St. Mark’s Saturdays

The III Form Core is designed to help students enhance their understanding of themselves, each other, and St. Mark’s School. This course will provide an extended onboarding experience for III form students to help them adapt to the life and pace of a St. Mark’s student. This course also aligns with the philosophies and pedagogies of Experiential education, through which you will build vocabulary to embrace challenge and develop growth mindset skills and attributes, build relationships with peers through fun and also challenge, and make connections between their individual actions and the collective community.

Together will exploring these questions and more:
What do I need to know about myself to thrive in school and beyond?
What resources and supports are available to me at St. Mark’s School?
What does learning look like and feel like to me? How and what can I learn from my peers?
How do I connect with each of my classmates and how can we work together for the next four years?

III Form students are also empowered co-designers of this experience; there is time and support given to student inquiry, reflection and emotions. You will learn about wellness and mindfulness, learning styles and strategies, and peer affinity groups. Students will also have opportunities to bond with their classmates through interactive activities and collaborative problem solving.

Spades, Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs, suicide kings and one-eyed jacks. Have you ever wondered why a traditional deck of cards is structured so strangely? Why are they called jacks and not princes? Why aces and not 1s? Why black and red? The answers to these questions are not as simple as you may think, and reflect the history and culture of card games, and games in general. In this Saturday class, you’ll learn the history of card games, from their origins in 9th century China to the modern commercialization of games like Texas Hold’em. Each week we will explore a different category of games played with a standard deck of cards, from trick-taking games like Euchre and Bridge, to melding games like Rummy and Cribbage, to fishing games like Cassino and Pasur. You’ll learn not only how to play and strategize these games, but also their origins, variants, and etiquette. By the end of the class, you’ll be able to make your own card game to teach your friends. No prior experience with card games is necessary!

St. Mark’s has recently been designated a Unified Champion School. The mission of the Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Program is to activate youth around the country in an effort to develop school communities where all young people are agents of change – fostering respect, dignity, and advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities by utilizing the programs and initiatives of Special Olympics. In this Saturday class, you will be a part of the Young Athletes program, providing sports skills for kids with and without intellectual disabilities ages 2 to 6 years old here on St. Mark's campus! The goals of the program are to foster social inclusion and inclusive play/sports in schools and communities; to have children with and without intellectual disabilities play together to learn about and understand each other; to provide children with activities and games that meet their skill and ability levels; and to prepare children to engage in future Unified Sports programs by providing them with the basic skills and tools to succeed. More information about the Young Athletes Program can be found here.