UCDS Schools - UCDS

Developing Expansive Thinkers
Encouraging Unique Strengths
Igniting Positive Change

Where Learning Has No Limits

Welcome to UCDS. We encourage students to stretch, reflect, collaborate, and think expansively—enriching their educational growth and ensuring they thrive in school and beyond.

UCDS Schools 18

Infant-Toddler Education

UCDS Schools 4

Early Elementary

UCDS Schools 2

Elementary

We’re driven by the idea that learning is as varied as each individual. So we’ve designed innovative educational programs that activate personal learning styles and set students up for the rewards of life-long learning. Become part of the UCDS community.

UCDS Schools 13

Our Mission

We cultivate reflective, collaborative, skillful thinkers who ignite positive change in their communities.

UCDS Schools Blog

Six Highlights of an Innovative School 1

Design-led Learning, Education Hub

Six Highlights of an Innovative School • Culture of Inquiry

UCDS is having a birthday! As we celebrate our 110th year, we are rolling back the clock and re-sharing six highlights of an innovative school: Culture of Inquiry, Sticky Curriculum,…

Zooming with Renee Watson!

Design-led Learning, Education Hub

Zooming with Renée Watson!

Jenni Walker, 3-4 Teacher This past March the UCDS community had the opportunity to attend a webinar-style zoom call with author Renée Watson. The 3rd and 4th graders read her…

The Magic of the 7 Sentence Story

Coronavirus What Ifs

All Blog Articles

ucds_seattle

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! May the h

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! May the holiday bring you good things in abundance that stay with you all year long!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #happythanks #thanksgiving2021 #seattlethanksgiving #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

We’ve had a wonderful Stone Soup celebration at

We’ve had a wonderful Stone Soup celebration at school today, full of the old favorites: our fifth-graders performed an original play about cooperation and giving, we honored the stone, shared toasts about thankfulness, sang our school Stone Soup song as a whole community, spent time with buddies, and gave “Gobble Grams” (cards and expressions of gratitude). We hope you all have a great break, and we’ll see you next week!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #stonesoup #community #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

Calling all community helpers! The EE students hav

Calling all community helpers! The EE students have been busy learning about ways to support our neighbor, the @udistrictfoodbank, which serves over 1300 families and individuals each week. Through conversations, reading books like "Saturday at the Food Pantry" by Diane O’Neill, and visiting with food bank representatives, students have been learning about the needs in our community, food insecurity, people experiencing homelssness, and the ways that asking for help and being helpers make our community stronger. Over the course of last week, they turned their learning into action through a cross-disciplinary project to "buy" food during Math Vitamin that they would then donate to the food bank this week. Each student selected items they wanted to buy on a shopping list, learned to add up money for their totals, and then eagerly awaited their trip to the "Centro Stop N' Shop" to buy the items on their lists. Watch the video to see this project come to life as students went shopping last week (and stay tuned for pictures later this week to see their field trip to the food bank to drop off donations)!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #universitysdistrictfoodbank #communityhelpers #stopandshop #foodinsecurity #projectbasedcurriculum #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

UCDS is having a birthday! As we celebrate our 110

UCDS is having a birthday! As we celebrate our 110th year, we are rolling back the clock and resharing six highlights of an innovative school: Culture of Inquiry, Sticky Curriculum, Coaching Independence, Authentic Assessment, Teacher Mentorship through Collaboration, and Being Brave. Check out our first installment about the Culture of Inquiry written by our Head of School, Paula Smith—link in bio.
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #cultureofinquiry #teaching #education #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

In Science with Katie and Cinthya, the 1-2s have b

In Science with Katie and Cinthya, the 1-2s have been studying arthropods, the phylum within the animal kingdom that includes creatures with exoskeletons and jointed appendages. For an educational celebration of all the students' learning these past few months, @animalencounters visited UCDS today with some fascinating creepers and crawlers, including millipedes, cockroaches, and a tarantula named Charlotte. Lots of students bravely held and petted some of the creatures and learned lots of information about each one.
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #animalencounters #arthropods #insects #scienceteacher #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

Our annual Stone Soup celebration is just around t

Our annual Stone Soup celebration is just around the corner, and students have been practicing and singing our community song to get ready for next week! Yesterday during EDP, our Special Programs Manager, Ava, captured this spontaneous performance by some Labyrinth friends, complete with a stage and microphones that they designed!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #stonesoup #thanksgiving #community #imaginationplayground #blueblocks #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

What does the UCDS Community mean to you? We asked

What does the UCDS Community mean to you? We asked several of our parents, school leaders, and students to answer this question to round out the UCDS Fund fall fundraising drive. Watch the link in our bio to find out what they said! Thank you to our incredible community for shaping our year and shaping our future with 100% community participation!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #ucdsfund #todaytomorrowtogether #shapingouryear #shapingourfuture #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

What happens to a "complicated shape" made of pape

What happens to a "complicated shape" made of paper when you put it into a wind tunnel? That's the question that our Early Elementary students are investigating in Design & Technology with Ben. Over the course of many meetings and experiments, they're building upon past experiences to test their ideas and deepen their understandings about the properties of paper, air, and wind, and the forces that can affect them. In these videos, you can also see how Ben is helping students hone their observation and critical-thinking skills while expanding their vocabulary and ability to explain their thinking. All in all, a full day of learning and excitement in Design & Tech!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #designandtech #education #makerspace #design #steameducation #preschool #prekindergarten #kindergarten #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

💦Splish, 💦splash...💦💦SPLASH!💦💦 T

💦Splish, 💦splash...💦💦SPLASH!💦💦 Today's giant puddles were so inviting to the Studio three-year-old class who stomped, jumped, and ran their way back and forth all during Fresh Air. Playing in puddles provides so many learning opportunities including—but not limited to—developing large-motor skills, experimenting with cause and effect, exploring the properties of water, inventing games and testing hypotheses through unstructured play, and noticing peers and making social connections. Not to mention, it's just plain F-U-N!
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#ucdsseattle #puddles #earlychildhood #earlychildhoodeducation #preschool #education #learningthroughplay #playbasedlearning #earlyyears #playmatters #toddler #learning #children #play #childdevelopment #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #PNWkids #PNWfamily #northseattle #seattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids

Today on Veterans Day, we honor all those who have

Today on Veterans Day, we honor all those who have served and those who continue to serve. Thank you, and happy Veterans Day!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #VeteransDay2021 #veteransdayseattle #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

Ever stop to think about life on Mars? If you do,

Ever stop to think about life on Mars? If you do, you're not alone—the 5s are deep into thinking, learning, and experimenting about the Red Planet, connecting their Read-Aloud book, "The Lion of Mars" by @jenniferlholm to many disciplines.

In Science with Katie for instance, students identified the forces that have shaped the Mars landscape which launched them into investigating meteors and impact craters. They've been running experiments with variables of mass, velocity, and more. In the first few videos and photos, you'll see their initial experiment and Lab Notebook documentation about how the distance that a meteor falls (golf ball) affects the diameter of a resulting crater (mark made with carbon copy paper). In the second series, students are isolating and testing variables that cause and influence ejecta, that is, debris ejected during the formation of an impact crater. The size of impact craters, along with the surrounding ejecta blanket, can be used to determine the size, intensity, and angle of the impacting object. In the last photo, Katie is holding an iron meteorite from the Campo del Cielo impact in Argentina. Weighing in at 4.4 pounds, this dense space rock was formed at the beginning of our solar system and fell to Earth about 4500 years ago. Seeing and holding this 4.5 billion year old specimen from space brings home the idea that we are connected to our solar system and that life on Mars might not be as alien as it seems.
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #science #mars #crater #meteor #campodelcielometeorite #seattlesciencecenter #nwais #psis #parentmap #peps #pnwfamily #pnwkids #northseattle #seattle #familiesofcolorseattle #seattlepreschool #seattlefamily #seattlekids #seattleindependentschool #seattleschool

🪄TONIGHT! The UCDS Parent Guardian Association

🪄TONIGHT! The UCDS Parent Guardian Association is excited to host a Virtual Magic Show from 6:30pm - 7:15pm! @seattlemagician, Nate Jester, is sure to delight and astonish us all with his highly interactive and mind-blowing performance that the whole family will love.

This will be a 35-minute show followed by a ten-minute workshop to learn a few tricks. Please have a deck of playing cards and a pencil on hand for the workshop.

The Zoom link was sent in an email yesterday and in last week's Weekly (accessible in the Family Portal). We can’t wait to see you all there! Prepare to be AMAZED!
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#ucdsseattle #ucdsalum #parentguardianassociation #seattlemagician #magicshow

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