Blog

Mrs. Wilson: Toddlers And Their Big Emotions

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

Toddlers have big emotions. They don’t always know how to express and/or articulate exactly what these feelings are. We want them to know that it is OK to be sad, frustrated, and tired. Our job is to give them the language and tools they need to help them understand their feelings and how to cope with them. We also help them to turn those frowns back into smiles.

We started introducing the vocabulary for emotions. The children received a lesson using language cards with other children making the face of each emotion. This week the children learned about, Happy, Tired, Sad, Mad, and Surprise! Mrs. Crumb taught us the sign language for these emotions. That was a lot of fun!

There is a special emotions box with a mirror and some language cards for the children to use and practice making these faces.

Food Tasting this week was a lemon. Surprisingly there were not many puckering faces when the children bit into the lemon wedge. Mostly everyone seems to enjoy the sour taste of lemons.

Mrs. Lopes’s Class: Read Across America Day

Posted on by Amanda Lopes


“You can find magic wherever you look.  Sit back and relax all you need is a book.”-Dr. Seuss

On Wednesday, March 2nd we celebrated Read Across America Day in our classroom.  The children enjoyed sharing their favorite books from home and we loved seeing their version of their favorite part of the story on their headbands.  Read Across America was launched in 1998 by the National Education Association (NEA) and is the nation’s largest celebration of reading.  The program focuses on motivating children and teens to read.

The titles and resources featured by NEA’s Read Across America “include books that students can see themselves reflected in, as well as books that allow readers to see a world or a character that might be different than them.  Readers who feel included, recognized, and a part of the world are engaged readers.”

Please use the link below to find books and resources associated with this wonderful program:

https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/read-across-america

Happy Reading!

Amanda & Heather

6th Year Egyptian Pharaoh Portraits!

Posted on by Jen Reid

In Art Humanities, sixth year students created an art piece to go along with their Humanities studies of Ancient Egypt. For this project, young artists worked on a portrait painting of an Egyptian pharaoh and learned about the proportions of the face in doing so. To begin, we lightly sketched out an oval shape for the head and divided the face into sections using dotted lines as our guide for the facial features. Students then drew an elaborate headdress, known as “nemes” which were pieces of striped head cloth worn by pharaohs in ancient Egypt, similar to a crown. Next, students traced all of their pencil lines with sharpie and added thick black lines around the eyes as well as other details such as jewelry and hieroglyphic symbols.

Lastly, we learned about how the Egyptians made paint using ground up pigments from rocks mixed with egg yolk as the binder, known as egg tempera. Students then made their own own egg tempera paint to use in their pharaoh portraits with a mixture of powdered pigments and egg yolk. Gold acrylic paint was also added to their portraits since the ancient Egyptians lived close to large gold supplies from mines along the Nile River. Bravo, young artists!

Mrs. Doyle: Read Across America

Posted on by Michelle Handibode

You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.  

                                                                                                                                                                    —–Dr. Seuss

Read across America is a national event that is celebrated on March 2nd, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  This initiative was created by the National Education Association and was created and implemented to encourage a love of reading in children.  Here at FWM, we also turn that day into Pajama Day and the children bring in their favorite book and stuffed animal.  Thank you Meg Zeruk for the fun and tasty snacks!!!!    We hope you enjoy the pictures.

An online article from nationaldaycalendar.com has some wonderful ideas on how to motivate children to read wherever they are.

  • Keep books everywhere you spend time. Put them in the car, in every room of the house, and tuck them in backpacks and purses. Make them easily accessible.
  • Visit the library often. Knowing how to use the library and learning the benefits of a library fosters a love of reading as well as genuine respect for the services libraries provide.
  • Get caught reading. Children imitate what they see the adults around them do. Whether they see you read a magazine, newspaper, or novel, let them know reading is the cool thing to do.
  • Read to your children. No matter their age, reading aloud strengthens their vocabulary and language skills. It also opens up opportunities for discussion.
  • Have your children read to you, too. You never know what you might learn!

In our classroom, we call books treasures. Reading is an integral part of each school day. I hope that Miss Liset and I are able to pass on our passion for literature to your children.

Happy Reading!

Michelle & Liset

A Week in Lower Elementary

Posted on by Ashley O'Connell

The teaching of grammar is an integral part of the Montessori language curriculum for elementary children. The aims of this work are for the children to learn the parts of speech and to understand the relationships between them. This work also provides practice in reading and writing and enriches the vocabulary of the children. Introductory lessons for each part of speech are given as part of a story; their purpose is to give an impression of the function played by each different part of speech. The children are introduced to grammar symbols for each part. Lessons are followed up with work which is a tool for the children to explore the parts of speech. The first years are learning about adjectives, second years are learning about the verb family, and the third years are learning about interjections.

We have been hard at work completing our research projects! Next Thursday, the third years will present their projects to the class. Afterwards, the second and firsts will have the choice to present as well. They are eagerly waiting to share their hard work with their friends!

Fluid in Motion: Hydraulics

Posted on by Walker Fuchs

For the past five weeks, our middle schoolers took on a big challenge – how could they make hydraulic powered arms? This project shed light on a very important type of technology that is regularly used in the modern world, used in many contexts from brake lines in your car to airplane wing flaps to dishwashers and pushed our middle schoolers to innovate, experiment, and persevere in the face of a challenging project. Students were given the task to lift an object one foot in the air only using hydraulic power and then given the space and freedom to choose how they would approach this design challenge and build their hydraulic machines. It was exciting to see the different approaches each student took. We ended up with cranes, grippers, lifts, and more! Students went through the full iterative design process, first doing research into possible technologies and plans, then sketching out designs, prototyping, and eventually finalizing their designs and creating their final product. It is awesome to see the continued progress our middle schoolers are making in how they approach each project and challenge we have taken on in the Makerspace this year.

 

Up next, the middle schoolers will work on a project researching makers that are from both currently and historically underrepresented minorities in the science and technology fields. We will explore the rich history and diversity of makers in the United States and examine why some makers have been systematically excluded from the narrative of the advancement of technology in the United States. More on that next time!

Olympic Games in PE!

Posted on by Pam Pascarella

The Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary participated in Winter Olympic Games stations in class. The students were questioned on their knowledge as to why there are only five rings and what the colors represented. They were also asked where the Olympics were taking place and what continent that country was located in. The students participated in the following winter Olympic Game stations: Curling, Speed Skating, Ice Hockey, Table Hockey, Skeleton/Luge, Ski Jump, and Bobsled. The stations they most enjoyed were the bobsled and ski jump!

During our Gymnastics unit, students participated in pyramid building and single balances. A human pyramid is a formation of three or more people in which two or more support a tier of higher people. For practical reasons, lighter people are often positioned higher while stronger/heavier people are located closer to the base.

A Note about Optional Mask Wearing, Updates, and Summer Camp

Posted on by Gina Tryforos

A Note about Optional Mask Wearing Beginning on Monday Feb 28, 2022

As a school community, we are committed to respecting the personal choice of students, staff, and visitors to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. The move to mask choice may be difficult for some in our community.  We have put together some talking points for teachers and parents.

Please know if you choose to send your child to school wearing a mask, teachers will offer gentle reminders to children but will not be responsible for overseeing mask wearing as teaching must take precedence.

At this time we will continue to mitigate against the spread of COVID-19 with the following strategies: 

  • Daily, personal assessment of COVID-19 symptoms. Students and staff who are not feeling well should stay home. Please conduct a home test to determine if you are positive. FWM can provide these for you if you need one.
  • Three-foot distancing whenever possible.
  • At this time, we will continue cohorting.
  • We will continue to distribute KN95/ N95 masks and home test kits as requested by families and staff.  
  • Our in-school COVID testing will continue to be offered to parents for weekly testing of their children until April 8, which will be two weeks after we return from March break, at which point we will reevaluate weekly in-school testing.
  • Cleaning and sanitization of bathrooms will continue during the school day.
  • If we had students riding school buses, students would be required to continue to wear masks on all buses based on the federal regulation on public transportation.

Reminder: 

Meet and Greet with David Newman

Please join us on Thursday, March 3rd from 6:30 to 7:30 in the FWM commons.

Staffing Update:

There has been an assistant teacher change in Toddler-Wilson. Valdete Biba is no longer at FWM. Michelle Crumb who has spent time in our toddler program as a substitute teacher will join the toddler team as assistant teacher in Cynthia Wilson‘s classroom.

Summer Camp Registration is open! More information in the Parent Corner located under Note from Gina