In Physical Education Class, students participated in a Cooperative Games unit. Cooperative games help develop problem solving skills. During cooperative games, students work together to find solutions to group and individual challenges. Cooperative games put an emphasis on team building, communication and trust. The goal is to enhance students’ social skills and self esteem in an active environment.
Blog
Welcome Back FWM! Happy New Year–Updates and Information
It’s been a wonderful (and icy and snowy) first week back! The children are so happy to be together again and we are excited to be back as well.
Our return to school is also marked by heightened concern surrounding the surge in positive COVID cases.
Although it is unsettling to hear about the rising positivity rates, we’ve been down this road before. FWM continues to stay informed and up to date with the latest developments. Several updates have been released:
For your information, here is the CDC’s latest update to isolation and quarantine recommendations.
The Connecticut Department of Health released Updated Considerations for Quarantine, Isolation, Testing, and Contact Tracing Policies and Procedures for PreK-12 Schools. Compliance with these new changes is optional for all schools.
Our team at FWM is talking daily and considering how to best incorporate the updated recommendations into our COVID safety protocols. Also, the CT DPH is expecting further updates to the CDC’s guidance. At this time, FWM has decided to wait for further updates before announcing any changes to our policies. As information or procedures change, families will be notified by email.
The Omicron variant, by all accounts, is reported to be more contagious but is also reported to cause less serious symptoms, especially for those who are vaccinated. Our vaccination rate for those eligible continues to grow but is not at a level that gives us the measure of security we need to relax our efforts.
We should all continue to be vigilant and do our part to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and our community safe, because we know it is best for the children to be in school. We’re going to do all that we can to stay safe while continuing to provide in-person learning and fostering those interpersonal relationships the children need to truly thrive.
Finally, keeping children home from school when they are sick is imperative to reduce transmission in our community. Individuals who are even mildly symptomatic with any of the symptoms associated with COVID-19 should immediately isolate at home and test for the virus. If your child is not feeling well, please keep them home and contact our school nurse, Christina Benoit at cbenoit@fraserwoods.com.
Thank you for your ongoing support and your cooperation to keep our community healthy.
Staffing Update:
There has been a change in the front office. Michele Stramaglia is no longer at FWM and Mary Zaums will be answering phones and taking on the position of administrative assistant for now.
Looking Ahead:
Moving Up Information Night will take place over four evenings starting on Tuesday, January 18 and ending on Tuesday, January 25. Please join us to learn what the next level of learning at FWM has in store for your child!
- Toddler 2 – Thursday, January 20 6:30-7:30
- Primary 4 – Thursday, January 20 6:30-7:30
- Kindergarten – Tuesday, January 25 6:30-7:30
- Lower Elementary 3rd – Wednesday, January 19 6:30-7:30
- Upper Elementary 5th – Tuesday, January 18 6:30-7:30
Hope to see you there!
Lower El: Welcome 2022
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and break with your children! We are all happy to be back, working hard and having fun. It was a short but energetic week.
Maria Montessori’s primary goal for education was to bring about a better and more peaceful world. Staying true to this goal, we spend intentional time in our classroom on kindness and caring for one another. Focusing on this now will help the children to grow into peaceful, compassionate adults. The children in our class regularly and spontaneously help their classmates in need, from helping each other with challenging work, giving one another spelling tests, to cleaning up spilled test tube division beads.
Upper El: Welcome 2022!
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- Choosing poses for our morning, student-led yoga
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- Morning yoga
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- Four square recess fun with our Lower Elementary friends
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- Decimal multiplication
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- Fraction multiplication
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- Spelling
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- Collaborating on vocabulary work
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- Impromptu Cotton Eye Joe lunchtime dance party
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.” -Rachel Carson
Happy new year! We were excited to get back to school this week. We had a quiet week, with some of our Upper El friends learning from home for the first week of 2022, but in typical Upper El fashion, our students handled it like pros! We started work on our big Upper Elementary Autobiography Project, a five chapter writing project which focuses on the students, their families, and thoughts and dreams of the future. Over the course of the next eight weeks, we will be working on this project in school and at home. After completing the writing portion of their project, students will prepare slide presentations to accompany their oral presentations. These will be presented to the class and recorded for you to have at home. What a wonderful memento this will be!
May you be inspired by the wonder and excitement of your beautiful children. Happy 2022!
Love,
Karen
A Week in Review: Math Carnival!
Happy New Year to all our middle school families! We are all excited to return in-person and celebrate the start of 2022. To kick off the school year, the MATH CARNIVAL HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! Throughout the entire week, each student designed, built and calculated a unique probability game. Students from grade 6, 7 and 8 were responsible for assigning rules, making a creative title and writing a full description of their game. Students were asked to calculate the theoretical probability before the actual game day in order to predict the participants’ chances of winning their games. Students created fun games that involved throwing discs, spinning a spinner, tossing a ball, randomly selecting a marble, and flipping a coin. The Carnival Day has been postponed to Friday, January 14th, as students need more time to finish their final displays. Stay tuned next week for photos of the Carnival Day celebration. After the Carnival Day exhibit, students will record their results and present their findings with the appropriate experimental probability calculated. We are extremely proud of all the middle school students for their hard work and dedication that went into creating these beautiful and thoughtful games.
As a general reminder, please have students bring appropriate winter clothing to school. The temperatures can fluctuate during the day and we want students to be warm in a jacket, sweater, gloves and a hat when we go outside for recess. We also want to send a friendly reminder to bring in flowers when it is your allocated week on the sign up list. If you need an additional copy, please email your child’s advisory teacher for it to be re-shared.
Mrs. Doyle: Normalization…What Exactly Does That Mean?
“Social grace, inner discipline, and joy. These are the birthright of the human being who has been allowed to develop essential human qualities.” —Maria Montessori
Normalization is a buzzword often used by Montessori teachers everywhere. So what exactly does it mean, and more importantly, how do we achieve it? When children in a Montessori environment demonstrate deep concentration, self-discipline, social skills, and a true love of work, we describe this as a normalized classroom. Normalization is achieved by consistent and clear ground rules that everyone is familiar with. It is our job to ensure the environment is always well prepared and designed to meet the needs of the children. As Montessori teachers, we are confident that if we do our job well and the children are free to experience the opportunities provided by the environment and Montessori materials, they will thrive.
After the winter break and upon our return in January, we often see noticeable growth in the children’s social and emotional development. They come back eager to learn and raring to go! The first half of the year, they have become comfortable and confident with our classroom routines and expectations. They have developed deeper relationships with their peers and teachers. It is always an exciting time and sets the groundwork for the second half of the school year.
It was so wonderful to welcome the children back to class and observe all of their growth. While nothing may seem normal as of late, our classroom was definitely normalized and brought us great joy and hope!
Wishing everyone a 2022 filled with much peace and love.
Michelle & Liset
Mrs. Lopes’s Class: Off to a Great Start!
The holiday season came and went in a hurry and the new year has officially begun. Coming back to the classroom after our winter break is always one of our favorite times of the year. The children are familiar with the classroom routines and often return to school ready and excited to learn! We begin to introduce longer, more involved lessons and we see their academic development begin to take off.
This month our classroom travels will be taking us to the continent of Asia, the largest of the seven continents. We look forward to exploring the various countries, customs, animals, foods, music, and literature this culturally rich continent has to offer.
As we begin this new year, we would like to wish you all a very happy new year and look forward to what the remainder of the school year will bring!
All the best,
Amanda and Heather
Mrs. Semmah: The Fun of the Metal Inset
Montessori Metal Insets are a part of the Montessori language curriculum. The purpose of discovering and having fun with shapes is to prepare a child to learn writing. The lesson also includes some creative patterns, using the colored pencils of the child’s choice. The insets are made of metal and are hard and sturdy for the child to use. They have a frame and a corresponding inside inset. A child will be working with both the frame and the inset.
Some of the purposes of this lesson are to develop hand-eye coordination by making small, coordinated movements, grip and hold the pencil, develop fine muscles in the hand and also the larger muscles required for sitting and maintaining posture for writing.
The metal inset work is a popular activity in our classroom, especially for children who like to discover, touch, and feel the dimensions of the forms. They like to bring the special wooden metal inset tray, the colored pencils, square paper, and metal inset shape to the table and do this lesson.
Wishing you and your loved ones a safe, healthy, and happy 2022.
Kaoutar and Sara