Happy Thanksgiving from The Seven Hills School!

We wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving! Seven Hills is thankful for you and all you do to sustain our wonderful community.

The Turkey Tango Continues!

Although Lotspeich and the Upper School could not gather for the Thanksgiving assembly, second-graders and seniors still danced the Turkey Tango separately. Lower School students, led by Lotspeich music teacher Robin Wilson, danced the Tango near the playground. Seniors recorded their Tango later in the week. 

Please enjoy both Turkey Tangos here.

Math Department Uses Grant to Boost Remote Learning Engagement

Math teachers Anna Works-McKinney and Cassie Levesque recently used a summer grant to design lesson plans that incorporate methods that allow students to continue to assess each other throughout remote learning experiences. One of the methods they studied is the QFT (question formulation technique) that Levesque learned while taking an online Harvard University class over the summer. The QFT method encourages students to come up with several questions about a particular subject, share their questions with their classmates, and answer a portion of the questions, based on their interests. Works-McKinney said the method served as a refresher course for her algebra I and II students, who recently used statistics from elections that took place between 1980 and 2016, to formulate questions using the method. “The exercise encourages students to work more independently and engage with the learning materials through asking questions,” said Works-McKinney. “It’s about getting them to do some critical thinking on their own.” Works-McKinney said the Harvard-influenced model asked students to immerse themselves in each other’s questions, and not simply answer, “How do we solve a quadratic equation?” She said math students across Upper School grades will continue to participate in the QFT learning model throughout the school year.

Books for Lunch Goes Virtual!

Seven Hills’ Books for Lunch Committee is thrilled to announce its first virtual event ever! This year, our featured guest will be best-selling fiction author Jennifer Egan. Egan, who lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” and the author of several popular novels, including, “The Keep,” “Look at Me,” and “Invisible Circus,” to name a few. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope, All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. Her most recent novel, “Manhattan Beach,” was a New York Times bestseller and was awarded the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Egan is currently President of PEN America and lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn, New York. The 2021 Books for Lunch committee is co-chaired by Seven Hills parents Dorothy Corbett and Michelle Setzer. In its 35th year, Books for Lunch invites noted authors to Seven Hills for enriching experiences with both students and the wider community. This year, the BFL experience will include live, virtual events involving just Egan and our students on Feb. 4, 2021, and a live Zoom conference on Feb. 5, 2021, with parents and community members, during which Egan will deliver a keynote address and then engage with her audience via a virtual Q&A session. Tickets for the Feb. 5 keynote address are $30. Questions? Please email michellesetzer@yahoo.com or call 513.543.8073.

Register now!