The Guild School offered a special curriculum this summer focused on land and water. Topics included the environment, wildlife, safety and habitats.

The curriculum featured classroom learning and projects, school-based activities, and community outings.

“The students really enjoyed our unique summer curriculum,” says Casey Russo, The Guild’s assistant director of curriculum and instruction. “I think they really appreciated the hands-on learning projects and the opportunity to further their learning during community-engagement outings.”

From jumping in the bouncy house to a competitive tug-of-war game, students, their families and staff celebrated the impending end of summer at The Guild’s 18th annual Field Day.

The pirates-themed day lightheartedly celebrated the summer curriculum topics of land and water. Along with a bouncy house, Field Day featured a dunk tank; lawn games; basketball; face-painting; arts and crafts; music; and swinging, sliding and spinning on the playground.

Every evening after dinner, Joe Johnson reaches for his cellphone and calls his twin grandsons – Justice at his Guild residence and Raekwon at Crotched Mountain School. “Grampy” enquires about their days, sings them each a song (“Old MacDonald Had a Farm” for Justice, “I Will Always Love You” for Raekwon) and then concludes the call with a familiar phrase that the boys sometimes complete themselves: “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

The work is both enjoyable and meaningful. For Guild School student Korey Myers, that’s a “fruitful” combination.

Her title is chief education officer at The Guild School, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to refer to Annie Willis as chief student supporter/cheerleader.

Annie, who joined The Guild on July 22, enthusiastically embraces the school’s foundational commitment to integrating students into the communities where they live and learn through a wide variety of enrichment and engagement activities. Throughout her career in special education, she has pushed to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not segregated.

Antoinette “Annie” Willis will join The Guild as chief education officer on Monday, July 22, Chief Executive Officer Amy C. Sousa announced.

Students in Liz’s classroom learned an important lesson about goodwill this spring as they organized a bake sale at school and then presented the proceeds to a nearby animal shelter during their recent visit.

It’s a perfect bit of symbolism: As the plants grow at The Guild’s community garden, so do the skills and abilities of the student gardeners.

Several different classes tend to the garden, where flowers (petunias and begonias), fruits (tomatoes and pumpkins), vegetables (peppers, French beans and peas) and herbs (basil, parsley) are all thriving due to the students’ efforts and help from a rainy spring.

From The J.K. Rowling Award for increased use of a communication device to the Master Chef Award for planning and cooking dinner at the residence, The Guild School celebrated the accomplishments of our students at the annual Awards Day.

“Guild’s Got Talent” – the theme of this year’s Guild School talent show – proved to be no mere boast as about 20 students showed off their skills and abilities by playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, performing magic tricks, telling jokes, demonstrating contortionist flexibility and even simulating noises from different car brands.

While most of the students showed off their talents solo, the annual event also featured a student-teacher song-and dance-routine and a group reading of Eric Carle’s classic “Head to Toe” by Shaina’s class.