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| Read what one Friends Select middle school student is doing in her spare time. Recently, FSS eighth grader Jasper Perry-Anderson was featured in the Huffington Post:
"In response to Hershey's announcements to change its supply chain practices, eighth grader Jasper Perry-Anderson created a follow-up campaign on Change.org petitioning the Milton Hershey School Trust to put pressure on Hershey's to go even farther in sourcing ethical chocolate." To read the full article, go here.
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| The 2nd annual Falcons youth softball clinic will take place on Saturday, February 11, 2012 from 10-12 a.m. The clinic is open to girls in grades 2 through 8, and will be run by Friends Select varsity softball coach Bill Klose and members of the varsity softball team.
There is a $30 entry fee that include a snack and t-shirt. Proceeds from the clinic benefit the 2012 Spring Break softball trip to South Carolina. For more information, contact Bill Klose via email or call 215-561-5900 ext. 113.
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| Running now through the third week of February in the Select Gallery, the Indigo Arts Gallery, which carries folk and fine art from Asia, Africa and the Americans, is showcasing Cuban, Nicaraguan and Brazilian art created by ten different artists. As InterSession has come to an end, the display is a nice reminder of this year’s program theme: Central and South America.
The artwork is for sale to FSS community members. If interested, please inquire at the front desk. To visit the Indigo Arts Gallery Web site for more information, visit here.
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| On January 10, ten fourth and fifth grade students competed in the second level of the seven-round geography bee, hosted by the National Geographic Society. With lots of enthusiasm, the entire lower school division cheered the participants on through each round until fifth grader Jack R., emerged and claimed first place.
Jack will advance to the next level, a written examination to determine the state competitors. The top 100 students from each state then move onto the National Geography Bee scheduled in May 2012. Last year, Jack won the school challenge and competed in the state bee.
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| Parents, do you need a night out on the town without the kids? Courtesy of the upper school student Italy trip, babysitting will be offered to lower school families on Friday, January 27, from 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. There will be an adequate number of supervisors on hand including upper school students and their parents, and faculty members, to ensure that your child is safe.
Various activities are planned for all lower school ages: pizza, a mini-basketball clinic, cookie decorating, craft project, flashlight walk on the roof, movies, and a night sky telescope search.
It costs $25 per child or $15 for siblings. All proceeds go towards the upper school Italy trip scheduled over spring break. Click here for more information or to register.
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|  This Friday, January 13, is Brown and Gold Day and to get ready, the Friends Select school store is featuring and selling new merchandise for the entire family. Some of the items include t-shirts, hot and cold travel cups, umbrellas and USB sticks. Come by the school store located at the front desk, check out the latest items, and show your school spirit!
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| Classes Resume, January 3
No School, MLK Day, January 16
US mid-term exams, January 17 LS Director Coffee, January 20
InterSession: Central & South America, January 23-27
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| On December 7, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., all students in fifth to seventh grades will present their research projects. Students are broken up into 11 groups of mixed grades. The presentations start in the Blauvelt Theatre and parents will receive their child's room assignment upon arrival.
From 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., selected students will be showcasing their Search work. All middle school students are expected to attend to support their friends who are presenting. Then ALL students will stand by their projects and answer questions from attendees.
Students recall their experience during the seventh grade Search assignment at Friends Select:
“Because of my 7th grade Search project, I’ve been appointed by my family to collect and organize all of my relative’s historic photos and facts.”
“I researched my great uncle. His name was Hank Aaron. I uncovered that he was really, really good at baseball.”
“My project focused on women’s history. I explored my mother’s generation and compared her options during that time to my grandmother’s options, and those to my great-grandmother’s options. There were indescribable differences.”
Search is a research-driven middle school project that students tend to appreciate more with each passing year. Students learn to ask thoughtful questions, use a wealth of resources to discover information and then decide what's important to consider. The semester’s project culminates in a daytime symposium for students and a presentation evening with exhibits for parents on December 7.
For John Colgan-Davis, middle-and upper school history teacher and seventh grade project facilitator, Search is a highlight. Colgan-Davis helped introduce Search to Friends Select in 1988, and through the years, inherently nurtured it to what it’s transformed into- a sequential, learning tool for middle school students.
“The goal of Search is to turn students into knowledge makers. It’s not just an academic exercise, but a life skill,” states Colgan-Davis. “Students need to be makers of knowledge.”
Students across all grades work in the computer lab and collaborate with the school librarians during their respective Search projects. They use subscription databases and identify reliable Web sites in an attempt to unearth facts. Noodle (notetaking and bibliography tool) and Inspiration (wed mapping program) are examples of two online resources students use during the Search process.
“Technology skills are important and we strive to integrate them into the research program in a meaningful way,” said middle- and upper school librarian Maureen Haurin. “When working online, middle schoolers understand that all activity must be handled vigilantly. We instruct students to evaluate the source first, to ensure it’s authentic and reliable.”
Once students find and organize all the data, they turn it into knowledge. Search is comprised of a search journal (for reflection about the process and a running record of all work done), a search narrative (the final report), a symposium presentation, and a visual display.
Grades 5-8 Search Projects:
Fifth and sixth graders must identify a theme within their studies of Africa and Medieval Africa and spend all semester researching various aspects of that topic.
Seventh graders focus on American Studies in the classroom and throughout the semester, and research a topic of choice in conjunction with their family history. The culminating trip is to New York City to experience American immigration. During the trip, students travel to Ellis Island to research and assume the roles of immigrants who might have arrived at the facility between 1885 and 1910.
“Seventh graders get excited about the project because it’s a platform to find facts based on their own interests and experiences,” said Colgan-Davis.
Eighth graders study Ancient Civilization in the spring. The culminating trip is to New Mexico to explore ancient civilizations, a subject studied in the Interdisciplinary Sequence, an innovative and challenging course that traces human culture from 3000 B.C. to the present. The mathematics and science independent research projects are conducted in the winter months and culminate in the Rube Goldberg Machine Competition.
Beginning in pre-kindergarten and extending through twelfth grade, the essential skills of research, writing and oral presentation are taught, practiced and refined through participation in special Search projects and everyday classroom activities.
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| Open Mic Night
On Thursday, December 1, upper schoolers participated in Open Mic Night, a fun, edgy, talent-filled night introduced and coordinated by upper school English teacher Ian Ranzer. The evening featured 16 student performance acts of all types including musical, theatrical, comedy, and spoken word. Below is a list of the performers.
Grade 9
Ben Abrams, Angela Bey, Donnay Burden, Katya Croddy, Nick Duval
Grade 10
Matt Angelides, Basil Bakhit, Steve Cramer, May Flood, Abby Kring
Grade 11
Cavhanah Baht T’om, Katie Bell, Aaron Cohen, Elizabeth Hawkes, Alex Koditschek
Peter McCurry, Lexi McMenamin, Ashley Rainer, Spencer Yaffe
Grade 12
Ben Behrend, Caitlin Chamberlain, Tessa Kuhn, Mira Saxe-Smith, Major Van Winkle
Master of ceremonies: Major Van Winkle
Creative director: Hailey Thorp
Tech director: Spencer Yaffe
Refreshments: Black Student Union club
Printmaking at Fabric Workshop and Museum
Recently, Deborah Caiola's upper school printmaking class visited the Fabric Workshop and Museum on 12th and Arch and received a tour of the museum, a silk screening demonstration, and then experimented with silk screening t-shirts.
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| Let's celebrate the Holiday season together!
Please join us for the Friends Select Winter Concert Series in the Blauvelt Theatre:
- GR 3 and 4, December 2 at 9 a.m.
- GR 1 and 2, December 9 at 9 a.m.
- MS and US, December 15 at 7 p.m.
The all school Holiday Sing will be held on December 16 at 2 p.m. at the Race Street Meetinghouse.
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|  The purpose of this month’s Select Gallery display is to view the varieties of books that are still a part of our lives as books are being redefined with the advent of the computer and Kindle. The exhibit, running now to the end of November, features novelty books, pop up books, books that FSS parents have created and written, and a very old lower school Meet the Author book form a student who is now a senior. We also have a collection of books from the school’s archives, including a bible printed in 1589, a book printed by Ben Franklin, a book written by William Penn and later printed here. We have a regimental book from the Civil War that was used to keep roll of the soldiers and a Friends Select log book that shows tuition at $40 a semester!
 The Friends Selects “Really Big Book” which is also being displayed in the Select Gallery is a collective assemblage of art, called an exquisite corpse. The Surrealists invented this type of art-making in the early 20th century as a way of inspiring collaboration and cooperation. Students created this book to incite communication and cooperation between the students in the different school divisions, while we worked collaboratively to create one piece of art.
As the exquisite corpse was made in conjunction with the book exhibition, it was decided that the theme of the show should be “books!” Each student in grades Pre-K through 6 started the project by creating a page, an image of anything they wanted, that related to books. These pages were then distributed to art students in grades 7-12. Responding to the piece they were given and in keeping with the other artist's vision, the older students created a pairing for the original page. The book is hung in chapters of these pairings, created by grade and class. In addition, there are chapters of images that are not in pairings but that stand alone.
Altogether there are 463 pages that make up the Friends Select “Really Big Book!” Please join us on Thursday, November 17, from 3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. in the Select Gallery as we honor the wonderful artwork of our our student body. Refreshments will be provided in Bailey Circle.
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| Twelfth grade student Tessa Kuhn has the title role in the Curio Theatre Company’s production of Eurydice, and her father and Friends Select drama director, Paul Kuhn, plays the character Father. Eurydice is at the Curio Theatre Company, located at the Calvary Center at 4740 Baltimore Avenue, and runs now through November 12. Tickets for the show are $15 and $20. For more information, visit the Curio Theatre Website or call 215.525.1350.
See what the Philadelphia Inquirer is saying about the show here.
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|  On Sunday October 30, seven lower school students participated in Silver Knights Halloween Gambit K-12 Chess Tournament in Wayne, Pa. As a team, fourth graders Jonah Taranta (first place), Zachary Kingsley (second place), Yuva Gambhir (tenth place) won a “top finisher” trophy that is on display in the school. Third grader Miguel Santos came in second place in his section as he won 3 and drew 1. Fourth grader Theo Winter came in sixth place in his section, second grader Harry Dozor and third grader Max Monteith also participated and placed well in the tournament.
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| Teacher Desiree Lacey Tee’s third grade class accompanied by lower school science teacher Bob McCarthy, were invited to the Academy of Natural Sciences today to celebrate the completion of an affiliation agreement between the Academy and Drexel University.
Students sat in on a scheduled press conference where Academy’s President George Gephart, Jr., Drexel University’s President John Fry and Mayor Michael Nutter announced the Institutions’ new partnership.
Students held up dinosaur (Academy) and dragon (Drexel) puppets and made their best dinosaur and dragon roars to show their support! They then counted down for the dinosaur meets dragon mascot arrival of Mario the Drexel dragon and the Academy’s Triceratops.
After the press conference, lots of little puppet hands reached out to shake Mayor Nutter’s hand. One third grader exclaimed excitedly, “This is the second time I shook his hand!” The students then had the opportunity to get photos with the Institutions’ mascots and Mayor Nutter.
The historic affiliation between the Academy and Drexel promotes learning, discovery, and civic engagement in the natural and environmental sciences, creating an internationally recognized powerhouse in scientific research and education.
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|  On Monday, October 24, Friends Select upper school students participated in an interactive workshop on cyberbullying and social networking behavior led by facilitators from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The purpose of the workshop was to increase understanding and awareness about the problem of cyberbullying and the challenges associated with social networking.
To start, there was an icebreaker to get students thinking about their personal experience with technology and cyberbullying. The students then reviewed a case study about the impact of cyberbullying and had conversations about cyberbullying's impact in FSS students' and their friends' lives.
One of the interactive activities of the morning encouraged students to role play ways to challenge cyberbullying. The students were tasked with identifying the reasons for the cyberbullying described in a scenario; discussed the impact of cyberbullying on the individuals and the potential negative impacts; and came up with alternatives to the behavior and rewrote the scenarios focusing on the perspective of the bystander. The workshops ended with students forming groups and coming up with action plans and personal commitments.
During the student workshops, Friends Select faculty attended their own session also led by facilitators from the ADL that covered the same issues with an emphasis on how to address cyberbullying with students.
On Wednesday, October 26 at 6 p.m. in the Blauvelt Theatre, the ADL and Friends Select Parent Association will be holding a workshop for parents where similar topics will be covered with a focus on prevention and intervention. The purpose of the parent workshop is to help educate and empower adult family members to effectively discuss and respond to their teens’ experiences with cyberbullying and social networking sites.
The overall goal of ADL's education efforts around cyberbullying is to help create informed youth populations who understand the importance of behaving responsibly and ethically online and who are motivated to challenge cyberbullying in their schools and online social networking communities.
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| Estamos en el aire by Marco Antonio de la Parra translates to "We're on the air" and like the title suggests, is a Chilean play about the reality of a reality TV show. The play is timely as this year's InterSession theme focuses on Central and South America.
Catch the latest on Behind the Scenes blog before coming to see the two-night performance on November 10 and 11 at 7 p.m. in the Studio 4 Theatre. Click here to read Behind the Scenes. In other play news, Friends Select twelfth grade student Tessa Kuhn has the title role in the Curio Theatre Company’s production of Eurydice, and her father, Paul Kuhn, plays the character Father. The show runs now through November 12, at the Curio Theatre on 4740 Baltimore Avenue.
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| The October show in the Friends Select Art Gallery is up and running! Located in a high trafficked hallway of the school, the show allows the visual art instructors across all divisions the opportunity to showcase student work that's been created since the beginning of the school year.
The show gives school visitors a taste of our visual arts program which is instruction beginning in Pre-Kindergarten classes to a multitude of electives in two and three-dimensional art and design offered in the upper school. "The art making process including observation and imagination is important through all stages of student development here at our school," said middle school art teacher and visual arts department chair Fred Kogan.
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| On Tuesday, October 11, middle school traveled to the Forbidden Drive area of the Wissahickon to repair severely flood-damaged areas and trails. This is the middle school’s first community service project of the 2011-2012 school year.
Together, all of the students worked hard to move gravel, rocks, fencing, and even 100lb trash cans! In the end, the areas were transformed and while there is certainly more work that can be done, the students could see the positive difference.
Throughout the day, many passers-by thanked the students for all of their hard work and a few even stopped to lend a hand. At meeting for worship after lunch, students expressed how enjoyable it was spending the day working together.
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| A Friends Select mother and daughter duo marched today to Dilworth Plaza to witness the raising of the rainbow flag outside City Hall in honor of LGBT History Month. It is the second time ever the rainbow flag has been flown at City Hall. Shelly Spector and her seventh grade daughter carried a Friends Select banner to demonstrate the school's support of equal rights and the LGBT community. Spector and her daughter joined several hundred LGBT supporters, Mayor Nutter and other city officials at the ceremony.
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|  "Ocean Doctor" Dr. David Guggenheim will appear at Friends Select School's Blauvelt Theatre at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5, to give a public presentation about his life's work: to explore, research and conserve our oceans. It's part of Guggenheim's 50 Years-50 States-50 Speeches Expedition, a project designed to bring speeches and multimedia education programs about the oceans to one school in each of the 50 states.
The Ocean Doctor will be spending the day with Friends Select students ahead of his evening presentation, which is free and open to the public.
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