Blog

Upper El: Helping Our Community

Posted on by Karen Sankey

We had a full week of putting the finishing touches on autobiographies. We will wrap up the editing and practice presentations at the beginning of next week and will be ready to record starting on Wednesday. I will send an email next week confirming the day each student will be presenting. They should plan on dressing in nice clothes for their presentation.

We were happy to welcome a new fifth grade friend to our class this week and would like to extend a warm “Welcome back!” to the Krueger family!

Thank you very much for your donations to our Brian Bags for The Brian O’Connell Homeless Project! The project’s website says, “We want to improve the world for everyone. We want to make life easier for those that are homeless by helping provide them with food and services. Our mission is to pass on aid in the name of Brian O’Connell who passed away while homeless. Everyone deserves access to basic necessities of life.” We spent our morning assembling twenty bags for the Project. The joy with which your children spend volunteering their time is inspirational, as always.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Karen

Let’s Play Pickleball!

Posted on by Pam Pascarella

Pickleball is a paddle sport played with a wiffle ball on a badminton-sized court and a tennis-style net.  Pickleball is enjoyed by people of all ages and athletic abilities. Pickleball is played in thousands of school P.E. programs, parks and recreation centers, camps, YMCA’s 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 kindergarten through 5th grade participated in a Pickleball unit. Students practiced and participated in demonstrating the proper serve, forehand drive, backhand drive, and abide by rules of fair play. Pickleball helps improve agility, balance, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination. At the end of the unit, students in grades 3-5 participated in a singles and doubles Pickleball tournament. In grades K-2, we modified play by using balloons instead of pickleballs.  

Click below to read an article about Pickleball that was published 10 days ago!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/20/us/pickleball-explainer-wellness-cec/index.html

 

History in Lower El

Posted on by Ashley O'Connell

The kids are thrilled to be back! The classroom has been buzzing with excitement being back with familiar faces and friends.

Before break, the students began a series of lessons on the study of time. This week, we took a closer look at the year and its parts. These lessons also introduce the concept of equivalent fractions. We took a look at the full year and compared it to one whole. We cut the whole into twelfths, and noticed that the year can be divided into twelve equal parts as well. Each twelfth is called a month. The children also learned about subdivisions of the year; semester, quadrimester,  and trimester.  Each subdivision has a suffix “mester” which means month in Italian!

Mrs. Lopes: Cultivating Compassion and Empathy

Posted on by Amanda Lopes

“So in the child, besides the vital impulse to create himself, and to become perfect, there must be yet another purpose, a duty to fulfill in harmony, something he has to do in the service of a united whole.” ~ Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Maria Montessori believed that children are the key to peace and empathy among humanity. This important belief is a foundation in our Montessori classrooms beginning with practical life lessons and continuing throughout childhood and beyond. I’d like to share how a “simple” lesson can provide the mechanism from which children in the classroom learn, practice and express their empathy and love for their community.

“Flower arranging work has a more important indirect aim than simply admiring nature’s work of art.  It is an opportunity for little hands to contribute to the beautification of the environment.  It is a tender moment when a young heart lays down a symbol of friendship, love and peace on a table for someone else to enjoy. It is a brief yet integral step outside of oneself and one’s own needs. -The CHILD Centered Blog

Flower arranging is only one of many classrooms works and activities sowing the seeds of compassion and empathy in your children.  Please remember, compassion in your homes helps your children do the same.

Have a peaceful week,

Amanda and Heather

Mrs Semmah: High-Level Questions For Your Child’s Day

Posted on by Kaoutar Semmah

High-level questions are great tools in the classroom and at home. Asking deep and thoughtful questions can spark children’s natural curiosity. High-level questions are never yes-or-no questions. It is always a question that different children will answer in their own way. When the question is effective, the children will provide lots of details in their answers and are more likely to use complex sentences. As a parent, when you ask your children about their day at school, do they respond with a simple “good” or “okay”? Here are some open-ended questions to assist you in starting a conversation about your child’s day at school.

• What was the best thing about your day at school?
• What was the hardest thing about your day at school?
• What was the funniest thing about your day at school?
• What was the kindest thing someone did today at school?
• Did something happen at school today that make you feel proud? Tell me about it.
• What book did your teacher read today? Tell me about the story.

You know your children best and you can paraphrase with wording in a manner that will keep them engaged.

This week we had the pleasure of welcoming a new three year old to our classroom. All the children did a great job as a welcoming committee with smiles, kindness, and showing him around the classroom.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Kaoutar and Sara

Middle School: The Masamune Mystery Week #1

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

It has been a wonderful return to school following spring break. It has been great to see all of the students and to be working on the amazing play they wrote: The Masamune Mystery. 

We started the week with a full cast read-through of the script. From there, the days begin with warm up games and then students work either on the stage blocking with Ms. Sutherland, building the set with Ms. Reid and Mr. Brown, or running through lines and additional rehearsal time with Mrs. Lamb. The set is looking great, and the entire play is blocked. The teachers are impressed with how well the students are working together and learning their lines. There is a lot of positive energy!

Next week, the Middle School looks forward to finishing rehearsals and performing LIVE for younger students during the school day and the evening with families. We are excited to see you next Friday evening, April 8 @ 6:30 p.m.

Mrs. Wilson: Color Exploration

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

Welcome back, everyone! We sure hope you all had a wonderful spring break. The children returned to another change in our environment. I rearranged the furniture and changed out the lessons on the shelves. Some paused as they entered the room and noticed the changes.

These next few weeks we will focus more on color exploration. This week I brought out one of my favorite activities, Mouse Paint. Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is a great book for children to explore the world of colors and color mixing. I first introduced the three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. Then I brought the book to life by using cotton balls as mice and colored water. They got to see the magic of color mixing. It was fun to watch their expressions when they saw the two colors become one.

We also introduced and had a great time using the parachute. The children as a whole work together by holding the handles and helping make the parachute move up and down, and shake, shake, shake! This brought so much joy, laughter, and great big smiles to our environment.

Food Tasting: This week we tasted a juicy pineapple. There was so much language involved while doing this activity. Heavy, bumpy, pokey, juicy, sweet, yellow, skin, flesh, crown, and leaves. We took the crown off and pulled off some of the leaves. Each child had a turn using their finger muscles to pull a leaf off. In a few days, we will place the crown in water to see if we can get it to produce roots. Our hope is that we will grow a pineapple plant.

Mrs. Hood: Welcoming Spring!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

I remember a couple of years ago sitting by a small window and observing the gigantic icicles that covered my view. Suddenly I noticed how, so slowly, water started to drip from the icicles on a sunny morning! I remember so clearly how this sense of joy filled my life! This was the end of my first winter in America and since then, I love the hope that spring brings when Earth seems to wake up and become alive again! Longer, warmer, and sunnier days, windows opened, greener views, flowers growing, trees budding, birds singing, and that crisp in the air are just some of the things that spring offers us and that we all appreciate!

To celebrate the return to school and the beginning of spring, the children worked on an art project creating a spring crown. They worked hard and attentively by painting and then gluing flowers and stickers on it. Together we got to say good-bye to winter and welcome spring by talking and learning about all the changes that we will be observing in the coming weeks  and naturally, sharing some treats together and dancing our hearts out. Shout out to Rebecca Page for baking those amazing cupcakes for all the class to enjoy! We truly appreciate your help!

On another note, due to the increasing amount of vocabulary your children use and recognize now, this week we introduced an activity beloved by all the children: sharing time!

I personally love this activity because it provides an opportunity for your child to develop expressive language as they learn to create and construct language. This act involves organizing ideas in sequence so they will make sense when communicated with others, choosing the words to say, and constructing a clear syntax. It’s a lot of work for our little friends but they ALL did such an amazing job sharing about their yellow object they brought from home!

Another reason why we added this activity to our environment was because of the enhancement of confidence it gives to your child: As they share something of themselves with one another, they gain confidence in becoming the focus of the group’s attention. They find out others are interested in them, they discover that there are things that they know about, and they feel good about themselves doing it! It was truly priceless to see their smiling faces and how proud they felt when they had a turn to share. It is never too early to start practicing public speaking and there is nothing better than allowing confidence to develop in a safe and familiar environment. Also, receptive language development is promoted as children listen to and comprehend the meaning of the speaker’s words.

Lastly, we celebrated a friend’s 2nd birthday and explored pineapple for food tasting! So sweet!

We can’t wait for all the adventures in the upcoming weeks as we explore and enjoy spring 2022!

Please remember to send your child with a rain coat and boots! We can’t wait for the puddle jumping season!

Enjoy the pictures,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria