NCS: Friday miscellany

It is not the warmest nor the sunniest day we have ever had for the Beach Party; however students certainly seem to be enjoying the BBQ, the skate park, badminton, and home-made water slide. Today is also the last week that we will give all students marks for the 3Ps - preparedness for class, promptness to class, and participation in class - Selden and I had our traditional end-of-term Belgian waffle breakfast for the students that have had the consistently highest evaluations. (The empty chairs are for seniors who left to climb Cascade at 5:30 AM and were not back yet. They came about 20 minutes after I snapped the photo.) Finally, the last picture is from yesterday's student v. staff Ultimate Frisbee game.

NCS: the play

Hello. I am back from a quick 36 hour trip to Manhattan to work on New York State Independent School Association business. I am on their accreditation commission and so twice I year - with 20 other school heads - we help accredit member schools. The enclosed pictures are of Ryan, the producer, director, and writer for James and the Giant Peach. The other picture shows Alex sewing up Woody's costume. In one week we will perform the play for local residents. The ninth graders finished their last final exam today (Algebra and geometry), and tomorrow the last seniors who have not hiked Cascade will head out on the trail during the pre-dawn hours.

See you next week.

NCS: more earth science

Larry asks Chris to explain the relationship between velocity and sediments, and in the other video Alexis explains her stream diagram.

NCS: video from earth science class

Enclosed is a short snippet of Jason explaining some of the unique aspects of his portion of the stream study.

NCS: earth science

Enjoy the last bits of your Memorial Day long weekend. The enclosed pictures show Larry's final project for the 8th grade. They are doing a profile of the stream that flows through campus. His unit on stream morphology - the processes that create and alter streams - covers such topics as erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments. This is a fine example of a unit which combines traditional factual content and hands-on experiential learning. (In the next 24 hours I will post some video footage on my blog.

CTT: enjoy the long weekend

I hope all is well and that you are getting excited about the upcoming summer at Camp. I have enclosed a few pictures to whet your appetite. See you soon!

NCS: recital video snippets

Included in this batch of 30 second snippets are: Lucy, Woody, Anthony, Rachel, Alex, and Josey. Enjoy!

NCS : informal recital

Fully half of our student body takes individual, or small group, music lessons. The music department composed of Don and John covers a wide range of tastes and talents. Like most NCS activities, student ability ranges from "never-ever" novices to children who have been playing for many years. Periodically throughout the year recitals give all students the opportunity to perform. Our musicians range from those who are reluctant performers to those who are wildly exuberant, from those picking up a second instrument, to those who have strong technical keyboarding skills are but little or no sight reading skills ... and everything in between. The enclosed pictures show us getting ready for the evening performances, know that at this point in the term seating is a bit chaotic as we are sharing the Quonset with the set production for "James and the Giant Peach."

NCS: enjoy the long weekend

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. All our classes are starting to move into the "finishing up" mode. The pictures of 9th graders show students doing Biology review sheets to get ready for next week's final exam, and outlining their final essay on A Midsummer Night's Dream. The 7th graders are working on ration and proportion problems, while the 4-5th graders are doing a Colonial American simulation

CTT: sprucing up

Hello, and greetings from a fantastic - unusually warm - Adirondack Spring day. The enclosed picture shows Karen and our pre-TT staff (Tucker, Greg, Sarah, Anna, and Eli) getting ready for their morning meeting, when they sort through the painting, gardening, and sprucing up lists for the day. Today they finished putting in the waterfront! One month to go before the start of Camp ... yahoo

NCS: rock climbing

Today was an unusually warm Spring day for the Adirondacks - 86 degrees - and so students were allowed to wear shorts during the academic day. This afternoon we had a host of outside activities, one of which was climbing on our crag from 3-6:00 PM. This short video features two 8th graders - John and Nick - working on a very hard route. They did not manage to climb it today, however they will keep coming back until they manage to succeed ... a pretty good learning experience ... one with real life applications.

NCS: title treks

This morning at our Town Meeting, Allison Follos and the rest of the community celebrated the year-long commitment to free-reading as demonstrated by the NCS students who participate in the title trek program. This voluntary, non-academic program, seeks to develop students into life-long readers, asking students to keep a literary response journal on their journey through the 46 book title treks, which mirror our 46 High Peaks. This afternoon the 17 students who have been the most active in the program enjoyed a special party hosted by Allison. Finally, Jess and Larry became literary 46ers, and their name has been inscribed on a plaque, along with almost two dozen students and staff that have preceded them

NCS: James and the Giant Peach

As you will see in a couple of weeks, the production of this play is a huge undertaking which continues to occupy an increasing amount of our time. Between performing and production tasks almost the entire student body is involved. Enclosed are some video snippets of the work that was being done on Tuesday May 19: stage and lighting crew, a tour of the costume shop, rehearsals, and the final papier mache of the "Peach."

NCS: gorgeous weather

We continue to have some fantastic weather, enabling lots of great outdoor activities, as well as keeping our construction work on schedule. We have our fingers crossed, but it appears that all the site preparations for the new student/staff residence will be completed by graduation!

The enclosed pictures are from this past weekend’s invitational ultimate frisbee tournament, as well as from lunch council which was competently run by Eli in completion of one of his remaining graduation requirements. Finally, several weeks ago a select group of NCS hikers were invited on the Four Day Trip, and today at council they received their patches in recognition of completing the “Cranberry Lake 50 miler.”

The enclosed web address (http://www.cranberrylake50.org/Trail%20Completion.htm ) gives you some background on this very special part of the Adirondacks, and lists their accomplishment.

NCS: miscellany on a Monday

I hope you had a good weekend. Enclosed are pictures of the “Spirit Award” that our Ultimate Frisbee team won, Level III sharing their poems in Language Arts, a Level II science class, and rock climbing on our crag.

Many thanks for all of you that gave me feedback on the video footage on the blog. (It seems a large percentage of people can view that footage and so I will continue to post video snippets. Of course, as one respondent reminded me, the browsers which were unable to view the footage may have also been unable to view the poll.) I would ask that you take another minute and direct your browser to my blog again

http://www.nct.org/page.cfm?p=448 

as I would like to get some feedback on our NCS communication styles.  Remember to scroll down to the end of the blog page, and use the polling mechanism to let me know which communication vehicle is most effective for you.  

NCS: senior meals

As we get closer and closer to graduation, a key task is to help seniors manage the physical and emotional transition away from NCS.

The process starts in February when the class goes off on an group Outward Bound course. During the Spring term the last of the seniors lead lunch council, and I metaphorically hand off leadership to an 8th grader who does the first “senior” council. Currently, all students and staff are making senior pages to be bound into books that each senior receives at graduation. In the next two weekends the last seniors will hike Cascade to fulfill one of our traditional graduation requirements; soon a senior prank will emerge on the scene; in a couple of weeks I will take the senior class to dinner in town, and throughout the month of May we have various – by request - senior meals. Yesterday, for lunch we had Philly cheese steaks (Max’s meal), and for dinner tofu tempura (Eva S.). Today at lunch we had Casey’s meal – macaroni and cheese - and this evening we will have Adam’s meal of pork chops, apple sauce, french fries, and green beans.

Our ultimate frisbee team is heading off campus to a tournament in Vermont, while rehearsals, construction of the “peach” (see picture), as well as costume and mask work continues through the weekend.

NCS: visitors

It has been a very busy couple of days, starting with Saturday’s Pancake Breakfast with 200+ guests; next up was Tuesday’s visit from several second grade classes from Plattsburgh, and on to the visits from eight educational consultants this morning. The enclosed photos include a rehearsal for James and the Giant Peach, a picture of John (retail shop) and Alex (NCS archives) from last week’s Career Days, and last evening’s Homenight Murder Mystery Party (invitation enclosed). I have also posted a couple of faculty responses to visiting consultant queries during the Q & A this morning.

NCS: faculty responses

The enclosed video footage are short snippets of Jane's response to the question from consultants about what her students are reading. The other footage shows Todd answering a question on the nature and quality of our residential program. Enjoy.

NCS: school photos

On this gorgeous day, we spent the Town Meeting time taking a variety of all-school photos. The enclosed pictures were snapped as we were framing the photos, and so not everyone is looking at the camera. However as a consolation prize I also included some close-ups of various of the assembled multitudes. A quick request; see if you can access the video footage on that page. Then scroll down to the very bottom of the blog page, and use the polling mechanism to let me know how your browser has handled our content. Many thanks. (As always just click on the photo to enlarge the image.)

NCS: geometry homework again

In this video Meg explains the proof for Theorem 63, which states that an inscribed angle is equal to half its intercepted arc.

NCS: tuesday wanderings

A 7th grade math class, a 9th grade biology class, and a 9th grade Language Arts class discussing A Midsummer Night's Dream. (Finally, a picture from last week's Career Days, as Anthony climbs the pole at the Electric Company's practice facility.)

CTT: garden

Greetings from the Adirondacks. I hope all is well, and that you are getting excited about the upcoming summer. Activity in the garden is accelerating, however as you can see from the enclosed photos most of the plants are still in the greenhouse, as it was 22 degrees this morning. Pre-TT counselors have started to arrive on campus (Anna, Sarah, Tucker, and Greg thus far) with more to come as the beginning of camp is just six weeks away.

NCS: green cup challenge video

This short video taken at lunch council, features Mike Tholen presenting the award to the two winning houses, and reviewing the Level I data analysis with the entire community.

NCS: green cup challenge

The heating bills for April have been analyzed by Level I, and at lunch council the results of our month long Green Cup environmental challenge were announced. The community clearly made a significant impact on its energy use, although as student analysts reminded us, comparisons are complex and need to be taken with a grain of salt. That said, in comparing our entire heating season – to date – with the previous year’s total we saved 5,700 gallons of heating oil. Additionally, in the month of April we saved 3,712 kilowatt hours of electricity. Finally, Balcony and Woods House were the residences that made the greatest savings in April, with Glass House coming in as the runner-up. (Later today I will place a short video of council on my blog which you may access from the NCS website.)

NCS: evening activity

The 7th graders have just recently completed their poetry unit in Language Arts. In the past weeks they have read, analyzed, written, and recited a wide variety of poems (haiku to blank verse). Enclosed are a couple of the Level III presentations from Sunday evening. The night also finished with a few poetic tributes that students wrote for Peter who was celebrating his 60th birthday. Enjoy!

NCS: a rainy Sunday

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Mother’s Day. Many of our students are in play rehearsals for another hour, and Larry reports that more work was done yesterday on the set and lighting (enclosed photo) than in any prior single day he can remember during his time at NCS. We hope you’ll join us for James and the Giant Peach (the poster was created by Joo Hee) on June 5th. Later this evening I will try and post some video coverage of this evening’s Poetry Reading.

NCS: geometry homework

In this 90 second video snippet Noah explains his answers to the previous night's assignment on inscribed angles. One of the key components for our NCS math classes is to have students work on complex problem solving skills as opposed to purely computational and formulaic assignments.

NCS: a short talk from Hock

A three minute video of Hock welcoming guests to the Pancake Breakfast and then talking about the unique elements of an NCS education.

NCS: pancake breakfast

Thus far its been a pretty soggy day, however our annual community Pancake Breakfast went off without a hitch. We fed well over 200, and then students and staff offered tours of the barn and greenhouses, played music, belayed the climbing wall, and did face-painting for our guests. Your children were poised, productive, and gracious hosts.