Playworks | Responsive Classroom | Development Design | Discovering Justice | Kaleidoscope | Fogg Museum | Citysprouts | CitySteps | Reading Buddies

Playworks
Playworks is a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the health and well being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.  Research shows that play is essential to child development and an invaluable tool for improving school climate. Quality recess and play help children return to the classroom more focused and ready to learn.

With more time on school playgrounds than any other organization, Playworks demonstrates how a safe and inclusive recess can make the school day a more positive one, and how it can become a tool to support learning. Playworks contracts with schools to provide a high quality, multi-faceted sports program during the school day and after school.

The Playworks  program includes a full time Site Coordinator who is bilingual and works with Amigos in the following four components: 1) Recess, 2) Class Game Time, 3) Junior Coach Program, and 4) After School Program.  Playworks supports the Amigos' school climate goals, which are to help reinforce strong socio-emotional skills and reduce bullying and teasing.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.playworksusa.org/



Responsive Classroom
The Amigos School uses the Responsive Classroom, a teaching approach developed by educators and teachers that uses classroom strategies to provide social and academic learning for students in Junior Kindergarten through grade 5. The Responsive Classroom helps create learning environments where children can grow academically, socially and emotionally.

There are seven guiding principles to the Responsive Classroom:

• The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum
  
• How children learn is as important as what they learn: process and content go hand in hand
  
• The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction
  
• There is a set of social skills children need in order to be successful academically and socially: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy and self-control
  
• Knowing the children we teach individually, culturally and developmentally is as important as knowing the content we teach
  
• Knowing the families of the children we teach and inviting their participation is essential to children’s education
  
• How the adults at school work together is as important as individual competence: lasting change begins with the adult community.

• Morning Meeting: A daily routine that builds community, creates a positive climate for learning, and reinforces academic and social skills
  
• Rules and Logical Consequences: A clear and consistent approach to discipline that fosters responsibility and self-control
  
• Guided Discovery: A format for introducing materials that encourages inquiry, heightens interest and teaches care of the school environment
  
• Academic Choice: An approach to giving children choices in their learning that helps them become invested, self-motivated learners
  
• Classroom Organization: Strategies for arranging materials, furniture and displays to encourage independence, promote caring and maximize learning 
  
• Family Communication Strategies: Ideas for involving families as true partners in their children’s education.

http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/about/aboutrc.html

Developmental Designs for Middle School
Amigos School 6th, 7th and 8th graders take part in Developmental Designs for Middle School (DDMS) which offers multiple strategies designed to keep young people safe, connected, responsible and engaged in learning. To help students deal with the many social, emotional, physical and intellectual changes occurring in adolescence, DDMS offers an approach that healthy, enjoyable relationships are the foundation for success in school. In order to establish and foster those relationships, teachers must know their students, students must come to know and appreciate each other, clear rules for behavior must be drawn and learning must be active, exploratory, relevant and varied.

DDMS focuses on three areas of learning: Community-building, Needs-based Behavior Management and Engaged Learning. The six principles of DDMS are:

• Social learning is as important to success as academic learning
  
• We learn best by constructing our own understanding through exploration, discovery, application and reflection
  
• The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interactions within a supportive community
  
• There is a set of personal/social skills that students need to learn and practice in order to be successful socially and academically: Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, Self-control
  
• Knowing the physical, emotional, social and intellectual needs of the students we teach is as important as knowing the content we teach
  
• Trust among adults is a fundamental necessity for academic and social success in a learning community.

Kaleidoscope with Sam Martinborough and Mssng Lnks Inc.
Kaleidoscope is a collaborative program designed for middle school and junior high students which promotes cultural and historical exploration through vocal music. Throughout the year, students explore cultures represented by the student body as well as other cultures, receive high quality vocal instruction, cover a varied repertoire, perform in-school shows and take part in inter-school musical interactions.

Collaborative Classrooms
Kaleidoscope works with classroom teachers to enhance and expand particular aspects of the classroom curriculum. This interdisciplinary approach helps to solidify and deepen students’ understanding of themselves and the world around them. Ideal collaborative subjects include social sciences, language arts, biology and the arts.

From the Classroom to the Stage
Performing on stage, students learn skills such as forming a stage presence, overcoming stage fright, developing the “speaking” voice and learning about articulation, learning performance etiquette, developing memorization skills and acting methods.

A World of Song Choral Festival and Competition
This inter-school competition and festival allows students to hear and perform for other choirs of their same age group while also receiving professional feedback on their performances. Students compete against a standard rather than each other. All groups win a “gold medal” or “certificate of merit.” Rehearsals and performances create a bonding experience within the group.

The Stage and Beyond
Experiencing live performances provides students with a model and gives them the opportunity to begin to understand what makes a performance successful. Interacting with vocal artists from various backgrounds and cultures allow students to learn about different careers, while also providing important role models for the students. Students see performances by minority college vocalists and participate in field trips to opera performances.

The Fogg Museum Program
Third graders at the Amigos School take part in a program that brings students to Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum to learn about art over the course of their third grade year.  In approximately seven trips to the Fogg Museum, students are taught the four main elements of art: color, line, shape and texture. Students discover and learn about the painting and sculpture collections, from Renaissance to Modern. With sketchbooks in hand, students create their own drawings, inspired by the art before them. Students also write fiction and nonfiction stories about the art and their impressions. Students’ critical thinking skills, observational skills, and oral expression skills are all strengthened over the course of the year.  In May, students and teachers finish the year with a breakfast celebration and a student exhibition of their own art at the Fogg Museum.

Citysprouts
The Amigos School is proud to be one of five Cambridge public schools to have a CitySprouts school garden. CitySprouts provides Cambridge public school communities with sustainable gardens that support the overall curriculum and inspire urban school children to participate in the food cycle from seed to compost. Classroom teachers work with CitySprouts educators to create garden activities that reinforce and extend the Habits of Mind science concepts the children are studying in the classroom.  

For more information, please visit:
http://www.citysprouts.org

CitySteps
Amigos 5th, 6th and 7th graders take part in CityStep, a Harvard University program which partners undergraduate students with middle school students. CityStep provides dance-instruction programs to Amigos 5th graders during school and offers a free after school dance instruction class to Amigos 6th and 7th graders twice a week throughout the school year.

The goals of CityStep are simple -- have fun, dance, and grow. Middle school students learn dance while also exploring personal and social goals such as community, self-expression, creativity, and self-confidence. The program culminates in an annual spring show performed at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

For more information, please visit:
http://harvard.citystep.org/

Reading Buddies/Lectores y Amiguitos
Harvard Graduate School of Education and Cambridge School Volunteers, Inc. run the Reading Buddies (English language) and Lectores y Amiguitos (Spanish language) programs for second graders at the Amigos School. Once a week, both programs pair volunteers with students in a one-on-one setting.  The student is placed with the same volunteer for the duration of the year (one in English, one in Spanish). Volunteers read aloud and share conversation with 2nd graders for 35 minutes. At a mid year party and end of year celebration, students receive books to take home as presents. Both programs are designed to foster a love of reading in Spanish and English and to give second graders the opportunity to practice their Spanish oral language and listening skills.