Life at Valley

While students and faculty were away enjoying Spring Break, Valley’s Upper School playground received a fabulous and fun upgrade. Two new play structures were added, as well as a new tetherball and foursquare court.

The Third Annual Valley School Art Show, held at the MLK Community center on Friday April 1, was a great success! Each student had a piece that reflected the variety of art forms studied over the course of the school year.

According to Michael Shantz, our steel pan music instructor, "Listening is learning!" This Spring, Valley School fourth and fifth grade students are doing a lot of listening, playing and learning as they participate in weekly steel pan music classes at the MLK Community Center.

On Saturday, March 19, nine members of The Valley School Chess Club participated in the Knightmare's Gauntlet Regional Chess Tournament at The Evergreen School. Over 200 children from the Seattle area, grades kindergarten through 6, participated in the tournament.

As part of 4th grade social studies, students are exploring what life was like in colonial Boston. This student-created mural takes us back in time as students visualize what a colonial village might have looked like back then.

Reading for our yearly Valley School Book Award is underway! While the fifth grade works on completing the list of nominees, the rest of the school is reading and discussing the six books that have been selected so far.

What do an Ili pika, a spider monkey, and an Asian elephant have in common? Just ask a 5th grader! Laura’s 5th grade classroom has been turned into a research laboratory full of fifth-grade researchers collecting and summarizing data about endangered animals of the world.

This week the Pre-Kindergarten curriculum helped Valley School decide on our fundraising efforts in connection to our 100th day of school. Tricia Lapitan, founder of Heroes for the Homeless, met with Pre-K as part of their superheroes and everyday heroes unit.

Just another exciting day in The Valley School Pre-Kindergarten with some of our favorite four-legged super heroes. As part of their study of real life super heroes in our community, our Pre-Kindergarten students met the King County Search and Rescue Canine Team.

When you sit down to talk with Valley School Chess Club teacher (and international chess master) Bill Schill, you can be sure that you will be gifted with a story. It will be a superbly-crafted narrative, complete with suspense, villains, heroes, close-calls, lucky breaks, and often the story will turn on a specific move: mostly, a chess move.