DDS Grants

We are excited to announce that three of our faculty members were the recipients of Fund for Excellence in Education Grants given by the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley this school year. Prekindergarten teacher Stacy Kaegi received funding for “Learning with Light in Pre-K” and Amanda Ruhe and Laurie Schoch received funding for “Unruly Splats—PE and Coding Mashup.” Learning with Light in Pre-K

Mrs. Kaegi loves to get her students involved in creative, hands-on learning and the new transparent structures provided by the grant are a terrific addition to the Pre-K program. Mrs. Kaegi explained how using translucent manipulatives with a light panel engages and enhances the learning of her students. Through the funding, the preschool acquired three light panels and a variety of translucent materials. The new manipulatives are already a big hit in the classroom. This spring, Pre-K students worked with the materials with great care and welcomed one another into the play space eagerly. The children were thrilled to build multilevel structures with translucent bricks, create designs with colorful transparent pebbles, and construct sculptures with brightly colored discs and connectors. They were delighted by the designs they created on the panels and the intricate structures they built up from the clear baseboards that bring their ideas to life. These new materials offer endless opportunities for creativity and promise many years of joy for future children.

Unruly Splats—PE & Coding Mashup

Mrs. Ruhe and Ms. Schoch were looking for a way to make computational thinking more kinesthetic and new ways to incorporate and support academic themes in PE class. Unruly Splats was the perfect addition to the curriculum to introduce coding through physical games. Splats are programmable devices that respond to touch, light up, and play sounds. Through the grant, Dutchess Day School obtained a set of 24 devices as well as a membership to the Unruly Splats online app.

The new technology also allowed the fourth-grade class to collaborate and use teamwork to cross a virtual mine field, adapting a game that has been played for many years in PE, to have a virtual twist. Instead of flipping a paper to find out if a tile is safe, players can now step on a splat tile, which shines red or green. The class worked together to find a safe path across the array of splats.

The sixth-grade students used the new technology to design interactive PE games for their preschool buddies. They researched age-appropriate games, met with the Athletic Director for a Q & A session, and were inspired by their own favorite games. After the research phase, the students were tasked with breaking down their game into steps and creating algorithms that would use the responsive nature of the splats unit to create the desired outcome. Games ranged from simple red light, green light, to timed obstacle courses, and musical splats. The games will debut as part of the regular PE curriculum this fall.