Blog

Mrs. Wilson: Sowing Seeds

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

 

Guess what everyone?! The butterflies have emerged from their chrysalises this week. The children were excited to see that we now have five butterflies.

The children have been requesting that we go outside once all their friends arrive. They seem to really enjoy having their snack outdoors as well as doing our morning circle and stories. The children also helped participate in planting mammoth sunflower seeds. They all took turns scooping the wet soil into a seed starter and placing a seed into each compartment. Once we have a sprout we will work together to plant the sprouts outside our classroom window and on the playground.

A Special Visit, Expert Project Symposium, Art Show, The End of the Year Picnic, and more…

Posted on by Gina Tryforos

 

Wise leaders connect the past, the present and the future.

“Let us learn from the past, to profit from the present, and from the present to live better in the future”

~William Wordsworth 

What a treat it was for us to have Fraser Woods’ Heads of School, past, present, and future, come together to visit and talk. 

Our long-standing Head of School (1990-2016), Myriam Woods, came by to visit today! Those of us who are lucky enough to have worked with Myriam or who have had children or grandchildren pass through the doors of FWM, know and appreciate all she has achieved and the legacy of excellence in Montessori education she has left for us. 

David Newman, our incoming Head of School also stopped by school today to visit campus. The staff was happy to see him here at school, and the children were even more excited to have him walking the halls and stopping to say hi!

With our eyes on the future of FWM, making strong connections between the past, present and future allows us to gain insights and make more informed and ‘good’ decisions for our school community.  The positive impact of this will be for the benefit of the children, of course!

Come See Our FWM Art Show!

  • Toddler – 8th Grades
  • May 9th through May 20th
  • Daily from 9:00 – 2:30 
  • All are welcome to come, browse, and enjoy our students’ original creations.

Expert Project Symposium 

One of the highlights of the 8th grade year at FWM is the Expert Project.

Years of exploring, learning how to research, and developing critical thinking skills at Fraser Woods leads to the culminating, five-month Expert Project. 

This end-of-year 8th grade research project includes a topic chosen by each 8th grade student that is then researched and uses experts in the field to enhance and support their thesis statement.

Mrs. Lamb and the 8th year students are excited to invite you to the Expert Project Symposium on the evening of Wednesday, May 18th at 6:30 pm in the Commons at FWM. You will hear and learn from our resident experts! Topics include: 

  • Building a House
  • Ways to Improve Mental Health
  • Cuban Missile Crisis
  • The Case for Race
  • Athletes and Mental Health

End of Year Celebration and Picnic

  • When: Friday, June 3rd 5:00- 7:00p.m.
  • Where: FWM Playground
  • Transportation: Shuttle Buses at Sand Hill Plaza parking lot. 
  • More information to come.

Meet and Greet with our Incoming Head of School, David Newman

On Friday, June 3rd, David will join us at the End of Year Picnic to spend time with FWM families and friends. Come and see him there! 

Upper El’s Week

Posted on by Karen Sankey

We had a wonderful week working outdoors! We set up tables, chairs, and tents and moved our classroom outside for the week. True to form, upper elementary students adjusted quickly to the change and were quite impressive in their ability to focus on and complete their work. Yoga on the field was beautiful with the birds singing and the lovely morning breezes.

To end the week, we had our last sandwich making of the year for the St. Vincent DePaul Mission. Thank you to all of you for volunteering to bring ingredients throughout the year. This is an incredibly valuable experience for the children and they truly embrace the act of giving to those in need.

Next week we will get back to our normal classroom routine with lots of Montessori lessons and work before leaving for our big trip the following week.

Mrs. Hood: Head, Thorax, Abdomen!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

As the waiting for the butterflies to emerge continued this week, we learned about the life cycle of another fascinating insect: the ant! Eggs, larva, pupa and ant were some of the names they learned this week and children repeated over and over. We also introduced the anatomy of an insect using different giant insect models. Children learned that all insects have a head, a thorax and abdomen. They all have six legs and antennas which help them to feel and smell the world around them. They also learned that most insects have wings. To reinforce this lesson we learned the song: “Head, Thorax, Abdomen,” sung to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song.

Here are the lyrics:

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Eyes, antennas, wings, 6 legs

Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Children also learned that spiders are not considered an insect, however they are a nice animal to observe. Happily we had some live insects visiting our classroom throughout the week and children really took the time to make sure they had all the body parts we learned this week.

By the end of the week children got the opportunity to observe two butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, stretching their wings and walking around the environment the children prepared for them.

For food tasting we explored a pretty cool vegetable that wasn’t in our rotation list, but since one of our families grew it in their garden, we had the opportunity to taste it: rhubarb. A big shout out to Ms. Eli for sharing such an interesting plant and cooking for us some rhubarb to taste. Even though it seems children were not absolutely in love with it, they tasted it and enjoyed some of its tart/sour/sweet flavor. This was my first time exploring this vegetable so I truly felt like one of the toddlers exploring this food. I gave it a thumbs up… not sure how many of the toddlers will agree with me. The good thing was that nobody spit it out so I think it passed the test.

Some of the favorite books this week were: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, Backyard Bugs by Jill McDonald and of course, Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.

We hope you have a great weekend and please remember to take some time to jump in the puddles with your little ones.

Mrs. Hood and Mrs. Maria

Mrs. Lopes: An Exciting Week in Primary!

Posted on by Amanda Lopes

We have had a busy and exciting week here in Primary!  Completing our butterfly life cycle study, beginning our last continent study unit of the school year, and attending a program about sound presented by the Everwonder Children’s Museum!

This week our caterpillars finished their metamorphosis and came out of their chrysalises as beautiful painted lady butterflies.  We finished up our study of the butterfly life cycle this week by observing our butterflies for a few days and then releasing the butterflies out on the playground.  It was so fun to watch the butterflies flutter away and the children enjoyed tracking where they all flew off to.

As we finished up the study of the butterfly life cycle, we also began our last continent unit of the school year, Australia.  Australia is such an interesting continent due to its size and the fact that many of its native animal species are only found in Australia.  We will be exploring the animals, culture, and landmarks of Australia over the next few weeks.

On Thursday, the Everwonder Children’s Museum came to our school to present a program about sound.  The children listened to a book about familiar sounds and learned how we get to hear those sounds.  They also learned how sound travels through solids, liquids, and gases.  After the introduction, the children had the opportunity to explore making sounds with different instruments and materials, as well as make a rain stick to bring home.  They all throughly enjoyed the invitation to make lots of noise!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Amanda & Heather

Mrs. Semmah: Sounds Around Us

Posted on by Kaoutar Semmah

On Thursday, we had a visitor from the EverWonder Children’s Museum.  She facilitated with the class some scientific experiments to help the children “see” sounds. We hear all different types of sounds every day, however, have you ever explored sound at a visual level? How is a sound created? Through some scientific activities presented to the class, we learned that sound is a type of wave and the children had a chance to visualize sound waves by exploring a variety of sound experiments.

First, our guest explained the significance of being a scientist by listening, observing, and asking questions about things around us. Then, she asked each child about their favorite sound?

  • Soren likes lion sounds
  • Jonathan loves dog woofs 
  • Levi likes cat sounds
  • Carter prefers dog sounds
  • Ella V. likes elephant and cheetah sounds
  • Rusher prefers to hear a dinosaur roar
  • David loves birds’ tweets
  • Joey likes the piano sounds
  • Christopher loves dogs and banjo sounds
  • Lucia loves unicorn sounds
  • Remington likes cricket sounds

It was very sweet to hear the preferences of each child and observe their engagement. Our visitor and sound expert also read a book about different sounds around us. Then, using different recycled tools to demonstrate the relationship between sound and wave, we explored sound vibration levels and learned how the vibration size determines the volume. A larger vibration yields a louder sound and a smaller wave results in a softer sound. Our visitor also talked about rain sticks and how people in the past who lived in rainforests used them to send messages to one another. The cool visual experiments helped us see the passage of sound through matter and learn how sound travels through solids, liquids, and gases. The children enjoyed being little scientists, experimenting with different sounds around us. They also had lots of fun creating their rainstick and bringing it home.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Kaoutar and Sara

Mrs: Doyle: A Busy Week!

Posted on by Michelle Doyle

On Thursday, Everwonder Children’s Museum visited FWM for an in house program to teach us about sound. We listened to a story about sounds that were familiar to the children, explored sound waves, vibrations and even made our own rain stick!  We learned how sound travels through solids, liquids and gases.  The highlight though was using everyday objects to create unique and sometimes very funny sounds.

Our five painted lady butterflies emerged from their chrysalises this week. We were lucky to see them do so during class time!  Also on Thursday, we carried our butterfly habitat to the butterfly garden in the play yard and released them. It is always a moment of wonder and beauty to see the life cycle of a butterfly unfold before us.

Wishing you a week filled with peace and love!

Michelle & Liset

Lower Elementary’s Week

Posted on by Ashley Beckett

We had a very productive week!

The first years have been loving their lessons. They heard the “Love Story of Lines” during geometry this week, where they learned about convergent, divergent, and parallel lines. They used the box of sticks Montessori material to explore these concepts. In grammar, first years have learned about adjectives, nouns and articles.  As an extension, they were introduced to a work called the grammar dice, where the children practice the parts of speech they have learned so far this year while making up funny sentences.

The second year group enjoyed learning how to subtract fraction insets using the Montessori protractor; a concept that can be challenging for some, they grasped so quickly! I was impressed. Just like the first year group, the second graders are loving the grammar dice work to practice previously learned grammar such as: nouns, articles, adjectives, verbs, prepositions and adverbs!

Last but not least, the third years have been enjoying their hands-on geometry follow-up. They have been using the box of sticks to explore the diagonals in various polygons and now will use this material for a new unit on circles. As for language, the third year group received the first sentence analysis lesson. They are now learning to look at words not as parts of speech, but rather as how they work as parts of sentences.