Blog

Spring has Sprung!

Posted on by Stephanie Thomas

The children returned to their normal routines with excitement this week!

Thanks to the milder weather, the children have enjoyed an abundance of outdoor play in the beautiful spring air.

Along with time on the field and playground, the children have been exploring new works in our environment. Our “Loud/Quiet Eggs” have been a big hit as the children love to shake twelve different plastic eggs and sort the loud eggs (filled with rice) from the quiet eggs (empty).

Another popular item is the ice cream scooping work. Kinectic sand is scooped from a bowl into a plastic ice cream cone. Many children worked between 20 and 60 minutes long with this activity! Needless to say, we will be purchasing more kinetic sand for our environment. 🙂

Lower Elementary: It’s Good to Be Back

Posted on by Karen Sankey

This time of year, after March Break is over and our play preparations have begun, is so energizing for all of us! We have begun our mornings with our Upper Elementary friends. The children are immersing themselves in learning the songs for Seussical the Musical and their sweet voices can be heard singing during work cycle, in the hallway on the way to enrichment classes, during dismissal, and many times in between. We will be sending out an email this coming week with a list of props needed and what your children will need from home for their costumes. We will also be looking for parent volunteers to help with the organization of props and costumes.

We wrapped up our Writer’s Workshop unit on nonfiction and began our new unit this week. First year students will be writing fiction, second years – poetry, and third years will be writing fairy tales. We began with everyone writing a fiction story and having the opportunity to share the story with the class. We are all very excited about our new units.

Each grade level also had lessons this week in biology and geometry.

In biology, first and second year students learned about reptiles. Firsts focused on the parts of reptiles and seconds on the body functions. The first year students enjoyed holding our class pet, Rocky, and observing and discussing her body parts. Third year students learned about ferns. We took a walk into the woods to find and dig up a fern to look at with a magnifying glass. We were pleased to be able to see all of the different parts, even the tiny sori on the underside of the leaves, which make the spores.

In geometry, the firsts learned about simple closed curved regions and polygons. They enjoyed using the box of sticks to make their own polygons. The seconds wrapped up their lessons about two lines on the same plane crossed by a third line by learning about corresponding angles. The third year students used the box of sticks to learn about the differences between regular and irregular polygons. They enjoyed collaborating with each other to make a polygon design after their lesson was over.

Ms. Kayser’s Class: What’s up Doc?

Posted on by skayser

 

 

In order to get in the spirit of spring before we left for break, the children got to get down and dirty in the classroom! As a class project for the next few months, we are going to be observing carrot seeds grow first hand through the glass of an old fish tank! Along with watching the actual carrot grow underground, we are going to spend an ample amount of time learning about how  plants grow and survive.

The class worked together to fill up our fish tank and then watering the soil to make sure it was ready for the seeds. After lunch we sat down together and talked about how there are different variety of carrots and looked at four different kinds. The children’s curiosity was really sparked when they saw that all the seeds looked the same, even though they produced different variations of carrots. As a surprise, I kept the most exciting variation until last… kaleidoscope carrots! These carrots grow in four different colors: white, purple, yellow, orange and red! Of course, the children chose this packet of seeds to plant in our fish tank. This did lend itself to great scientific discussion and exploration, though! Each child got to plant a seed and hypothesize about what color carrot was going to grow. We wrote down each of our guesses on the tank to help us remember while the kindergarten students went to work on a fun project of their own!

Each kindergarten students got to write the name of one color on a piece of paper. They helped us to make copies of them and then handed out a copy to each student of the color they had chosen. The younger students got to write their initials on the paper and we all delivered them to Ms. Ulacco in the MakerSpace. This is when the magic truly happened! Ms. Ulacco was able to use the GlowForge to engrave each child a personalized wooden sign with their carrot color choice and initials.

As spring break passed, the carrots sprouted! The children came in eager to see what had happened to them over break and were delighted to see tiny green sprouts sticking out from the dirt. That day, Ms. Ulacco delivered our newly engraved signs and we stuck them into the dirt to mark each carrot. Now, we sit and wait until we can begin to see the carrots growing beneath the dirt!

All the best,

Ms. Kayser and Ms. Alli

Mrs. Hood’s class: New Season, New Hope!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

 

 

 

 “Spring’s greatest joy beyond a doubt is when it brings the children out.” ~ Edgar Guest
Welcome back Dear Families:
Please enjoy these thoughts from Wildflower Ramblings:
These cold winter days are hopefully coming to a swift close, and we look forward to the days when the flowers begin to bloom – the crocus and bulbs first, and then are beautiful perennials and annual flowers.  Children love the outdoors and should be encouraged to explore all that world has to offer. Flowers, bugs, gardening, butterflies, oh the joy!
“We cannot create observers by saying ‘observe,’ but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.”  ~Maria Montessori

Middle School: Signs of Spring

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

Before I begin to talk about our times since we have been back from break, I would like to give a huge thank you to all of the parents, family, and friends of the middle school for your support during our play, Flight 1927. Your presence and your feedback were so important to the kids and teachers. We had a great time doing it!

This week we were lucky to travel to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven. We walked through the museum and were particularly impressed by the dinosaur exhibit. Afterwards, the 6th and half of the 7th years toured the Ancient Egypt exhibit and had a lively lecture from Richard, the resident expert. The other half of 7th years and 8th year students visited David Friend Hall, the gem and mineral gallery. Students were taught a lesson on the identification of minerals upon entering the exhibit. Students were amazed at the natural colors, shape, and sizes many of the minerals displayed. The museum also let us know that they would be opening a Mesopotamia exhibit soon, so we look forward to that in the coming years!

Now, let’s talk about signs of spring in middle school: a renewed sense of enthusiasm for classes, excitement about end-of-the year events that are now around the corner, and, for the 8th years, the reality that expert project presentations are coming fast and furious.

We have spent time outside every day this week. That being said, it has been in the upper 30s and low 40s at our morning recess time and will be chillier next week. Your children should be dressed for this type of weather with warm, outer layers as well as limbs covered. If they wish to wear shorts, they may change into them after recess. Thank you for your attention to this.

 

 

 

Upper Elementary: Fresh Start

Posted on by Brian Comstock

After our long March break it was nice to return to school re-energized to close out the year on a positive note. It did not take much time for the students to get back into the natural rhythm of our work cycle.

Now that each child knows their role for our upcoming play we have spent a little time each morning with the Lower Elementary practicing songs and lines. Based on our first few practices we expect a great show in May!

As we approached the end of the week we celebrated the March birthdays with our monthly birthday breakfast. The students are already looking forward to our next breakfast in April!

Rainbows and delicious Kumquats!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

The main focus this week was based on colors. Recognizing the colors and identifying the color names is an important part of a child’s development. The ability to identify colors is considered a marker and milestone in a child’s cognitive process.

As introductory activities this week, we used a lot of verbal communication and sorting and classifying games and activities. Verbal communication is a great way to teach the children about colors as we give them some vocabulary for starting to describe the world around them. Practicing this exercise daily encourages the children to start sorting and classifying objects around them based on their color attributes. With our youngest we focused on the primary colors and with our oldest we also worked recognizing and identifying secondary colors. As we worked on putting our rainbow puzzle together we took time to search around the classroom for objects that represented the color assigned. Children had a lot of fun thinking, observing, and finding different colored objects in our environment!

Children were very curious about what food we were going to taste this week as they already recognize this activity as a part of our weekly routine. It’s so fun to see the children gathering with great excitement onto the main rug when they see the teacher walking with the food tasting tray. They sit so quietly and so patiently waiting to see the special towel to be removed and reveal the new food to be tasted. There were a couple of conversations between the oldest toddlers speculating that the new food this week was going to be watermelons! To their surprise we enjoyed some tiny but delicious kumquats. Kumquats look like oranges but are the most diminutive member of the citrus family. We had great fun exploring and tasting this fruit! Even Mrs. Wilson and I loved being part of it!

We wish you a great, colorful, and relaxing spring break with your family and a safe trip to all of you who will be traveling!

Keep warm and happy!

Ms. Kayser’s Class: “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

Posted on by skayser

You’re off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

-Dr. Seuss

Monday in the classroom, our children got to celebrate the birthday of one of the most renowned children’s book authors, Theodore Seuss Geisel. Dr. Seuss has touched the hearts of many children and parents with his whimsical stories and characters. This week we got to celebrate his life by snuggling up in pajamas with our favorite stuffed animals and reading his books.  To pay tribute to one of his most famous stories, the children got to enjoy a delicious breakfast of green scrambled eggs and ham! Despite the strange color, the children ate every bite and even asked for seconds! Thank you to all the parents who came in and provided everything for our special morning. We can’t say it enough, but we are truly blessed!

Personally, our favorite part of the morning was witnessing the confidence in our kindergarten students as they read to their younger friends.. We got to sit back and watch as they sat around the circle and read together. They are confident in their abilities as readers and fearless in picking up any book and tackling the words. The younger students were awestruck as they sat with their kindergarten friends, watching as they perservered through each page. These students have grown so much since the beginning of the year, and they have truly become beautiful role models for our class.

It is hard to believe that spring break is already upon us, but we wish you a safe and fun filled few weeks!

Ms. Kayser and Ms. Alli