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New Horizons at BFS |
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 On the very first day of the very first year of the Horizons program at BFS, the entering class of 15 five- and six-year-olds who just graduated kindergarten from nearby PS 307 and PS 287 took a field trip to see a real horizon. What better vantage point than the 18th floor Metrotech office of Joe Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Chan, himself a former Horizons student, is also chairman of the board of Horizons at Brooklyn Friends School.
Executive Director Carla Precht arranged for the visit. She accompanied the children with Head of School Michael Nill, Head Teacher Shoshana Wolfe, Assistant Teacher Elizabeth Figueroa, and Director of Development Karen Edelman "I had this vision that I wanted the children to meet Joe and I wanted them to look at the horizon from his office," said Carla. "I wanted Joe to tell them what a horizon is, and about himself as a Horizons graduate."
Shoshana turned the experience into a learning activity by giving each of the young students a pencil and clipboard to which was attached a sheet of paper which read, "I noticed," followed by a big blank square in which they could draw their favorite image from the skyline. Students later used their drawings to create tissue paper collages in the style Eric Carle, author and illustrator of popular children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Along the way to Joe's office, students also stopped to look at some sculptures—a seeing eye dog, an alligator's head coming out of a manhole cover—and discuss them as a way of getting to know each other. It also gave them a chance to learn where BFS is located in relation to their home neighborhoods.
In addition to their academic classes, the children learned to swim at the LIU pool, danced with teachers from the Mark Morris’ company, and visited the New York Hall of Science, the Transit Museum, the Prospect Park Zoo, and the Brooklyn Museum.
Next year a new group of rising first graders will join Horizons at BFS and the program will grow annually until there are eight classes of students. |
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