Special Board Meeting Notice and Agenda
Author Archives: Old Town Academy
OTA YMCA Soccer Players • Practice Today 3:30-4:30 at OTA
We Need Players! for OTA Soccer • Boys & Girls, Grades K- 3 • YMCA Youth Soccer League
April 18: OTA Short-handed but Won 6-0! • April 25 Game is 4PM at Mission Valley YMCA
Calling all younger* OTA Soccer Players! If you would like to sign up for the ymca’s soccer league and play for OTA, please return the medical waiver with your child’s age at the top right corner. Please return form by Friday or bring it to the game Saturday.
- YMCA 2015 Medical form – ALL Sports
- To get all the latest updates on schedules, practice times, etc. please visit and subscribe to the Old Town Academy Outdoor Ed blog!
- Looking for: 2 Parent Volunteer Coaches! Spend quality time with your children!
(*Students in Upper Elementary & Middle School* can play in San Diego Middle School Athletic League)
- Season Dates: April 6th –Jun 13th
- 1st game: Saturday, April 18th
- Pictures day: Saturday, May 9th
- Includes: 8 games
- Fee: $50 per child
March Character Trait Award
Two students were chosen for showing Curiosity throughout the month of March. Those students are: Zorian Sesma and Maya Garb.
Congratulations!!! They will eat lunch with Mrs. Jones on Thursday, April 9th.
We have completed the 7 Character Strengths. If you want to find out more about these Character Strengths, check out OTA Character Ed
We will continue to learn other Character Traits outside of these 7. The Character Trait for April is Kindness. I will be picking other important Character Traits for the remainder of the year. I will also continue to pick students who are showing these traits for the month as a reward. Please encourage your children to show these traits each day at school and at home.
Why Free Play Is the Best Summer School – Jessica Lahey
The more time children spend in structured, parent-guided activities, the worse their ability to work productively towards self-directed goals.
JESSICA LAHEY -JUN 20 2014
The author’s sons enjoying summertime in their younger years.
Most schools across the nation have marked the end of another academic year, and it’s time for summer. Time for kids to bolt for the schoolhouse doors for two long months of play, to explore their neighborhoods and discover the mysteries, treasures, and dramas they have to offer. This childhood idyll will hold true for some children, but for many kids, the coming of summer signals little more than a seasonal shift from one set of scheduled, adult-supervised lessons and activities to another.
Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children. It is fertile ground; the place where children strengthen social bonds, build emotional maturity, develop cognitive skills, and shore up their physical health. The value of free play, daydreaming, risk-taking, and independent discovery have been much in the news this year, and a new study by psychologists at the University of Colorado reveals just how important these activities are in the development of children’s executive functioning.
Executive function is a broad term for cognitive skills such as organization, long-term planning, self-regulation, task initiation, and the ability to switch between activities. It is a vital part of school preparedness and has long been accepted as a powerful predictor of academic performance and other positive life outcomes such as health and wealth. The focus of this study is “self-directed executive function,” or the ability to generate personal goals and determine how to achieve them on a practical level. The power of self-direction is an underrated and invaluable skill that allows students to act productively in order to achieve their own goals.
Children who engage in more free play have more highly developed self-directed executive function.
The authors studied the schedules and play habits of 70 six-year-old children, Continue reading
Happy 100th Day of School!
Mesopotamia too hard? Let’s stop underestimating our kids (Commentary)
Westhill School Superintendent Stephen Bocciolatt reads with first-grade students. Under the new Common Core standards, first-graders are being exposed to topics like ancient civilizations. The goal is to boost their knowledge and vocabulary…
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E.D. Hirsch Jr. is the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several acclaimed books on education issues.
By E. D. Hirsch, Jr., and Lisa Hansel
“First Graders and Mesopotamia? New York’s model lesson plan asks too much, critics say.” And so by implication says the article with that title that ran in this paper last week.
That Mesopotamia lesson is part of a program called Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA). Right now, it’s being put up on EngageNY.org for schools (and parents) to download for free. To find out if it asks too much, you could trust critics who’ve never used it, you could give it a try with your own kids, or you could listen to the kids in the program. Last year, PBS’s John Merrow wondered if CKLA was too much, so he visited a school in Queens that was piloting it (you can see his report, which aired on PBS’s NewsHour, here.). Noting that “nobody told these first-graders” that the content was too hard for them, Merrow asked what their favorite books were. First graders called out: “the solar system,” “the skeleton,” and “an archaeologist book.” The result of the pilot test? The 10 CLKA pilot schools significantly outperformed the 10 control schools.
Click to read entire article. Watch an interview with ED Hirsch click here.
Test of “New 1st Grade Blog Post” email notification • Yesterday in History, August 22!
- 1485 – The War of the Roses ended with the death of England’s King Richard III. He was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field. His successor was Henry V II.
- 1567 – The “Council of Blood” was established by the Duke of Alba. This was the beginning of his reign of terror in the Netherlands.
- 1642 – The English Civil War began when Charles I called Parliament and its soldiers traitors.
- Continue reading
After-School Sailing Club – Lost Photos!
KIndergarteners, First Graders, and Second Graders in the Beginners Class with coach and OTA Parent, Kevin Olenick.* We’ve been updating the classroom blogs to send photos with the “new-post” email notifications… the goal: to help keep OTA parents/guardians informed about all the great things happening in First Grade.
Now that that feature seems to be working again, the backlog of photos is going out! Slideshow below the jump:↓
*Scholarships are available for After-School Clubs. Please see OTA Office for details. Continue reading
Reading with the Kindergarten
Kindergarteners visiting the first grade to “read with the big kids!” Slideshow below: ↓
