Everyone has his or her own brand of genius, and often the areas at which we excel are the areas that we are passionate about exploring. When we love what we’re learning, learning is fun! That’s why we...
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In a conversation with a student this month, we were discussing what she was going to do over the summer. She has a litany of activities planned, but the conversation eventually got around to what she was thinking…
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The children in Junior Kindergarten have been busy learning about insects and other creepy crawlers over the past few weeks. Through hands-on activities, the children explored the parts of an insect, insect life cycles, insect habitats, and so...
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Here at Harrisburg Academy, the sky is the limit for our Upper School students! They push themselves above and beyond the limits of their normal school day to delve deep and conduct research on a topic of their…
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After 13 years of teaching at a public high school, I left to teach at Harrisburg Academy. Since then, many of my former colleagues have inquired about my choice. Am I happy? Is Harrisburg Academy “better” than teaching…
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The title of this blog is the same title of an article I recently read that was excerpted from the book “Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why” by Paul Tough. He is also the author of “How…
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We are not born to read. Reading takes so many skills and capacities: from short- and long-term memory, to discerning symbols and assigning them meaning, to interpreting that meaning into words and then sentences. Eventually, we even have...
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Back in May, I wrote an extensive blog post about our rationale for switching to a new interim benchmark assessment. Now that we have officially completed our first full testing window with the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress)…
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Over the past few years, our Lower School faculty have been using The Daily 5™ structure, which emphasizes reading instruction in comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and expanding vocabulary.  Thus, reading and comprehension are placed at the center of our…
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“I hope that my work will encourage self-expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.” – Ansel Adams This year, I spent one of the school’s fall holidays...
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