Posts made in January, 2016

“Spit” – you say?

Landforms: What is a spit? With landform three-part cards, students learn to identify, label and define various landforms. A control book is used for the students to self check work for accuracy.

Hands-On Sounds

Early Reading: Word recognition through phonemic awareness builds the vocabulary needed to enjoy reading full texts. Students use miniature objects to identify letter sounds and sandpaper letters to “feel the sounds.” This early blend of auditory and tactile learning matched together create the memory of letter sounds. After each letter grouping,...

Digging It

This year, students designed, built and planted a classroom garden.  The garden is part of a larger outdoor classroom and has been a central component of the daily experience at YVCS.  Aside from the obvious health benefits of having fresh vegetables on site, gardening provides critical life skills for our students’ developing minds and bodies.  For example,...

Moved by Poetry

YVCS is dedicated to literacy development, creative thinking and community involvement.  Children regularly engage in creative writing activities that include poetry because we believe poetry promotes literacy while also building community and fostering emotional development. Poetry crosses boundaries that little else can. Poetry helps us know each other. When read...

Becoming Explorers

“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” ― Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder   At YVCS,...