Click on the student pages to see their portfolios!
Building & Developing Excellence, Ingenuity and Creativity at the Garage School
Welcome to TLC,
Tahoe's Garage School
A creative solution to school closures and stay-at-home orders, eight 7th grade families got together and created the garage school in South Lake Tahoe. Masked, distanced, and sanitized, these 8 boys began the journey of learning in a garage...every day, all subjects. Our motto quickly became: We work hard, so that we can play hard.
With the expectation of 4 hours of instruction for all subjects every week: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Native Spanish and PE, we developed a plan that allowed for 4 rigorous days in the "classroom" (i.e. the garage), and one day out in the "field". With ventilation of fans and an open garage, the students and teachers arrived with puffy jackets, beanies, and gloves to experience learning with hands-on activities, games, and self-reflection in the form of discussions and writing. Over the course of this year, our students each read over 6,000 pages, wrote 10+ essays across the curriculum, participated in simulations, and problem solved their way through science labs and algebra. Our educational philosophy included student centered learning, self discovery principles, critical thinking techniques, problem solving strategies, and, of course, FUN!
Student Portfolios
We created this webpage as a platform for our students' portfolios. Their portfolios are the culmination of their reflection on their 7th grade year here at The Garage School. With a list of topics to present, students picked a minimum of 10 pieces of work that show something about themselves as students and people. The reflection included with each piece of work was meant for self-reflection as well as presentation. We hope you enjoy their webpages (that they created by themselves) and their portfolios about how they see themselves as boys who are growing into amazing young men! We are so very proud of them all!
Trips Outside the Garage School
Field Trips for the Garage School include physical activity to help us meet our PE goals as well as academic objectives that can be learned in the "field." We ski (weekly in the winter), ice skate, bike, hike, scooter, swim, mini-golf, boat, and kayak. We also visited an art gallery, a ranch, and even had a day of learning about cars and how to take care of them.
Our end of the year field trip was to San Francisco...and what an unforgettable trip! We visited Muir Woods, drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and through the fog, cruised Fisherman's Wharf, saw sea lions, rode a boat out to Alcatraz, took a street car to the Giants Game, and watched the Giants beat the Cubs. Unfortunately, our trip was cut short when Sara's car was broken into, but everyone was safe, and it was all "unforgettable!"
Learning & Academics
At the garage school, our students are taught to become independent and self sufficient learners. The expectations are high, the lessons creative, and the "big picture" is emphasized. Using alternative curriculums, in Math, we study Algebra 1. In Language Arts we read and write meaningfully everyday. In Science we cover Biology and Human Anatomy. In Social Studies, we discover cultures around the World, and in Native Spanish we read, write and speak ONLY in Spanish.
Learning styles and Multiple Intelligences drive our curriculum. Students create projects to show their knowledge through multiple intelligences, and the teachers create lessons to target multiple learning styles in each lesson. The goal is to teach students their strengths as learners, and to make them well rounded students and people, Renaissance Men if you will!