday, October 19th. Sponsored by Music Unites Us, an educational organization that fosters the understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures through music , the performance featured the Grammy-award winning composer Pablo Ziegler and bandoneón player Hector Del Curto, along with world-renowned tango dancers Fernanda Ghi and Guillermo Merlo.

From front row seats, students marveled at the dancers' elegant footwork and the way they held a conversation and told a story without talking. From Hector Del Curto, they were fascinated to learn about the history of the bandoneón, an accordion-like instrument that made its way to Argentina from Germany and is one of the most complicated instruments in the world. Composer and pianist Pablo Ziegler revealed the African roots of the tango and treated students to examples of Tango Nuevo (New Tango), an intoxicating fusion of classical, jazz, and traditional tango music created by the legendary Astor Piazzolla.

Students participated in this educational program as part of their word geography and music expedition. Next stop: Brazil!

Bookfair Comes to Town

This year's Fall Book Fair was a huge success! Parent organizer, Felice Rutstein said we won't know the final amount for a couple of weeks but she hopes we will meet her goal of $5000 in book sales. That's a lot of reading!  "Every year, new students to our school having shining faces when they see row after row of books they might take home," reports Felice, and "older students start getting excited as soon as the posters go up advertising the Fair."  The true goal of the week is to get every scholar a book they can't wait to dive into and that goal is met through parent involvement and the generosity of the PAC, ensuring every student takes home a book.  

Every child came to the Fair early in the week to make a wishlist and then returned to purchase the books their parents approved.  Many parents spent some time helping out, either setting up or during the week of sales.  Even more parents shopped when they picked up their students, knowing that these Book Fair dollars would come back to the PAC and the school.

Volunteers Wanted!

Do you like to laugh, color, cut, build, be part of a crew, read, dance, jump, sort, trace, stretch, walk, swing, whisper, count, shake maracas, dream, learn, make friends, tell jokes, smile?

Conservatory Lab Charter School needs family and community members to join our K1, K2 and 1st grade classes for afternoons of exploration and enrichment.

Requirements:

• One Weekly Commitment for 6 weeks (Nov.- mid Dec) time 3:45 pm - 5 :00 pm
• Day of the week TBD by volunteer schedule
• Attend Orientation Session in late October and complete CORI check 

Please contact Beth Greene beth.greene@comcast.net 617-999-5620 or Rebecca Levi rlevi@conservatorylab.org to join us!  Interested, but can't join us until January?? Let us know!

Box Tops For Education

We collect box tops!  If families have been collecting, please send them in to teachers by October 26th.  The first submission deadline is November 1st.