A New School for a Day

Once a month for much of the school year, the seventh graders from the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton came to the Michael J. Perkins School in South Boston. They came to work with our first and second graders on things like reading and writing. A lot of other things were learned in the bargain--for both groups.

At the end of the year, it was our turn to pay the Schechter kids a visit.

It was a busy day. Our kids saw some things they had never seen before, for example, signs in Hebrew letters. What did they say!?!




Perkins kids paired up with their yearlong partners to create a book about their days. Some of the things they wrote and illustrated were perfect examples of their similarities and differences.















Look at this page, for example, where the kids are writing about how they start their days at school. The Schechter kid, who attends a private school devoted to religious and academic studies, says that he begins his school day with prayer.

The Perkins kid says that they go get the breakfast crates, eat in their classrooms, then get to work. Schechter kids eat breakfast at home.


While they are chatting, the boys also learn that they both like to play basketball.


Meanwhile, another pair is busy working on filling in how their education has made them want to have a particular job when they grow up. Or, at least the Perkins kid is because she has lots of ideas. "I want to be a doctor, no, a nurse...wait I have more ideas...a scientist..."

She is writing as fast as she can.

"I wouldn't mind being a teacher at the Schecter School," she adds.










"I like the fact that they seem so mature for their age," says a Schechter kid about his Perkins acquaintances.

"I think this school is cool because it's so big and they have a room just for music," says a Perkin kid.

What is another thing that all the kids like about the visit?











When the Perkins kids come to the Schechter, there is always pizza for lunch!

Want to Write a Memoir?

On Tuesday, all our first and second grade classes went to visit the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, Massachusetts. These kids had been working with 7th graders from the Schechter School all year long at the Perkins School. It was time to make a return visit. We will report on this visit in our next post.

Today, however, since our last post on the Perkins Blog featured three short memoirs from Mrs. Haney's first grade class, we would like to comment on the fact that the Perkins School isn't the only one thinking about memoirs.

Here is the cover of a memoir written by Melba Pattillo Beals. She is one of the nine African-American students who were the first kids to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. She had quite a story to tell. Many people were against integrating the school. One of them even tried to throw acid in her eyes.

Below the cover of the book is a wonderful description by poet, Ted Hughes, about why it is good to write memoirs. If you want to read what he said more easily, just click on this picture.

Three kids in Ms. Haney's class tried it. Who else wants to give it try? If YOU wrote one, what stories would you want to tell?

They're B-A-A-CK!!!

The seventh grade kids from the Solomon Schechter School in Newton were back last week for their monthly visit to the Perkins. They were very busy. Some of them were scrunched into tiny, first grade chairs reading to two of our students.



















The classrooms got so crowded that the mentor/student teams spread into the hallways.
Many groupings had the Perkins students work on their reading skills. Some students listened to new stories.


















Still others played word games that were fun while building vocabulary and problem-solving skills.

Whatever they were doing, everyone was having a good time.

Building a Personal Library

The big seventh grade kids from the Solomon Schechter School in Newton looked a little odd perched on the tiny chairs in our first grade classrooms. It was also a little unusual to see boys wearing yalmulkes at the Perkins. In fact, one of them was asked about it by a first grader. "It's a cap that many Jewish boys and men wear," he answered.

Then it was Ms. Leverett-King's turn to talk. "One thing we do in first grade is learn to read," she said. "We thought you could help us make books for our children so they can read at home. So today we're starting to build each of them a personal library."




Ms. Leverett-King passed out xeroxed sheets that copied some books in her kids' reading program.

Ms. Haney was doing the same in her classroom. The Schechter kids were coming once a month throughout the school year to work with the first graders and this was their first job.














Take it from a writer (this is author-in-residence Susan Goodman speaking), making a book isn't easy even if you aren't the one writing it. That was the first lesson the kids in these classrooms learned. You've got to put the pages in order, fold them precisely, and align them "just so" before you fold them.


Hard work is worth it, though.


Before the Schechter kids piled back on their bus, every Perkins first grader had the first book for their home collection.