Hooray for Winter Fridays!

Winter life at Parker is in full swing, and our students are enthusiastically embracing our beautifully transformed outdoor landscape. Winter provides us with endless new opportunities for cognitive exercise, engaging our bodies in physical activities like sledding and ice-skating while activating our brains with challenges such as engineering sledding ramps and building snow structures. Here at Parker, we seek out these active experiences, knowing they are fundamental to building skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and stoking the fires for a lifelong love of learning. This is also why we dedicate the first six weeks of true northeast winter to our Winter Fridays program.

Winter Fridays are a Parker tradition that keeps us grounded in the season while building on our physical, social, and emotional programming. Evidence suggests that an active learning environment with time for physical activity helps children learn better. Children need time to run around in order to learn and read. An active body truly does lead to an active mind! And while it is true that we provide students with the opportunity to “get their wiggles out”, there is also much deeper learning that happens during these experiences. Winter Fridays challenge our students by taking them off campus for authentic adventures that shake up their peer groupings, build physical skills, and encourage growth through persistence, collaboration, and trial-and-error.

As Rose Nolan, a veteran Parker teacher, shares, “These activities encourage physical activity in a shared experience, strengthening community. Students gain confidence and improve self-esteem when they learn a new skill, and classmates often support and encourage each other. This collaboration fosters teamwork, communication and social interaction among students.”

This is why our 1st-8th grade students have been heading out every Friday to participate in a diverse range of physical activities. It is our goal for ALL 1st-8th grade students to experience the excitement of leaving campus to participate in winter sports. With that in mind, we arrange a cost-effective Winter Sampler option that includes 5 weeks of adventures in rock climbing, ice skating, and bowling. Other students opt to downhill ski or snowboard at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, MA, and they thoroughly enjoy “shredding” with their schoolmates while chaperones and caregivers do their best to keep up. PreK and Kindergarten students, meanwhile, stay on campus and participate in a music and movement program with Matt’s Music Together.

Watching students transform during these six weeks is nothing short of remarkable. During Week 1, one young skier who needed to be picked up and righted repeatedly on the bunny hill kept articulating, “I think I could really love this. I just want to keep trying so I can get better and better.” This week, that same child confidently approached a chaperone in the hall and said, “I think I’m ready to try something harder. Will you go with me in case I need help?” Other students who were beginner skiers last year joined their friends on the big mountain last week, with the more advanced skiers happily adjusting their pace and experience to welcome classmates who worked so hard to be there.

As our middle school support specialist, Rose, describes, “I have personally witnessed students who put on ice skates for the very first time last year. As you can imagine, they were a bit hesitant at first, but they were determined to learn to skate. With much encouragement, and a few spills on the ice, each week their skills improved. Friends guided one another, laughing along the way. This year, those very same students are gliding along the ice like pros. It’s amazing to see their confidence and joy! They are now sharing their own words of encouragement and wisdom to those students who are just learning to skate this year.”

Winter Fridays at Parker go a long way towards boosting confidence, capability, and morale during these gloomy winter months. Students get the chance to experience life sports in new groupings with different teachers, both growing and nurturing their sense of community. All the while, their activities foster learning, risk-taking, and a sense of adventure. So here at Parker we can truly say in earnest, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” *Check out the New York Times article that featured Parker’s Winter Fridays HERE!