Gaynor News Feed

The fall season is winding down this week after a season’s worth of growth and teambuilding among our Gaynor athletes. The volleyball team finished in sixth place, and soccer finished in fifth place in the American International Private School League (AIPSL).

Last week, after studying the role of firefighters in the community, students in the Pink Cluster brought all of their knowledge (and imagination) together as they spent time “trying out” to become firefighters themselves.

As the fall season enters its final weeks, the Gaynor Gators are playing together and competing well.

This week, students in the Willow Room became pumpkin experts! Students used their five senses to explore the inside and outside of a pumpkin, a very concrete example of Gaynor’s multisensory approach to learning.

It has been a busy week in Gaynor sports. Volleyball, soccer, and cross country all competed this past week as the fall season is in full swing.

A few decades ago, the entire student body and all of Gaynor’s staff would fit on just a few school buses for the annual apple-picking trip to Demarest Farms. This year, nearly 400 students and over 130 teachers, staff, and specialists piled on 11 (eleven!) school buses for the trip to Hillsdale, New Jersey.

Stephen Gaynor School’s math curriculum is based on the three-pronged Singapore Math approach which includes concrete (hands-on), pictorial (visuals), and abstract (symbolism). No area of elementary mathematics is as mathematically rich, cognitively complicated, and difficult to teach as fractions, ratios, and proportionality.

Learning to write is challenging for all students but is particularly difficult for students with language-based learning difference. Head teacher Jane Moskowitz illustrates Gaynor’s approach to not only teaching writing but getting students to learn to love it.