Seems to me that we are always about new beginnings. New beginnings bring a freshness, a heightened curiosity and a desire to explore that gives us motivation to succeed.

The concept of curiosity is central to motivation. Curiosity is defined as a need, thirst or desire for knowledge. This thirst or desire for knowledge leads to exploratory behavior. Exploration involves all activities concerned with gathering information about that which we are curious. It is a delightful cycle of steps that we are constantly engaged in and the completion of which gives us great joy and fulfillment.

As each of our students begins a new Expedition or new piece of music the challenge of discovering everything about that new thing fills each with curiosity and fear (of failure) in almost equal measure. But the delight and empowerment that comes as the content of the Expedition is mastered and the music is conquered, as demonstrated by product and performance, is boundless.

May we continue to embark upon each new beginning with this keen sense of expectancy and promise.

Have a good weekend.

Warmly,

Ms. Lam

Diana Lam

Expedition: Launch!

All expeditions at Expeditionary Learning schools begin with a launch, a jump into what the students will be studying for the next several weeks or months. This experience looks different for every expedition but there are some common threads. Launches gives students something interesting and important to think about and pose a problem to ponder and to solve. The goals are to engage and excite students, to capture their attention, and to build background knowledge for the work to come.

This week, three of our classrooms launched new expeditions; K-1

launched "Portrait of an Artist" (color and self-portraits); K-2 launched "What's On Your Plate?" (nutrition), and Grade 4 launched "What's Out There?" (the Solar System).

The K-1 "Portrait of an Artist" launch began with an interactive read-aloud of The Yellow Umbrella, a wordless picture book by Jae-Soo Liu that features children walking to school on a rainy day. As Ms. Mason shared the book with her students, she asked them what words they would use for each page. The book is filled with colorful umbrellas in groups large and small, so many of children's words were color-related (background knowledge), but Ms. Mason pushed them for action and mood words as well. The book comes with a classical style music CD of original compositions designed to evoke mood and movement. Through the experience, students begin to see the connections between color, music, and mood-between a theme and its variations. The launch sets the stage for the preschoolers' long-term study of art and self-portraiture.

In K-2, a visit from the Cookie Monster instantly grabs the attention of every kindergartener, so when he asks, "What should I eat if I want to be more healthy?" the students want to help Cookie Monster solve his problem. After students shared their ideas (background knowledge) with Cookie, he asked them to draw him a picture. "Can you each draw me plate filled with the foods you think I should be eating? And please label each food so I can be sure to know how to eat healthy." This plate serves as a pre-assessment. At various times throughout the "What's On Your Plate?" expedition, students will be asked to draw a new plate for Cookie Monster, illustrating their developing knowledge about what constitutes a healthy diet.

Did you know that scientists can be revolutionaries? 4th-grade teacher Ashley Jaundoo launched the expedition "What's Out There?" with two diagrams- one showing an earth-centered universe and the other showing a sun-centered universe. After comparing the two, an interactive read aloud introduced students to Galileo Galilei and Nicholaus Copernicus, who centuries ago changed the way we see ourselves and the universe by challenging the belief that the sun orbited the earth. Students can't wait to stand on the shoulders of these scientific revolutionaries as they investigate the solar system and beyond.

Ask your student about their expedition and about The Yellow Umbrella (K-1), Cookie Monster (K-2), and Galileo (Gr4). What do they know about color, nutrition, or the solar system? What questions do they want to explore?

Parent Meetings

Diana Lam, Head of School, will host two breakfast meetings the week of March 10th.

Wednesday, March 12th for parents of this year's 5th graders
Thursday, March 13th for parents of this year's 1st graders

Both meetings will be held at 8:15 AM in the 2nd floor Teacher's Lounge at 25 Arlington Street. More meetings for parents to speak with Diana will be scheduled in the coming weeks.

100th Day of School

The 100th day of school is a big deal. Elementary students of all ages build number sense by counting and grouping numbers. They use a number line to represent numbers and the passing of time. In K2, students fill out a "counting the days" sheet every day as a math warm up. They learn how to write numbers using letters and symbols and they learn how to count by 5s and by 10s. Older students are learning about decimals and percents so 100 is a very important number for them as well. As the math gets more complicated, place value (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) is increasingly important. Large numbers can be difficult to grasp so students need ways to visualize amounts and groups.

On Wednesday, 5th grade students celebrated our 100th day of school by creating original art, filling a "hundreds block" with colorful squares in a design of their choosing and then breaking down the colors by number. "What percentage of the square is green? What decimal represents the number of blue squares used?" For homework in K2, the students worked with their families to gather 100 of one item to put in a zip lock bag. As a class, they looked at each bag to help visualize 100. This helps build estimation skills. They spent their centers time counting and representing 100 in a variety of ways. They made fruit loop necklaces and a special recipe of 100 days trail mix.

During morning meeting, K2 students were asked what they were most proud of learning in the last 100 days and spoke of learning to read and to write new, long words. For all grades, the 100th day of school is a chance to reflect on what has been accomplished and make plans for what work is still ahead.

Spring Fling! Updates

Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased either online here or can be bought at the school by emailing Toni Jackson, tjackson@conservatorylab.org.

All tickets are $10 and are reserved with assigned seating.

Up until March 15th each family can purchase up to 4 tickets. This is to ensure that every family has the opportunity to buy tickets, since there are only 1200 seats. After March 15th all remaining tickets will be sold on a 1st come, 1st served basis.

There are many openings for volunteers to help make this another memorable event this year. For more information, please contact Beth Greene, co-chair for the event at beth.greene@comcast.net.

Due to a special event at the KROC Center, the Spring Fling planning meeting originally scheduled for this Saturday (March 1) has been postponed and will be held NEXTSATURDAY, MARCH 8, at 2:00 p.m.

The KROC Center, 650 Dudley Street, Dorchester, MA

Music and Movement

Emma Shubin, an experienced Dalcroze movement and music educator from Colorado has been spending her Tuesday and Thursday mornings working with our early childhood music educators in K1 and K2. Emma is studying at Longy for a degree in Flute Performance as well as licensure to teach movement and music to adults. Dalcroze teaches concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression using movement allowing the student to gain physical awareness and experience of music through training that takes place through all of the senses. Emma uses movement to help students to develop techniques for musicianship, for chamber work and orchestra. The movements taught in class increase students' body awareness and control.

Emma has enjoyed her experience with our "wonderful and dynamic community". She is particularly impressed with the quality time teachers give to each student. When every student is heard, they can be challenged and grow.

Sol Y Canto Community Concert

If you haven't seen this ensemble before, they are absolutely wonderful and engaging for the whole family (website is www.solycanto.com), winner of the Silver Parents Choice Award for cd and Best of Boston winner (Boston Magazine.)

Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Concert Invitation

Dear Conservatory Lab Friends,

We hope that your new year is off to a great start. The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra ended 2013 with a highly acclaimed performance at Carnegie Hall and we're gearing up for our next exciting concert in March! We would again be delighted to offer free tickets to all your students, families, faculty, and staff for the BPYO concert on March 7th. Please email Danielle Williams: Dwilliams@bostonphil.org to notify us of how many tickets you would like for your staff, students, and families for the concert. We would appreciate it if all requested tickets were used!

Concert Info:

Friday, March 7 at 8:00pm

Symphony Hall, Boston

120 passionate young musicians, ages 12 to 21, will present an electrifying performance of Mahler's Symphony no. 5, Mozart's Overture to Marriage of Figaro, and Barber's Violin Concerto performed by our superlative concertmaster, Max Tan. Click here for further information on the concert and program.

We hope to see you there as the talented and enthusiastic BPYO players and Maestro Benjamin Zander provide a wonderful evening of music!

Sincerely,

The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra

"Shaping Future Leaders through Music"