Dear Parents and Guardians,
The sixth grade spent their week at Nature’s Classroom in Groton, Massachusetts. This experience included four days and three nights of full immersion surrounded by the outdoors, “roughing it” in cabins and dorms, and many wonderful lessons from an enthusiastic Nature’s Classroom staff.
Many of the lessons focused on themes such as survival, human and environment interactions, and civilizations. Students were continuously asked to collaborate with peers, problem solve, and think “outside of the box”. It was wonderful to witness our students make those “Ah Ha!” connections between their classroom lessons and the outdoors /real world. Students were also busy juggling the many skills needed to be respectful roommates, to get ready independently, and to interact with new groups of peers every day. All students took on responsibilities to help them function as a community, such as helping to serve meals, as well as cleaning up afterwards. Our students who are naturally more outgoing had many opportunities to shine but, even more impressive, many of our more reserved students took advantage of opportunities to push themselves beyond their comfort zones.
While we all recognize the importance of the curriculum that students learn through the traditional classroom, providing them with opportunities to acquire and practice the life skills required at Nature’s Classroom is truly special. We hope that our students enjoyed this unique field trip experience as much as their Sanborn and Nature’s Classroom teachers.
Thank you for allowing us to provide your children with an educational and life experience that we hope will serve as one of their most positive middle school memories.
Ryan McCluskey
Assistant Principal