Blog

Come See an Authentic Middle School Play

Posted on by Chris Robertson

This Thursday (March 12), at 7pm, the Middle School students will perform their annual play.  This is a common event in most middle schools.  However, in most middle schools, the play packets are purchased through a company that sells pre-written scripts like Aladdin or Willy Wonka.   At FWM, the Middle School students actually write their own play.  They first develop a concept, then the plot, and then begin character development and lines.  The entire process is collaborative and helps children learn to compromise, develop ideas, and intellectually work together a team.  Once the script is developed, students then design and create the set and work on the choreography.  FWM’s Middle School play is a student-centered, student-powered, and student-created experience.  Though the final product (Thursday’s performance) is sure to please, it was the overall process that reaped the most benefits.

Please consider attending the play this Thursday evening with you family.  Families can see firsthand the quality of the learning in our Middle School by experiencing the result of our students’ endeavors.  The play is called Sugar Hills Heist.  It is appropriate for all ages and runs about one hour.

Important Information & Upcoming Events

Posted on by Alison Kistner

Middle School Play on Thursday, March 12 at 7pm.  This is a student-created play appropriate for all ages.  There will be a Q & A after the play with the cast and crew.

Re-enrollment contracts for the upcoming 2020-21 school year are due by March 17th.  We look forward to your family’s return to our community!

FWM’s 26th annual Auction Gala is Friday, April 17th at 6:30pm. at The Waterview in Monroe. EARLY BIRD TICKET DISCOUNT ENDS THIS FRIDAY. Don’t delay, get your ticket here! 

No School – Spring Break March 16-27th. 

March Break Camp Registration closes this Thursday.  To register your FWM toddler or primary child in FWM’s March Break Camp, please click here.  Parents may register their child for one or both weeks: Week 1 (March 16-20) and Week 2 (March 23-27).

Mrs. Lopes’s Class: Oh the Places You’ll Go…

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 Tuesday, March 3rd we had a blast celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday! Each year schools across the country celebrate Read Across America Day also known as Dr. Seuss Day.  This holiday occurs on or near March 2, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, with a focus on motivating children to read books. Dr. Seuss is a beloved author in our classroom so the children were more than happy to spend a whole morning reading his books. As a group, the children listened to one of our favorite Dr. Seuss books, Green Eggs and Ham. After reading the story the children were invited to try some green eggs and ham for snack. We were surprised how many of the children really enjoyed this snack and were asking for second and third helpings!  The children also had the opportunity to create their own Thing 1 by using a straw to blow blue watercolor paint across the paper for the Thing’s crazy hair. Thank you to all the parents who helped make this day so special. We really appreciate all the donated supplies and those who donated time to help out in the classroom!

Another exciting event this week was Ms. Benoit coming to our classroom to do a demonstration on proper hand washing. To prevent the spread of germs, the children will be asked to wash their hands as soon as they enter our classroom environment in the morning as well as at several other points throughout the day. She walked the children through each step of the hand washing process. We talked about how washing our hands for 20 seconds can be a long time, but if we sing a song to help pass the time it makes it easier. So if you hear your child singing “Happy Birthday” and the “ABC song” while washing their hands at home you can thank Ms. Benoit for that little trick!

Have a great weekend,

Amanda & Deanna

Upper Elementary: Moana

Posted on by Brian Comstock

The week started off with a thrilling victory for the basketball team vs Unquowa! The final score was 20-12 and it was a great team effort.

A few mornings this week we gathered together with the Lower Elementary to practice songs from Moana, Jr. Auditions took place Thursday afternoon and on Friday they learned their roles! The students should bring their scripts to school every day since we will be doing a lot of practicing in the coming weeks. Be on the lookout next week for an email with more information about costumes, props, and parts.

In the classroom we continued our study of timelines, specifically the timeline of humans. We concluded the week making sandwiches for the St. Vincent DePaul Mission in Waterbury. Along with the sandwiches, Mrs. Bashawaty delivered a check in the amount of $221. This was money raised from one of our morning cafes. Thank you Liz and Carol for helping in the classroom. An additional thank you to everyone who donated supplies for sandwich making today!

Middle School: Our Field Trip to the Museum of Natural History

Posted on by msutherland

On Tuesday March 3rd, the Middle School students along with Mr. Brown, Ms. Sutherland, Mrs. Reid, and Mr. Robertson visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. We traveled by bus to the museum and enjoyed a full day exploring the exhibits. Students were able to experience a planetarium show titled Worlds Beyond Earth. This demonstration talked about our solar system and explained the complexities of all the other planets surrounding Earth. We visited the giant sequoia tree, the life sized African elephants, dinosaur skeletons, and ancient Aztec stones. The students really enjoyed seeing the first human skeleton ever discovered, the artistic backgrounds to all the enclosures, as well as learning about the traditional Chinese wedding chair traditions. We concluded our day trip with a slice of authentic NYC pizza from Famous Ray’s restaurant.  We were proud of the Middle School students as they represented our school well and were grateful for this opportunity. 

Clay Forming Techniques with Middle School

Posted on by Jen Reid

Middle School students have been focusing on the Art element of form using various clay processes and techniques. They have especially enjoyed working on the pottery wheel as it is a wonderful, tactile experience that encourages self-expression and develops motor skills, all while having a calming effect on the child. Each step of this process engages both the body and the mind. After completing their piece, it was then fired once in the kiln, glazed with food-safe glazes, and fired a second time to vitrify the glaze.

The main project we’ve been focusing on is creating a clay room using slab-building and other hand forming techniques. Students were asked to design and make an interior model of a room of their choice. First, we discussed a brief history of the diorama as an art form, a way to record history, and as an architectural and interior design modeling tool. Students were then asked to sketch and plan their room design and decide what type of room they wanted to create. After rolling out three slabs of clay cut into squares using templates, they constructed the floor and two walls of their room model. More strategizing and planning came into play when the students had to construct and organize the objects in their room to fit to scale. This project was designed to enhance the students’ understanding of perspective, scale, and design as well as to introduce them to new clay forming techniques. 

Mrs. Hood’s Class: Rainbows and Energy!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Color recognition can provide children with essential learning tools in life. For example, in mathematics, color recognition is used to categorize, sort, compare, and organize. Additionally, as children learn to identify colors and use color as a language tool to describe things, it develops and strengthens their ability to communicate effectively.

Colors are part of our daily lessons using the different materials, games, books, songs, and activities in our environment. However, this week we focused on studying the colors of the rainbow and children just loved it!

Even our show and tell time focused on children’s favorite colors. As expected, children enjoyed showing the items they brought and talking about them with their peers.

Children also enjoyed working on creating a beautiful rainbow marbled sun catcher using glue and food coloring. We can’t wait to use them to decorate our classroom windows!

We had the great privilege to have our first parent volunteer working with the children this week. Children learned to make delicious energy balls, using gluten free oats, ground flax, cinnamon, sea salt, sunbutter, honey, vanilla, and they had a choice to finish it up with either raisins or chocolate chips…or both! So yummy!!! Children really seemed to enjoy participating in the mixing of ingredients, the sensorial experience of making their own ball, and devouring their finished product! It was a great day!

Here is the recipe if you would like to try it at home!
http://www.keeleymcguire.com/2016/02/nut-free-no-bake-sunbutter-energy-bites.html?m=1

We strongly encourage all parents to share their talents with the children and schedule a visit. Is always so much fun when the children invite their parents into our special “world” at school. We love it and also appreciate your support in following the guidelines to make these visits a successful event.

For food tasting, children enjoyed exploring rainbow carrots. That’s right! We studied the parts of purple, white and orange carrots! And we all enjoyed the sweetness and crunchiness of them! This vegetable received a standing ovation by all!

Note: We are excited to let you know that all our toddlers who will be moving up to our Primary program in the Fall of 2020 will be visiting a Primary classroom next week with the goal of  getting them acquainted  with the environment and teachers. Kindergarten students can’t wait to welcome our toddlers and work together in the environment. It’s going to be a great experience for all! 

Luminous Lower Elementary

Posted on by Karen Sankey

We have had a wonderfully busy and productive week in Lower Elementary. We are enjoying our physical science lessons on light. We discussed the difference between natural light and artificial light and then we went on a walk through the school and took a light survey, seeing how many sources we could find that produce light. Next, we learned that atoms get excited when energy is added in the form of heat or a chemical reaction and light is produced when the excited atoms release their energy in bundles of photons. The children had fun acting out the roles of the atoms and photons as Ms. Beckett verbally added energy. We also discussed what role light plays in the survival of plants. We learned about photosynthesis and chlorophyll and why we see plants as green. We covered a small patch of grass and a leaf on our playground to see what will happen when they aren’t able to collect sunlight. We will be checking on them next week. Finally, we went into a dark room and turned on a flashlight. We noticed that we could see the light at its source and at the point where it bounced off the wall but we could not see its beam. Then we shook a dusty pillow. We noticed that we could then see the beam of light reflecting off the dust particles. We will continue with light lessons over the next few weeks and we will be learning more about light when we go on our April field trip.

In addition to our physical science lessons on light, we had many other small group lessons this week. First year students learned about external parts of amphibians in biology, land and water forms in geography, and oblique and perpendicular lines in geometry. Second year students learned about the body functions of amphibians in biology, advanced land and water forms in geography, and subtracting angles with the Montessori protractor in geometry. Third year students collected moss and examined it under a microscope. They are learning about the external parts and body functions of moss in biology and about constructing right-angled, obtuse-angled, and acute-angled triangles with the box of sticks in geometry.

The children have received their parts for our May musical, Moana Jr. They are working hard already and have been enjoying coming together with Upper Elementary to sing songs from Moana in the mornings before we start our day. The children should bring their scripts to school every day since we will be doing a lot of practicing in the coming weeks. Be on the lookout next week for an email with more information about costumes, props, and parts.