New Partnership with Guggenheim Begins for Grade 2

Today our second graders and their art teachers began an exciting new unit done through our partnership with the Guggenheim, right down the block from Saint David's.

Led by a museum educator, the boys first gathered in the rotunda of this architectural wonder and talked about the various shapes they could see within the museum, as well as how Francis Lloyd Wright was inspired by his love of nature.

When asked to comment about the shape of the building itself, boys said it brought to mind "a snake coil," an "upside down ice cream cone," and "tornadoes."

They then viewed Piet Mondrian's Dune in Zeeland, discussing how this work was done exclusively in two colors, and they examined the edges where the orange and blue meet.

Afterward, the boys moved to the art studio where they explored the relationship between color and shape, creating their own two-color collages by combining large and small shapes of torn paper.

This was the first of 10 sessions at the Guggenheim; the last will be a final exhibit of the boys' artwork.

Partnerships like this enable boys to be exposed to teachers beyond the classroom, which promotes a different type of questioning and intellectual curiosity.

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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!

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...

Surf's Up for Horizons at Saint David's

Little can top catching a wave to beat the heat on an exceptionally hot summer's day. Yesterday, as the temperatures soared into the nineties, the Horizons at Saint David's Eighth Grade class traveled to Rockaway Beach with their teachers for surf lessons with New York's premiere surf school, Locals Surf School. The boys have been taking swimming lessons through our program since their first summer with us in 2012. At that time, they were were rising first graders, and our inaugural cohort of Horizons students. Yesterday, they were ready to go, and, as these pictures show, they had a blast while learning a new skill. This is the eighth year of Horizons at Saint David's, a six-week multi-faceted academic and cultural summer experience whose mission is to prevent summer slide in elementary school boys from low-income families. We began the program in conjunction with Saint David's 60th anniversary in 2011, as one way that Saint David's as an ins...

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