Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a holiday to honor loved ones who have died. The tradition began thousands of years ago with ancient tribes. This year at PKS, the PA, DEI committee, and teachers teamed up to create a community ofrenda to be contributed to and enjoyed by all.
Sharing Chinese Culture and Tradition with Our Grandfriends
Grandfriends Day was an opportunity to celebrate and thank the family and friends whose support helps each of us, and our school, grow and thrive. Part of the opening agenda was a spirited Lion dance and kung fu performance by our kindergarten classes, which is one of the many ways our students build authentic connections to Chinese language and culture.
Author Lenora Chu Visits PKS
Lenora Chu read to us from her book, Little Soldiers: An American Boy, A Chinese School, and the Global Race To Achieve. She enrolled her son in one of China's elite preschools and her book offers an honest -- and at times harrowing! -- look into the high-stakes, ultra-competitive and test-focused education system in China.
Annual Parents Night Out Celebration
First Annual Blood Drive
On Saturday, March 4, we came together as a community to express our values of caring and resilience at our first-ever PKS Red Cross Blood Drive. In honor of our former Head of School Lee Drolet’s daughter, children talked about the importance of giving blood, encouraged adults to donate, and even signed up to volunteer at the blood drive themselves!
9th Annual PKS Chinese New Year Celebration
It’s 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 4. Dozens of parent volunteers are buzzing around campus, rushing to put up the final decorations for the daylong celebration. Photo booth props are laid out to the sound of the band tuning their instruments, a string of flags is pinned up under the main tent, and Master Leo’s lion costumes sit waiting to be brought to life.
Parents Night Out
On Saturday night, PKS families gathered under the big tent for Parents Night Out (PNO), our annual excuse to spend some time at school without the kids. Normally, the tent is a boisterous place, with simultaneous basketball and soccer games alongside tag, jump rope, and other fast-paced activities. For PNO, it’s transformed by creative parents into a elegant nightspot, complete with Chinese lanterns, holiday lights, decorative saplings, quality wines, a whole pig, and made-to-order waffles.
Preschool Curriculum Night
Preschool parents gathered at Presidio Knolls on Thursday for our annual curriculum night. As usual, passive listening was not on the agenda! Instead, parents were up to their elbows in blocks, sticks, clay, yarn, and paint, creating personalized “objets” for their children to appreciate throughout the school year.
Elementary Curriculum Night
The 2016-2017 school year is officially underway! On Thursday night, elementary parents at Presidio Knolls revisited their early years by squeezing into child-sized chairs to hear updates on Mandarin immersion, STEM, units of exploration, and social and emotional learning, as well as to swap stories from summer vacation. For any parent whose child is an “unreliable narrator,” it was also a great opportunity to hear about the exciting learning going on during the first month of school.