summer 2015

Summer is a time for enjoying long days under a warm sky, feeling the freedom of

those weeks filling your lungs, and letting your creativity take flight. It’s also a time

when academics can slip, making it difficult for students to maintain the progress

they have worked so diligently to achieve. So, what if there were a place to go for

five weeks that focused on activities that were so fun, creative, and immersive that

you forgot you were learning along the way? That is what The Lab School of Wash-

ington has created.

The Summer Project at Lab brings rising seventh, eighth, and ninth graders with

learning differences such as dyslexia and ADHD together to participate in a pleth-

ora of arts-based and academic projects, culminating in an original production.

Whether using Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities or life on the home front during World

War II as the year’s theme, students explore the social, political, and cultural con-

texts of that time in history as if they were actually there themselves.

Students integrate learning of academic skills through inquiry and creative prob-

lem-solving, research, character and dialogue development, set design, arts proj-

ects, and a live-audience performance.

One Wilde Summer! Delve into the turn of the century in Victorian England as seen through the eyes of Irish writer Oscar Wilde, an astute observer of the society in which he lived. In the 2015 Summer Project at Lab, students will analyze the structure of the short story and Wilde’s unique take on popular sub-genres — ghost stories, detective fiction, and fairy tales — that provide insight into the economic and cultural changes brought about by the In-dustrial Age. Written with a combination of naivety and complexity, Wilde’s stories reveal not only his wit but also his tender heart and sense of humanity.

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

— Oscar Wilde

The 2015 Summer Project at Lab

for Rising, 7th, 8th, and 9th Graders

June 22-July 24

Monday-Friday, 9am-1pm

Tuition:

$2,950 for applications received by March 13

$3,250 for applications received after March 13

$3,800 for applications received after May 31

Students should bring lunch; they will have a short lunch break during the session.

t h e l a b s c ho ol of wa sh i ngt on4759 Reservoir Road, NWWashington, DC 20007-1921202.965.6600

www.labschool.org

THE SUMMER PROJECT AT LAB for Rising, 7th, 8th, and 9th Graders

“It doesn’t actually feel like five weeks — serious-ly, I wish it were longer! We learn so much in that time, and yet, it doesn’t seem right to call it ‘sum-mer school.’ Classes like math and reading aren’t done separately; we get completely immersed in what we’re learning through projects.”

— Summer Project student

Summer Project 2014

The Home Front

Rosie the Riveter, Uncle Sam’s pointing finger “We

Want You!,” victory gardens, rationing, and enter-

taining soldiers at USO variety shows are all images

that conjure up the home front, life in America during

World War II. Through reading, writing, math, liter-

acy, and the arts, participants during the 2014 Sum-

mer Project created a timeline that was updated and

expanded daily, they played music by period musi-

cians like Glenn Miller and Django Reinhardt, they

learned about code breaking, rationing, and scrap met-

al drives, and how — by 1945 — some 20 million victory

gardens were in use in the US as part of the war effort.

The project culminated in an original play about how

people coped and thrived at home while the war raged

overseas.

“The program enables children of all skill levels to experience success through being part of a creative team. By getting rid of the anxieties of homework and tests from the school year, these children are able to shine during the summer.”

— Summer Project teacher

Previous Summer Projects

Summer Project 2013

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

To begin the Summer Project 2013 on the 1930s and

1940s, students were put into groups — families — and

assigned a certain amount of money. Like real families

during the dramatic economic and cultural changes of

the Depression, some of the families got richer, while

others got totally wiped out. Using math skills, they

learned about budgeting and why the Crash occurred.

They delved into the social, political, and cultural go-

ings on during that time such as the Dustbowl and

President Roosevelt’s New Deal, tapping into their

academic and problem-solving skills. “Brother, Can

You Spare a Dime?” was the theatrical endnote to

the Summer Project that featured Eleanor Roosevelt

and friends singing to boost morale during a visit to a

Hooverville and Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressing

the nation about the unprecedented production and

mobilization in the wake of the Crash.

“Math isn’t like having a teacher give you a long list of problems you have to do; they teach you math and stuff, but they teach it in a way that is related to the topic you’re learning.”

— Summer Project student

Summer Project 2012

Where the Stories Are

The Summer Project 2012 opened a window into 150

years of America through the short story. Using classic

American short stories by Shirley Jackson, Washington

Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Mary Wilkins

Freeman, and James Thurber, students spent their five-

week adventure exploring the historic, literary, social,

and cultural contexts inherent in these stories. They

learned about genre, setting, point of view, and figures

of speech. They constructed sets, learned about scene

painting techniques as well as the importance of mea-

surement, scale, and the elements of geometry. Working

together and using their creativity and problem-solving

skills, students took “page to stage,” their program cul-

minating in a series of ensemble-based adaptations of

the stories as well as a series of scenes that brought each

of the authors to life.

Summer Project 2011

A Tale of Two Cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote

Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities. Focusing on the

themes of duality, revolution, and redemption, students

in the 2011 Summer Project took on the sprawling tale

of London and Paris during a dark time as political and

economic unrest lead to the French and American Revolu-

tions. Through immersion in the arts and academics, using

creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills,

students learned about the aristocracy, the revolutionaries,

and the demoralized peasants and how societies can change

when enough people strive for it. The weeks ended with a

thrillingly original theatrical presentation based on Dickens’

famous novel.

“The ownership that the children had over the devel-opment of the play and the independence they felt in gathering the research, incorporating the research into the set design and script, and performing the play was amazing to see.”

— Summer Project parent

Integrated Occupational Therapy Services

For Students Enrolled in the Morning Programs

This summer we continue our successful program

of providing integrated Occupational Therapy ser-

vices to all students in the classroom setting with-

out additional charge. Our in-class collaboration

will maximize your child’s summer experience.