Barnhart School

Barnhart Parent Group Meeting Tonight! Check your email for the Zoom Link!

On November 7, 2020 Kamala Harris took the stage in Delaware to give a victory speech. She donned a white pantsuit, a symbol for women's suffrage and solidarity. She was just elected as the first woman, the first African-American female, and the first woman of Indian descent to be elected to the office of Vice President. In her victory speech, she said, "All the women who worked to secure and protect the right to vote for over a century: 100 years ago with the 19th Amendment, 55 years ago with the Voting Rights Act, and now, in 2020, with a new generation of women in our country who cast their ballots and continued the fight for their fundamental right to vote and be heard." We celebrate Vice President Harris as her victory is an inspiration to kids, regardless of gender, that anything is possible.

Happy Presidents' Day! We hope you enjoy the day off! Stay safe, Bobcats!

Happy Mindfulness Monday! This week's virtue is kindness. There are so many ways our Bobcats can practice kindness every day. Showing kindness is being friendly, generous and considerate of others. You can show kindness by saying hello to your neighbor, mowing your neighbor's lawn, opening a door for someone, or even asking a classmate to join your Zoom playdate! How will you show kindness this week?

Happy Lunar New Year!!! Today also marks the celebration of the Spring Festival and Chinese New Year! The Lunar New Year is celebrated based on the cycles of the moon. Each Lunar New Year also correlates with the Chinese Zodiac and 2021 is the year of the Ox! Those born in the year of the Ox (years include 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, and 2009) are known to be "strong, reliable, fair and conscientious, inspiring confidence in others' - all characteristics of a great Difference Maker! If you celebrate Lunar New Year, how are you celebrating this year? What are your favorite traditions? Let us know in the comments!

Happy New Year! This week's virtue is Trust. What is trust? The dictionary defines trust as faith, so to trust someone is to have faith in them. If someone promises to do something for you, to have to trust that they will follow through with that promise. Trust is a necessity for any relationship, and trust helps friendships to grow! Our students are trusted to complete their work and to attend their classes without our teachers being with them in the physical classroom. We have seen great success this year because we have so much trust in our community!

It's finally here!!!! If we learned anything this year, it's this... "You’ll never get bored when you try something new. There’s really no limit to what you can do." - Dr. Seuss Happy New Year from your friends at Barnhart School!

Starting the New Year with some brand new information from Isaiah W, 5th grade! We're always looking for fun facts from our amazing students!

As we reflect back on 2020, we are so proud of what our community has accomplished academically in the last 10 months. Our Head of School, Tonya Beilstein, shared her thoughts on the year in our most recent Bobcat Billboard - Here we are...the last days of 2020, which no doubt is a year we are all looking forward to wishing a fond farewell on December 31st. Yet, as we bid adieu to 2020, or give it a hard shove out the door, I hope we don’t forget the important lessons we lea...rned through this difficult year. As educators, we know that our students learn best when they try something, perhaps fail at it, and then try again. It takes effort, perseverance, and determination to learn and grow, and it truly is through our challenges that we make the most growth and progress. So as we look ahead to 2021 I hope we can apply the learning we’ve acquired during the lessons and experiences of this past year. Personally, here are a few lessons I’ve learned this year that I want to stay with me: Always have hope, but recognize the current reality. While I tend to lean toward an optimistic perspective and I always hope for the best outcomes, I know that facing the challenges and difficulties of our reality is essential. Relationships matter. During this pandemic, when social distance has become a new reality, it’s become even more important to stay tuned in and focused on our relationships. The support and encouragement we receive from one another is essential to our health and well-being, so we need to keep nurturing the relationships that matter in our lives. As you wrap up this calendar year, I hope you will take some time to reflect on the lessons you learned this year, and work to intentionally apply those lessons to your life. With the hope that the new year brings, as well as the real hope of conquering COVID-19 with the recent arrival of a vaccine, I KNOW that we’ll be together again in 2021, and I am looking forward to that day so very much!!

Did you know that different cultures don't celebrate their New Year on January 1st? There are actually 26 different New Years around the world! There are several New Year's celebrations that you may have heard of, like Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year), celebrated in February; Nyepi (Balinese New Year), celebrated in March; and Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), celebrated in September or October! What is your favorite New Year's tradition?

Kindergarten drew some pretty scary Frankenstein pictures in preparation for Halloween!!!

Plants are a living thing that can grow overnight - like children tend to do! Plants are also very important parts of our environment - plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, which humans and animals need to breathe! Teaching children to care for a plant, to feed them, to water them and to care for them are important learning moments as it shows them how to care for something that will provide necessary resources, and dependent on the plant, food and shade for the future.

Wow, Will G, that's a disturbing amount of signs! Does your child have a fun fact to share? Send it our way to be featured on our social media!

Reminder: 1st-8th Grade Parent Teacher Conferences are today and tomorrow! Kindergarten is Friday only. Students in grades 3-8 are looking forward to their student led conferences! At Barnhart we strive to allow our students to reflect on their learning alongside their teachers and parents, who are their biggest advocates in their educational journey.

Our teachers strive to keep their virtual lessons engaging. This is much easier to do in the classroom, where teachers can interact with them and bring learning to life. Home science experiments, art projects and virtual classrooms allow students to engage with their teachers and classmates and help their creativity grow. What has been your favorite way your student has engaged with their teachers or classmates since we began remote learning?

Last week, we had a great time filming interviews for a virtual look inside Barnhart School. Here’s a behind the scenes look at some of our wonderful interviewees!

Happy Mindfulness Monday! Today, we're discussing friendship. School is the perfect place to make new friends and to build relationships. Our students have formed bonds that will last for decades! Distance learning makes it difficult to form new friendships, especially for new students. We want to encourage our students to reach out to new students or students they have not formed a friendship with yet and schedule a virtual play date! A safe online game or toys can bring imagination alive - even from a distance!

Meet our head of school, Mrs. Beilstein! Tonya Beilstein | Head of School Classes you teach: Although I'm no longer actively teaching today, my heart is in the classroom! Prior to moving into administrative positions, I taught elementary school at Barnhart (3rd grade and 4th grade). However, that move into administration allowed me to expand my opportunities by getting involved with the curriculum and instruction of ALL the grade levels. In recent years I have also had the ...Continue reading

Barnhart parent, Doanh Huynh shares her experience at Barnhart School Oh, how I miss the days before the pandemic; standing around, talking with the other parents and watching the kids play before the class bell rings. These days, sitting with my child during Distance Learning has given me greater appreciation for the patience and professionalism of the Barnhart teachers. It has also given me an opportunity to see first hand my child in a learning environment; where he exce...ls, struggles, the pace at which he learns, the duration of focus, interaction with peers, and so forth. Barnhart has done a great job transitioning to Distance Learning while maintaining a sense of community. We have had parent support meetings for parents to come together, discuss strategies (for getting the kids to sit still and focus), improvements to Distance Learning, and to vent. While I long for the days of community coffee and morning chapel, I am so happy that the Barnhart teachers and staff have been able to convey the love, passion, and dedication to the students through Zoom.

Our 3rd grade class is learning about force in science class. . They have been learning about various types of bridges, and were tasked to create their own bridges with 2 sheets of paper and heavy books. The object of the lesson was to build the strongest bridge they could with the paper and books. . Students then tested the strength of their bridges with pennies. Some student’s bridges held nearly 300 pennies!

#MindfulnessMonday This past week, middle schoolers in the class, Activating Antiracists -This is Us, learned the importance of honoring Indigenous Peoples' Day and Latinx Heritage Month. In our Identity unit this first quarter, the learning objectives include teaching students to understand how we are connected to the collective history and culture of other people in identity groups. We explored the danger of a single story, and how critically important it is to recognize ...the rich heritage and contributions of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). Below is a favorite excerpt from 2019 US poet laureate Joy Harjo's poem 'Remember' that many students chose to discuss after reading. ‘Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.’ As we learn to become anti-racists, we will work to change the narrative and amplify the voices of those most marginalized and traumatized by the history of white supremacy.

History teachers today have the privilege and responsibility of using both good and bad events of our nation's past as necessary and useful tools to raise cultural awareness and to celebrate the contributions of Native Americans on this Indigenous People Day. Our middle school history teacher, Margie Holman, would like to share how middle schoolers learn and reflect... As the 2020 commemoration of Indigenous People’s Day approaches, it is an opportunity to reflect on the pos...itive changes made in the teaching of history of the Americas and the rich cultures of the Native Americans who first lived here. Today’s texts, teachers, and students bring a more honest view to the discussion of the realities of the impact of European colonization on the Naive Americans. 7th graders studying the Mesoamerican Incas, Aztecs, and Mayas see the impact of the fatal European diseases shared during the Columbian Exchange and the subsequent impact of their downfall at the hands of the conquistadors. 8th graders pick up the thread, as well, as they too study the evolution from Columbian Exchange to the tug of war over tribal lands between European colonists and later American citizens. In all instances, the Native Americans are represented realistically as they were in the times in which they lived, as tribes with sophisticated governments, as environmental preservationists, and as peoples willing to honorably enter into treaty agreements unlike the colonial or early American government with whom they negotiated. Certainly, the fallout from the French and Indian War and the Trail of Tears are just two of the painful lessons of our nation’s history that are covered during 8th grade. History today has the privilege and responsibility of using both good and bad events of history as a necessary and useful tool to raise cultural awareness to celebrate the contributions of Native Americans. Ultimately Barnhart’s goal is to educate a generation of Americans with recognition and respect for the rich diversity in our nation.