Discovering Tiger Day: Innovative Learning Adventures Await at CET

Last week, CET launched an exciting new initiative to enrich our educational environment: Tiger Day. This program, which will occur once every seven days, brings together students across grade levels for extended creative learning experiences. It also allows faculty, staff, and students to engage in comprehensive lessons that include a variety of disciplines.

Tiger Day builds on the strengths of existing programs, such as the House System, Multi-age Buddy classes, and iTad. The primary goal of this new opportunity is to teach and reinforce critical components of the curriculum in fresh, engaging ways that cater to the diverse needs of all students.

In addition to academic enrichment, Tiger Day promotes essential skills such as teamwork, connection-building, and leadership. By encouraging collaboration among students, this initiative aims to create a stronger community within CET.

The enthusiasm from our teachers is palpable as they look forward to collaborating and exploring new methods of instruction. Dafna Stouber, a Kindergarten teacher at CET, shared her perspective: "We see some of the most important and meaningful learning happening during these lessons, and that includes how every student is engaged and participating.” She went on to explain that for kindergarten students, there’s something about learning from the “big kids” that makes it special for everyone, including the ENL students. Tiger Day is an experience everyone can feel good about.

The first Tiger Day included several extended opportunities to celebrate and learn about the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Snake. The third-grade team created an opportunity for Mandarin students in Ms. Eremita’s class at CHHS to come to CET and teach students about Asian culture and then do a hands-on lesson in calligraphy. Several of the Mandarin students have been taking the class since sixth grade and said that teaching the younger students reinforced their appreciation for the language, while several of the CET students said that they chose the more complicated words to write in calligraphy so that they could show the high school students how capable they were. Students throughout the school were also treated to a Dragon Parade created by Music Teacher Marlena Horton.

First-grade students had the experience of engaging in a lesson about the ‘B’ and ‘D’ letters with different teachers across the grade as they moved to different classrooms. CET Principal Kerri Bianchi said that students benefit from being exposed to different teachers. “One of the meaningful aspects of our House System is the opportunity students have to connect with different faculty and staff,” said Ms. Bianchi. “This is another example of how that’s now happening on Tiger Days.” 

Multi-age learning isn't the only aspect of Tiger Day our teachers are excited about; many educators' wheels are turning, identifying alignment in the curriculum that allows them to develop new ways to enhance activities during the extra time. Second-grade teacher Eileen Deacy shared, “In the past, I have started a project with my class during a time block, knowing that we’ll need to find additional time during the week to complete it. Now, Tiger Day will allow my students the time to focus on their tasks from beginning to end in one day, which we all find very satisfying.”

CET is committed to providing innovative learning experiences, and Tiger Day represents a significant step in that direction. Stay tuned for updates on this initiative and the engaging activities that our students will experience!