Teaching Outside the Classroom

October 3-4 – The fourth grade overnight trip to Camp Jewell was an incredible opportunity to test students' stamina, cooperation, perserverance, and communication skills.
RCS teachers Ken Jordan and Nora Zahner describe two days at camp this way:

"When people hear that we go on an overnight trip with our fourth graders each year, they are usually quite surprised. Some people think it is too young for the children to go away, and others can't believe we are willing to do it at all. It is exhausting and stressful for us, but in the end, we appreciate this incredible opportunity – as do the students. When they come back, they have bonded together as a grade, rather than their individual homeroom classes. They always have an incredible time and tell stories of the trip for years to come.
 
Seeing our students in such a completely different environment is a real gift to us as teachers and provides insight into who they are as people, beyond their reading comprehension skills and memory for multiplication facts. The trip is two full days, to a YMCA camp in Colebrook, Connecticut. The children are in small groups led by camp staff, but an RCS teacher accompanies each group. This year our activities were Pond Study, Forest Ecology, Outdoor Living Skills, Crate Climb, and Mt. Wood (a climbing wall). Each activity tested the students’ stamina, cooperation, communication skills, and perseverance, but in a very different way than in the classroom. The environment is unfamiliar to all of them at once, so watching them attempt to figure out everything from where to find a clean fork in the dining hall to the best place to look for salamanders can be very interesting.
 
This trip reminds us that we are teaching children how to make their way in the world, and that takes more than just the facts and skills they learn in school!"
– fourth grade teachers Ken Jordan and Nora Zahner
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Rippowam Cisqua School
439 Cantitoe Street 
Bedford, NY 10506
phone: (914) 244-1250
Rippowam Cisqua School is a PreK-Grade 9 independent day school in Westchester County, New York. RCS offers challenging academics built on innovation, fine and performing arts, competitive athletics, wellness, leadership, service learning, and a wide selection of extracurricular activities.
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