• Congratulations Estella, National Medalist!

    June 7, 2017

    We are thrilled to announce that our very own seventh grader, Estella Zhou, has earned national medals in the 2017 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. Estella’s short story, China Bird, received a gold medal, and her flash fiction piece, The Sunbirds, received a silver medal. Both..

  • Abby’s Corner – News from Tapscott!

    May 12, 2017

    A Peek into Program Each year our Tapscott Green Committee works to ensure that we celebrate and deepen our commitment to being a Green School all year long, and especially during our annual Earth Week in April. This year, a few fun traditions continued such as daily Earth Week Poetry read aloud by students over..

  • The Path To Global Citizenry in Fifth Grade Humanities

    February 22, 2017

    How do people’s differences keep them apart, and what strategies can be used to bring them together? These are the essential questions that guide our 5th grade humanities classes. By studying past and present events, 5th graders are introduced to real world problems. We aim to create projects and experiences for these students that allow them..

  • From Simple Addition to Multiplicative Thinking – How Our Curriculum Spans the K-8 Years

    January 26, 2017

    A comprehensive K-8 curriculum map had long been a goal for Prospect Sierra. Our teachers excel in their planning, implementing, and evaluating of their curricula, and Abby Guinn, Heather Rogers, and Katherine Dinh shared a vision of an interactive virtual document that would serve as a glimpse into the scope and sequence of Prospect Sierra’s..

  • Peer Education and Waste Sorting – A Cyclical Relationship

    January 9, 2017

    Can you recycle plastic containers if they still have a little yogurt in them? Do paper plates go in the compost? What does “plastic film” mean? These are some of the everyday questions that Prospect Sierra students ponder as they finish lunch and dispose of their waste.   In order to collect data about how well..

  • An Intimate Conversation with Michael Lewis

    January 8, 2017

    Join Prospect Sierra School for an evening with legendary Bay Area author Michael Lewis in his only East Bay appearance as he launches his new release, The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed our Minds. He’ll be in lively conversation with Dacher Keltner, renowned social psychologist at UC Berkeley, founder of the Greater Good Science Center, and author..

  • Changemakers In Our Midst

    January 2, 2017

    Around this time every year, I’m reminded of my first holiday season in the United States, when I was barely four years old. As recent refugees, my family had settled in the Washington, D.C. area in the spring of 1975, barely escaping the fall of Saigon and its aftermath. As the holidays approached, the weather..

  • Third Graders Take the Stage

    November 28, 2016

    I know it’s the beginning of the school year when I see my third graders, standing in the music room, ready to rehearse. The year always begins with the third grade play. At Tapscott, drama cycles through the second, third, and fourth grades, each culminating in their own public performance. The third graders are lucky; they have a year of drama..

  • Personal Storytelling and Collective Empathy

    November 18, 2016

    The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. –Brandon Sanderson, popular fantasy and science fiction author Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is. –Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried Last January I..

  • Katherine Dinh: Teaching by Talking

    September 29, 2016

      Earlier this month I co-facilitated an online discussion, convened by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), to speak with other school heads about the issues we are facing within the context of the nation’s political and social climate. My fellow facilitators were Caroline Blackwell, NAIS VP for Equity and Justice, and Bryan Garman,..

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