Bronxville Elementary Students Innovate During Recess

BRONXVILLE, NY — From a spaceship launching station to telescopes and jumping frogs, Bronxville Elementary School students have been creating a variety of items at several stations set up outside on their school playground.

Each day, the students can engage in unobstructed hands-on activities that foster their innovation skills during recess, according to a district spokesman.

At the origami station, the students have been creating bunnies, foxes and jumping frogs; and at the Legos stations, they’ve been creating streetlamps, a NASA launching station and a layout of their neighborhood. At the make-your-own station, they have been making binoculars, telescopes and viewfinders out of paper towel rolls.

Assistant Principal Rakiya Adams said the innovation stations stemmed from this month’s school theme of innovation as a way of bringing an idea to life and extending it beyond the classroom.

“In the most unstructured time of day, we wanted to give students the opportunity to innovate,” Adams said. “More students are gravitating towards [the stations] and they’re channeling their creativity and enjoying that space to innovate.”

Throughout March, the students will focus on innovation, which directly aligns with the Bronxville Promise and the school’s Be3 program. In addition to the innovation stations, the students participated in a schoolwide assembly and have been reading books and engaging in class discussions about interesting characters and how they use their creative thinking to design and create.

“We want critical thinkers and innovative leaders of the world,” Adams said. “If we foster this form of thinking outside the box, being creative and problem-solving, we’re really supporting students to be 21st-century learners, to be design thinkers and really making sure that our kids are challenged in different ways. This is a way to give all students an opportunity to shine.”