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Spreading Holiday Joy With Art!

Posted on by Jen Reid

 

Lower and Upper Elementary artists have been hard at work, spreading holiday cheer and joy through art! This year’s holiday art project focused on the tradition of decorating our homes for the holidays, as well as the gingerbread house decorating tradition.

We began by discussing the different parts that make up the exterior of a house, such as a roof, chimney, windows, siding, doors, porch, shutters and trim. We also learned that the gingerbread house tradition originated in Germany during the 16th century, and that their popularity grew with the story of Hansel and Gretel; in which the main characters stumble upon a house in the forest made entirely of treats! Children gathered inspiration from reference images and their own imaginations to draw their house on light brown paper and then cut out and glued it to a wintry background. Students then added details to represent frosting, candies, lights, candles, snow, ornaments, and more using various materials such as paint, oil pastel, colored pencil, ribbon, glitter, and sequins. Each holiday gingerbread house was created with such joy, and each one turned out so unique and festive! Bravo artists!

Middle School: Holiday Spirit in the Air

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

Happy Friday! It’s been a happy week indeed. Middle school is feeling the holiday spirit and it’s been showing. Our weeklong door decorating for our 4th annual middle school door decorating contest was great fun. From planning to executing the process, the kids had work in their advisory groups to compromise and problem solve. In the end, the products speak for themselves! The 8th years also collected gifts for the Newtown Fund’s Holiday Baskets initiative. Fraser Woods purchased items from the wishlist of a Newtown family in need to be delivered this weekend. The school’s generosity showed! Thank you!

Up next week is the 8th years’ virtual Alternative Gift Market that will support three charitable causes that the 8th years personally selected. We will also have the holiday gift swap with our advisories on Friday ($10 value-creative gift wrapping encouraged) and another special surprise that is being announced! More fun to come!!

Celebrating Holidays – The Montessori Way

Posted on by Gina Tryforos

True to Montessori, we do our best to keep the commercial “noise” of the holiday season out of our classrooms. In a Montessori classroom, children are provided with age-appropriate content about different people, places, and traditions surrounding the holidays. This gives the children an opportunity to engage in meaningful activities that teach so much more than ‘a day on the calendar’. By learning about the holidays, they learn about other cultures. They begin to develop an awareness of what is different and what is similar among people around the world. They learn tolerance and acceptance. They learn what brings joy to people all over the globe.  The Montessori approach to celebrating the holidays is a gift to the children as it expands their hearts, their minds, and their world.   

Also true to Montessori is the belief that students are involved in community service. Maria Montessori’s vision is that a peaceful world begins with the children and that children will make the world a better place. We as Montessorians know that acts of community service, help develop and educate the whole child. Students learn the joy of giving of themselves, and develop compassion because of these real, practical life volunteer experiences. These experiences can be anything from collecting donations for a family in need or preparing food for a local shelter. Students can prepare holiday cards or special decorations and art installments to bring cheer and a smile to everyone in our school community. Doing these things teaches children that although they are young, they can and do make a positive and lasting contribution to their community.

It is our hope that every child grows to become good citizens of the world. It is up to us as Montessori guides, teachers, and parents to teach and model global thinking for our children. 

As we prepare to celebrate the holidays with our loved ones, please remember that the health of our FWM community is of the utmost importance.  We need to approach the holidays very carefully, while keeping in mind state-mandated quarantine procedures and guidance from our local DPH.  Because there is increased risk of exposure when traveling to visit others or hosting others from outside of your household, we are asking that to the extent possible you avoid gathering, and that you take every precaution if you must gather.

Please review the guidelines from the CDC and the State of CT.

CDC Holiday Celebrations and Small Gatherings

CT Department of Public Health Holiday Gathering Guidelines

Wishing you and your loved ones Happy Holidays,

Gina

Serving the Spirit

Posted on by Karen Sankey

“The child’s development follows a path of successive stages of independence, and our knowledge of this must guide us in our behaviour towards [them]. We have to help the child to act, will and think for [themselves]. This is the art of serving the spirit, an art which can be practised to perfection only when working among children.” -Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Every single day I am amazed and impressed by this group of students. In all my years of teaching, I have never seen a group of individuals who treat each other with such kindness and caring. They rarely have any conflict at all, and when they do, they work things out with each other beautifully and respectfully. And it’s not just their social interactions which are impressive. Each and every one of them is incredibly hard working and focused. They hold themselves accountable for their work and are consistently motivated to work hard. They love collaborating with each other, both within and across their two grade levels. They are a joy to teach and I am grateful every day to guide them in their education.

This week’s lessons in geometry were a continuation of the fourth grade work with equivalence and fifth grade work with finding area. Our biology work continued with a lesson on the chemical reactions that take place in plants during respiration. We used the molecule model material to represent what happens when plants take in oxygen and burn and break down their sugar into molecules of water and carbon dioxide. In our geography lesson this week we looked at air pressure on Earth. We learned what causes areas of low and high pressure and the different kinds of winds that are created by these areas. The students have also worked hard all week on their individualized lessons and independent work across the curriculum. We ended the week by making over 200 sandwiches for the St. Vincent DePaul Mission in Waterbury. Thank you so much for generously donating all of the ingredients for our sandwiches!

Mrs. Wilson: Season of Giving

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

The children have been joyfully experiencing the magic of the holiday season this week. We are grateful to The Barbery family for gifting us a beautiful live tree. The children have proudly hung the ornaments that they created and placed them on the tree. They express this pride by inviting their friends to come to look at what they have made. The tree has also become a practical life work as they are invited to water it when needed. They have also been busy this week creating a special gift for their parents.

We reintroduced our cloth work rugs into the environment. They have been practicing the art of rolling their rugs and using them to identify their workspace. We are also working on a Grace and Courtesy skill by learning to walk around the work rugs. This skill is hard for impulsive toddlers.

In our outdoor environment, we have brought out a couple of balls for the children to use. They excitedly kicked, tossed, and chased the balls around the playground together. It is amazing to see the growth and development as they have transitioned from parallel play to collaborative play.

Have a beautiful weekend,
Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Sara

Brilliant Biologists

Posted on by Ashley O'Connell

In the Montessori curriculum, care for living environments is one of the most important aspects. Children love animals and plants and can relate to them as individuals. Those relationships and that intimate, personal contact form the base for our biology curriculum. Children are drawn to living things and they want to know and learn more about them. We nuture and build on that interest by helping them to sharpen their skills in observation, and to learn and apply methods of appropriate caretaking.

Lower Elementary students have been loving their biology lessons! The third years are learning about the body functions and external parts of moss. They are enjoying searching for moss while outdoors and closely observing it under a magnifying glass. The first and second graders are learning about amphibians. The first year group is taking a close look at the external parts of a frog meanwhile the second years are studying the inside, the body functions of a frog.

Mrs. Doyle’s Class: It’s Off To Work We Go!

Posted on by Michelle Handibode

When a child works, he does not do so to attain some further goal.  His objective in working is the work itself. – Maria Montessori

One of Maria Montessori’s more well known quotes is “play is the child’s work.”  We’re sure by now you have heard your child talk about their work at school. Maria Montessori preferred the word work rather than the word play, to describe the learning process children are constantly undergoing. Work conveys the amount of effort that children put into their physical, social, emotional, and academic growth. As adults, our definition of work has a very different meaning.

Children are driven by a strong unconscious internal growth process to seek out experiences that will meet their needs. Our role as Montessori teachers is to provide a well-prepared environment that encourages children to be independent and learn at their own pace. The children are free to choose their work and to use it repeatedly. So, while they are ‘working’ each child is also building independence, coordination, self-discipline, and concentration.

Enjoy your work!

Michelle & Lizette

¡Feliz Navidad!

Posted on by Sara Hall

Spanish students have been busy! Across all grade levels, we have been filling our time with stories, projects, and activities for a cumulative review. Primary and elementary students have taken stories about a snowman and a gingerbread man and made character comparisons in Spanish. Elementary students then designed their own snowmen, demonstrating their knowledge of clothing, colors, and body parts in Spanish. 

Middle school has completed virtual escape rooms, puzzles, character comparisons, and they have even written their own stories. They are presented with the opportunity to showcase all of their acquired language together in their spoken and written tasks. 

Gearing up for the holidays, we are taking a dive back into LatinX and Spanish culture to explore how the holidays will be celebrated around the world!