Dragon Dispatches: December
How would you design a new seed? What dispersal method would you use?
Our first graders were challenged with just that! As a part of their unit on plants, students were tasked with helping plants by designing a new seed that has a specific dispersal method they learned about.
Blowing in the wind, floating on water, clinging to fur – our students created unique seed designs that can be dispersed in so many ways! From imagining to designing, testing, and improving their seed designs, our students loved being able to use their creativity to solve this problem. Projects like these are just some of the many ways our students here at Speyer are provided with limitless learning opportunities to nurture their inquiry!
National K-12 Championship
10 Speyer Dragons trekked across the country to Spokane, Washington, to compete at the 2025 National K-12 Grades Championship...and they returned to NYC with amazing results! Our First Grade team tied for THIRD PLACE (and a mere two points shy of the championship title)! We also had two eighth graders team up, and despite being one player short for a full team, they tied for FOURTH PLACE! Amazing!
Amidst the fun were a few cool "upset" victories too — first grader Henry A. (coming into the tournament rated 542) beat a player rated 1181! That’s a 639 point difference! His brother, fifth grader Charles, bookended the event with his own upset by defeating a player rated 1639, a 543 point difference from his 1096 rating! Yes, it was a fabulous weekend of chess, teamwork, and laughs! Huge congrats to all of our Chess Dragons and big high-fives to our wonderful Speyer Chess coaches and always-supportive parents! GO DRAGONS!
Sixth Grade Celebrates Their Study of George Orwell's Animal Farm!
Our Sixth Grade Dragons have been reading and studying Animal Farm and to wrap up this unit, they held…what else… a birthday party! Sixth Grade Humanities teacher Mr. Coen gave us all of the details on the fun:
Throughout our "Animal Farm" unit, students have studied the various ways that propaganda can be used to distract a populace; the Romans called this tactic "bread and circuses." As an end-of-unit celebration, students dressed as characters from "Animal Farm" and attended Napoleon's birthday party. Napoleon's birthday party constituted a grand circus, wherein students created their own visual propaganda, prepared gifts for Napoleon, and performed songs and speeches in his honor.
As in "Animal Farm", this impressive display distracted from the inequality of their society (Napoleon devoured a gigantic donut during his toast, while students received mere donut holes). Students enjoyed the chance to share their propaganda pieces and the grand reveal of Napoleon (Head of School Mr. Donovan and Sixth Grade Humanities teacher Mr. Thoren both embodied the character in separate rooms)!
Shout-out to all of our sixth graders and Mr. Coen — and a special thanks to Mr. Donovan and Mr. Thoren for their stellar performances!
