“Curriculum Connections” are field notes and observations from Hillbrook’s Director of Teaching and Learning Ilsa Dohmen – during her weekly visits to Hillbrook’s classrooms in Lower, Middle, and Upper School, she discovers wonderful moments of learning and connection in math, English, science, history, and more. These notes are shared each Sunday with the Hillbrook community via Hillbrook Happenings, our weekly community newsletter.
Enjoy!
- Exploring Identity: JK Students Share What They Love
- Time’s Arrow: 9th Graders Tackle the Complicated History of Progress
- Love and Literature: The 5th Grade Spring Book Project
- Tangle With Angles: 1st Grade Mathematicians Study Shapes, Sides, and Symmetry
- Posters and Personal Histories: Expanding Vocabularies in 9th Grade Mandarin
- Literature in Miniature: 7th Graders Turn Books Into Art
- From Record to Revolution: Studying the Civil Rights Movement Through Song in 2nd Grade
- From CAD To Cut: Crafting Furniture In 9th Grade Design
- Ready Player Fun: 5th Graders Tackle Coding And Game Design
- Tap It Out, Tap It In: Syllables and Sounds in Kindergarten Literacy
- The Artist is Present: Art, Memory, and History in 9th Grade English
- On the Ode: 8th Graders Study Poetic Tributes
- Math, Mangos, and Mahalo in Junior Kindergarten
- Playing with Vowels in First Grade
- ¡Vamos a Aprender! Adventures in 9th Grade Spanish
- Exploring 6th Grade Algebra: Strengthening Math Foundations
- The (Log)arithm is Gonna Get You: 9th Grade Mathematicians Build Math Fluency
- The Suitcase Solution: 8th Grade Mathematicians Travel-Plan With Algebraic Formulas
- Empathy in Action: Third Graders Read “Out of My Mind”
- Meaning on the Median: Studying Urban Biodiversity in 9th Grade Science
- Dust til Dawn: Studying Medieval Civilizations in 7th Grade History
- Where the Buffalo Roam: 2nd Graders Connect Timelines and Topics in English and Social Science
- A Peek in Every Classroom: Upper School Instructional Rounds
- Finding the Formative: Character Journeys in 8th Grade English
- Skin Tones and Slime: Junior Kindergarteners’ Week of Discovery and Wonder
- Wander and Wonder: Studying Immigration in 9th Grade History
- To Half and to Whole: Fifth Graders Figure Out Fractions
- Essay Can You See: 4th Grade Writers Craft Essays from A to Thesis
- Music, Memories, and Mandarin: Preparing for the 9th Grade Exhibition of Learning
- The Carbon Crunch: Climate Change in 6th Grade Science
- Lots of Dots: Expanding Our Skills in Kindergarten Math
- Convictions and Conflict: 9th Graders Prepare for Mock Trial With Essential Questions
- Reason-Able: 7th Grade Math Intensives Grapple with Graphs
- From Mulch to Marbles: 1st Grade Scientists Get the Most Out of Compost
- Causes and Connections: Mapping World War I in 9th Grade History
- Pyramid Scenes: 6th Grade Historians Create Newspapers About Ancient Egypt
- Circuits, Circuits: Building Electromagnets in 3rd Grade Science
- Parametrics, Point-Slopes, and Proofs: 9th Grade Mathematicians Find Answers Together
- Up, Up, and Away: Hot Air Balloons Take Flight in 8th Grade Science
- An Inch, a Cinch: 2nd Grade Mathematicians Measure Up
- Clever Cantilever Endeavors in 9th Grade Design
- Different Names for the Same Thing: Mapmaking in 5th Grade History
- Around the Table: Celebrations and Storytelling in JK
- Cells on the Sidewalk: Visualizing Organelles in 9th Grade Biochemistry
- Feudal Doodles: Creating a Coat of Arms in 7th Grade History
- Oak-splorations in 4th Grade Science
- Marigold Memories: Día de los Muertos Studies in 9th Grade Spanish
- From Act to Zinn: Studying the American Revolution in 8th Grade History
- Shapes, Symmetry, and Smiles: Kindergarteners Explore the World’s First Pattern Alphabet
- Still Kings: Near-Future Fiction Meets Real-World Past in 9th Grade English
About Ilsa
Ilsa Dohmen grew up in Texas and attended college in Boston, earning a B.A. in English and Physical Anthropology from Tufts University, before moving to the Bay Area. She earned her M.A. in Anthropological Sciences from Stanford University. Prior to Hillbrook, she worked as a classroom researcher at Stanford, designing and conducting technology- and game-based interventions in 2nd-8th grade math and science classrooms to analyze how learning was impacted by small changes to lesson design. Ilsa joined Hillbrook as the first member of the Resident Teacher Program through the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). She found her place in the classroom as a middle school science teacher before taking on her current role as Director of Teaching & Learning and Director of the CTE. What first drew Ilsa to Hillbrook was how great a place it is to be a child. She finds the space this school carves out for children to enjoy being young and to grow up well, learning, and being challenged, to be exceptional. Over her time here, she has discovered what a great place Hillbrook also is to be an adult—a place for lifelong intellectual and personal challenge, learning, and engagement.