STUDENT GALLERY

Check below to see examples of
Telluride Mountain School student work.

Student Gallery . Intermediate School
Adaptive Ski Day with St. Michaels School Students
Buddy Reading Program
Galileo Play
Trout Lake Pastels

Adaptive Ski Day with St. Michaels School Students
Each winter Mountain School students open their school, their local ski mountain and their hearts to the physically and mentally challenged children of St. Michaels School for Special Learning from the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona. In conjunction with the Telluride Ski Resort's Adaptive Ski Program, Mountain School students are able to fulfill one of the school's pillars of learning by performing important Service Learning responsibilities.

Buddy Reading Program
Buddy Reading is a tradition at the Mountain School and something students have come to love. Although multi-age reading has always occurred at the school, it was officially formalized into a weekly event this past year. For about an hour each Friday, older students read with 1st and 2nd grade students, and the positive influence it had on both older and younger students has been profound. Buddy Reading has also helped to strengthen the sense of school community. Young, learning readers benefit from older peers reading to them; conversely, older students benefit by learning how to pass on their skills to others.

Galileo Play
The June 2005 production "The Earth Moves," inspired by the story "Starry Messenger" by Peter Sis and directed by Telluride's Grande Dame of children's theater, Sally Davis, provided 5th and 6th graders with an opportunity to learn first-hand what it means to be young Renaissance men and women. The dramatic performance highlighted Galileo's life, theories and accomplishments and was the culmination of a six-week unit of study.

Although their studies of the Renaissance period began in a more sedate, traditional style of learning, Mountain School teacher Emily Shoff, explains, "I think a creative, integrated project like this at the end of the unit of study and also the end of the school year allows students to incorporate their knowledge of the period into a fun, artistic outlet where they actually get to utilize their skills to prove they are indeed Renaissance kids!"

Students drew from studies in Humanities, Science-Astronomy, Cosmology, Drama, Art and Language. Illustrating this point, student Ciara Green explained about using a relative scale. "Standing in the Mountain Village core, if the Earth is the size of a pea and the Sun is the size of a 'gym fit ball,' Pluto would be all the way in Rico." Alexa Posner carried a grapefruit, posing as Jupiter, to the climbing rock for a little perspective.

Students created backdrops and props under the artistic direction of Mountain School Art and Drama teacher Craig Wasserman. Craig worked with the cast as the in-house Drama expert, to incorporate what they have learned throughout the year and to hone their voice, body, public speaking and stage skills. Craig's focus at the end of the school year is "to help students piece together the dramatic and artistic talents they have acquired, to produce a theatrical piece that shows off their skills and culminates in a production we can all feel proud of."

Trout Lake Pastels
The high-alpine teacup of Trout Lake cradled amid snowcapped peaks on a crisp fall afternoon served as dramatic inspiration for these oil pastel pieces of Impressionistic Expressionism created on the 5/6th Grade Outdoor Education canoeing trip in September 2004. Students discussed Impressionism, Expressionism, pastel techniques and the ways in which we may visually comment on the overwhelmingly vibrant autumn season in the San Juan Mountains. Artists began the pieces in the field and completed them with off-site studio work.