What is Pickleball?

Pickleball is a paddle sport played with a whiffle ball on a badminton-size court and a tennis-style net. Pickleball is enjoyed by people of all ages and athletic abilities. In some ways, it’s a combination of tennis and badminton and goes along with sports such as table tennis and racquetball. Pickleball is played in thousands of schools’ P.E. programs, parks and recreation centers, camps, YMCA, and retirement communities.  This sport is becoming very popular among active senior adults at community centers and is growing in popularity on high school and college campuses.

Pickleball was created during the summer of 1965 in Seattle, WA.  The original purpose of the game was to provide a sport for the entire family.  Pickles, the family dog, would chase after the wiffle balls and then hide in the bushes. The founder suggests that Pickle’s ball was later shortened to Pickleball.

Students in grades Kindergarten through Middle school practiced and participated in demonstrating the proper serve, forehand drive, and backhand drive and abided by the rules of fair play.  Pickleball helps improve agility, balance, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination.  At the end of the unit, students in grades four through eight participated in singles and doubles Pickleball tournaments.

Primary and LE: “Las estaciones del año”, “El Clima”; UE: “La Familia”, “Los adjetivos”; MS: “Los deportes”, “Mi comida favorita”, “El horario en la escuela” A general review of all we have learned to this point this school year was done at every level. In addition, FWM middle school students were able to travel virtually to Spanish-speaking countries such as Spain and El Salvador.

FWM students are still working on their usual conversation about feelings, Spanish greetings, the calendar, and the description of the weather, as repetition is the key to learning another language. They are continuously improving their Spanish listening and vocabulary. Students from Primary, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, and Middle School listened carefully to Spanish lessons, books, and songs and participated in interactive games that were displayed during class.

Primary and Lower Elementary students also continued learning about the seasons “Las estaciones del año”: Primavera (Spring), Verano (Summer), Otoño (Fall), Invierno (Winter), and “El Clima” (The weather) such as “soleado, nublado, lluvioso, nieve, ventoso”, using the same type of Montessori lessons such as three-period learning cards and matching cards to reinforce concepts. The children also really enjoyed singing and participating in classroom games. Spanish Montessori Lessons were presented in class and left in their classroom to be practiced during the week.

Upper Elementary Students continued learning about the Family and continued practicing the use of the articles (el, los, la, las) in Spanish. In addition, they are learning how to use “adjectivos (adjectives)” in Spanish. They continue practicing their writing through activities and games we used in class. We continue reading books; we are about to start reading “Los Baker van a Peru” by a group of students from Pinelands Regional Jr. High School and Nathaniel Kirby. Reading is a great way to enhance comprehension and pronunciation of the language. Students learned songs in the class that helped with the memorization of vocabulary and with pronunciation.

Middle School students also continue working year-round on their Spanish greetings, description of weather, feelings, and their daily calendar that includes days of the week, months, and seasons. Students continue working on the Spanish curriculum in the “Avancemos” program. They also focused on learning vocabulary to talk about sports and the equipment that is required to be used. They are also learning how to use and write more verbs and their conjugations, such as jugar (to play), comer (to eat), compartir (to share). Also, they are learning to talk about foods and beverages and the verb gustar (to like) used with nouns. They are also learning about their daily schedule, reviewing how to say the time, and learning to say how often they do certain things.  We continue reading books for youth in Spanish in order to enhance their vocabulary, reading, listening, and comprehension skills of a story. We are currently reading a book called “El Ekeko: Un misterio bolivianos” by Katie Baker.

On Fridays, we are also working on “Spanish Enrichment,” where students were able to visit Spain and El Salvador virtually. Students were able to learn how people live, their costumes, and their types of food. They also can see the difference in the geography within all these countries, observing the diversity of sightseeing, plants, and animals that other countries can offer. I believe this experience contributes to expanding their horizons in the knowledge of other cultures and people around the world. Also, we continued playing in Spanish with puzzle words, storytelling, and other activities that make it more enjoyable to learn Spanish.

All the students at FWM are enjoying learning Spanish, and I am very pleased with their progress in accomplishing goals in my class.

In celebration of the coming of spring, Lower and Upper Elementary students created a range of flower and garden-themed projects in the Art Studio. 

First-year students learned about the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe, who created beautiful paintings of flowers in a very close-up view. First, students looked through images of her artwork and real flower images for inspiration. Next, students chose their favorite flower to recreate on a large scale and drew their composition carefully in pencil. To finish their pieces, each young artist layered oil pastels and watercolors. 

Second and third-year artists created beautiful visual representations of things happening above and below the garden. To begin, we read the book Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner. Then, students were invited to draw things like vegetables, flowers, insects, bugs, and animals in their garden scene. Most students found it especially interesting to draw what’s happening underground, where one can’t normally see. Once their pencil sketch was complete, students used permanent markers to outline their drawings and added color using watercolor pencils.

Upper Elementary artists created spring flower vase arrangements using colorful tissue paper. To begin, students cut out a vase shape from a sheet of tissue paper and pasted it onto white construction paper. Next, each young artist experimented with ways to rip the tissue paper into flower petal shapes until they had enough to begin filling their vase. Finally, each student carefully arranged and glued their tissue paper petals, creating unique flower vase compositions.