Mr. Anderson's room was abuzz with action Friday. Bottle caps became wheels and science theory became tested as students designed and built their own race cars.

Any lesson that involves power tools is a good one in my book, but another thing Mr Anderson's lesson highlights is how a teacher enriches students learning when they bring their own strengths and passions into the classroom and that happens in the 7th grade teamwide on the regular. (Looking at you, George, Hagerman, Milligan, Egnot, Ciambrone, Potter,...) What a beautiful thing to see Mr Anderson's gift with building (and expertise from the Lego Store!) being shared with the students toward mastery of their curriculum.

Thanks for setting up these work stations and offering this experience for our students. What a great follow-up to the NASCAR engineering lesson earlier this year. (scroll to the last Twitter link below for video of that 7th grade special event with a Piedmont Alum as teacher)

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Making is at the core of Piedmont's culture  WE MAKE SO MUCH, IT'S HARD TO HYPERLINK IT ALL!​

Every day is #GlobalMakerDay at Piedmont! Well, maybe not EVERY day, but it IS extremely rare to walk the halls of Piedmont and not see students planning or building something across the curriculum and at all grade levels. Students are even making and creating during standardized test times, the time usually known as the least creative of the year.

Making is a given in our interdisciplinary passion projects, in Ms. Newburger's excellent Library Makerspace,  in clubs, and in encore classes like Art, Band, Drama and Orchestra, but what makes me love Piedmont so much is how common it is in our core classes as well!

Consider Mr. O'Neill this week alone, from spears to swans his students were making. Props to him and all to the Individuals and Societies teachers whose students recently built their own tools when studying the stone age. They then created marketing campaigns for the tools and sold them to classmates.

The Social Studies classroom  making tradition continues in the upper grades as students design build earthquake resistant structures and make period costumes living history exhibits, industrial revolution inventions (yet more industrial revolution),  civil rights museums, (another Civil Rights museum) etc.

Teachers model making at Piedmont. Mr. Egnot models this by transforming his classroom into a war zone of WW1 trenches and the media center yearly through his maker skills and Ms. Frilot transforms her classroom to a poetry cafe with soft lighting, colors, and seating.

In World Language and Language Arts classes, students write songs for the Harlem Renaissance, compile playists and record their own podcasts,  design and build whirligigs (both with wood, and with minecraft redstone)and recreate setting layouts and film their own movies based on their novel studies. They make culture clusters that make manifest their own poems.

In Math, students make large and small designs for the famous Scale Model Project. They also create their own board games and of course there's the yearly giant Prism-palooza! 

In Science, they design their best protective egg case then test it out by catapulting the egg using a homemade catapult.

What does this culture of making lead to? It leads to kids who think creatively and make for special occasions and for no reason at all! They spend their free time building and making everything from towers to ASMR videos.

Stay tuned for more as we celebrate active learning and creating today and every day at #PiedmontIB.  Send me your photos and videos if I don't happen by!

Genius Hour, Passion Project, 20 percent time...whatever you call it it's about the Love of Learning. At Piedmont we call it LOL and it happens every spring.
For the 4th year in a row, 6th graders showcased the information and skills they gleaned from their 6th block independent study time to their classmates, families, and teachers and once again we were amazed at the talent, dedication, creativity and diversity of interests of our class.
Thank you to the sixth grade teachers who each year braves the messiness that comes with student-driven learning. Thank you to the sixth grade students who shared with open arms just a little of what they love. You can tell it was all worth it when you see the proud and happy smiles in this video.

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http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/celebrating-piedmont/love-of-learning-at-piedmont

Thanks to a Donors Choose grant and your community support , the new Piedmont Healthy Living club is offering a special Friday perk. Starting today, the club now serves delicious and healthy smoothies to staff. The club was founded by Health Teacher Garrison Cherry in conjunction with School Nurse Gina Mallay.

​ Mr Cherry says, "Students came up with recipes, tested them out during clubs, researched the nutritional benefits, and run the whole operation."

Thank you so much to Mr Cherry and Nurse Mallay for your passion for keeping Piedmont healthy and teaching students good nutrition in a fun way! Students, we are so proud of you and appreciative! 

The project will continue to develop throughout the year and donations are accepted. #piedmontyouknow #cltfoodie #clthealth #schoolhealth #healthybreakfast #smoothie #drinkyourgreens💚 #nced @cmsschools

The "Iits Time OMer" team pretended to be time travelers looking to discover the inspiration for great works of art. The travelers went back and forth in time to inspire two classical artists and a team-created artist from our future. telling  how the three works of art positively impact the world.

Both  teams have met regularly since October to write and practice a completely original 7 minute skit for the event. They even made their own props. In additon to their original performances, both teams also scored highly on the spontaneous part of the competion.  
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Congratulations to this creative bunch and to their coaches Paul Reali and Monique Dedaux!

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