Skip to main content

Horizons Reunion--Big Day!

This past Saturday, the normally quiet 'weekend Saint David's,' came alive with the sound of young voices. Horizons Summer program boys and their families ventured out in the cold for the Horizons Reunion Day.

The boys, now all first graders from our four partner schools in Harlem, were so excited to see each other that they hugged and huddled for the first 15 minutes. After settling in, the boys met with their teachers, Mrs. Sanchez and Mrs. Patterson, in the Omega classroom for a morning of reading, music with Mr. Bell, and for sports with Coach Roman.

During the reading session, Ms. Kaplan, Saint David's Reading Specialist and Horizons Summer Reading Teacher, assessed all the boys, evaluating their progress since last summer. Pre- and post-testing of fundamental academic skills is an important component of our Horizons program. While the boys were with their teachers, Horizons' parents met in the Smith Room.  Their day began with a highly interactive introductory session led by current Saint David's parent, Kavita Dolan.  Beginning to build a strong parent network "parent community" was one of the important goals of our first Reunion Day.

Parents were then treated to two excellent speakers: Melissa Roessler (Saint David's 4th grade mom; and certified nutritionist), who talked with Horizons' parents about the Art of Eating, and Kim Davidson, Saint David's Head of Lower School, who spoke about the Importance of Reading to children and Approaches to Reading--presenting parents with a range of effective strategies they could try out themselves.

Five Saint David’s Upper School boys volunteered to help make the day a success (Julian Anderson, Skakel McCooey, Eric Wu, Tyler Holder and Thomas Harvey).  This is a community-wide effort. Pictured above is one of our 7th grade volunteers, donating a Saturday morning to the program.


Pizza was ordered for all and Chef Josh, who provided the food this summer, set up a 'make your own ice cream sundaes table' for dessert. Parents and boys were thrilled.

Former Saint David's parent,  Jill Lampe, Horizons' official volunteer photographer, captured the day on film.

Reunion Day ended with parents happily signing their re-registration forms for the Summer of 2013 and left feeling very much a part of the new and exciting Horizons Community at Saint David’s.

Overall, Reunion Day was a complete community event with former parents, current parents, current boys, alums, teachers, and administrators all pitching in.  It was a huge success!

Horizons would not be where it is today without the guidance and leadership of the program's executive director, Julie Sykes.


Planning is now fully underway for the summer of 2013.  We will be doubling the size of the program as we bring 15-17 new rising first grade boys into the program.


If you are interested in learning more, please visit the Horizons' homepage.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OLIVER!

This morning our fifth graders continued a great year-end tradition at Saint David's, The Fifth Grade Musical. The boys performed Oliver! and they were fantastic, providing impressive performances and demonstrating great vocal ability. They have been mastering the dialogue and musical numbers for weeks, and clearly gave it their all. Congratulations to the cast on a job well done, and to their Producers/Teachers James Hubbard and Jamie MacNeille, Director Phyllis Clark, Musical Conductor Jeff Moore, and the Parent Committee of Cynthia Chapman, Susan Kissane, Tara Neumann, Joyce Restituto, and Ann Roberts. Musical theater is alive and well at Saint David's!
Post a Comment
Read more

Sixth Graders Meet with Dr. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Carter Emmart with Saint David's Sixth Graders This past Friday, as part of our unique partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, sixth graders had the great honor to attend a private lecture given by Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at AMNH. Dr. Emmart told the boys about his passion for science along with an overview of the history of the Hayden Planetarium.  He also gave the boys advice on how to take scientific information about the universe and compile it into an interesting and captivating show for an audience. The boys were able to see Dr. Emmart's original sketches, which helped create the Uniview program they are using to develop their presentations. The session provided our boys with an opportunity to learn how art and science come together in the planetarium, and to obtain expert advice on developing their own space shows from one of the creators of Uniview . You can learn more about Dr. Emmart's work and Univie...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tales of a Good Man

"Sometime in the midst of all this, we became friends. And his story, and all its vast world passed into mine."   --From the Introduction of Blood & Oil by Roxane Farmanfarmaian. "Stories are so important; they become traditions that tell about the good that often comes out of bad experiences..." So began Roxane Farmanfarmaian's fascinating talk Monday night at Saint David's Seventh Grade Father-Son Dinner. Dr. Farmanfarmaian, Affiliated Lecturer of Modern Middle East Studies at the Political and International Studies Department at Cambridge University, was introduced by her nephew, Saint David's seventh grader Cyrus '17. She spoke to the seventh grade boys and their fathers about what makes a "Good Man" through the prism of her book Blood & Oil : A Prince's Memoir of Iran from the Shah to the Ayatollah (Random House 2005), which she co-authored with her late father, Prince Manucher Farmanfarmaian. The memoir i...
Post a Comment
Read more