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Mrs. Thomas’s Class: Food Tasting!

Posted on by Stephanie Thomas

Earlier in January, we began our foray into food tasting. Our first food was pomegranates. The children enjoyed seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting this delicious fruit. There are a lot of parts to a pomegranate and we discussed the outer red husk, the inner spongy white husk, the juicy arils, and crunchy seeds.

Of course the highlight of this event was tasting the arils and seeds. The combination of sweet and tart was very appealing to the children as they asked for more and more tastings! The fruit was such a hit that we even served it as a side with lunch!

Thanks to all of you for providing these foods to taste during your snack weeks. This is a highlight event for the children that brings them such joy!

Middle School: A Brisk Week in Review

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

A shortened week has not put a damper on our momentum in middle school!

Humanities 6 & 7 classes are currently reading novels and continuing their studies of ancient Egypt and the Masai culture. They are also revising their corrected drafts of their research papers and giving a first run-through of their presentations in preparation for next week’s Research Morning. 8th years presented compelling current event topics that caused us to deviate a bit from plans to divulge in these topics. Conversations about perspective, biased information, and media influence were all critical for the events from the Catholic high school student who had an interaction with an Indigenous American to the importance of mental health for all.

In math, The 6th years will begin their geometry unit after taking a cumulative assessment on units 1 through 6. In this unit they will define terms and be able to determine angle measurement using their knowledge of equations. They will also be introduced to congruent and similar figures. The 7th years began their unit on percent. In this unit they will be finding the percent of a number and solve percent word problems. Included also will be finding the percent of change, markups, tips, discounts, and sales tax.  They will also be calculating interest and account balances. The 8th years continue working on their graphing and solving systems of equation using graphing, substitution and elimination.  Next week we will begin graphing linear inequalities and systems of inequalities.

In Science, the 6th year Earth Science students are creating a stop motion video representing aspects of plate tectonics. Students can choose from a variety of mediums for creating their videos. Students have chosen to create them on continental drifting, convection currents, Pangaea, and the layers of Earth’s interior. 7th year students are continuing their unit on atoms and bonding. Students recently finished writing their lab report titled, Shedding Light on Ions, which required students to determine what kinds of compounds produce ions in a solution. 8th year students tested their wind turbines as part of their natural resources unit. Each group built their own turbine out of plastic cups, foam core, wooden dowel, and string.  Each turbine’s purpose was to wind a string with determined weight around the dowel when wind (hairdryer) was applied. Following construction of the wind turbine, students are working on designing and creating a hydroelectric turbine.

****Middle School Teachers’ Plea: PLEASE send your child (children) to school with appropriate clothing (no shorts), winter coats, and appropriate accessories. Believe us, we know it’s difficult for you, but it’s a requirement in frigid January and February temperatures. Thank you :-)****

Lower Elementary: Becoming Experts

Posted on by Karen Sankey

This week the children have been immersed in their research projects. They are completely focused on gathering information and communicating what they have learned through written reports. Their process has been authentic and wonderfully developmentally appropriate. Ashley, Georgina, Sara, and I have enjoyed assisting them as they chose topics they were interested in learning more about, as they gathered information, and followed a research guide to help them pull important facts out of the information they gathered. We are now wrapping up assisting each student as they write their papers. Next week our focus will be the visual displays. The children will make posters and presentation boards designed to summarize and compliment the information they have gathered. Each child will get the opportunity to present their research orally to the class before Research Morning on Thursday. We started sharing today with three of our third year students. All of the third year students will also present to the parents on Research Morning. We are all looking forward to sharing their hard work with you!

We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, February 13th with a small class party. The children may bring in valentines for each of their classmates. We have 25 students in our class. Please make sure your child has a valentine for everyone if s/he would like to participate.

Cardboard City, Cardboard, USA

Posted on by Danielle Ulacco

BON VOYAGE! Book a ticket on our latest MakerSpace tour… CARDBOARD CITY!

Our 2nd and 3rd year students have been learning how to go from 2D to 3D in the MakerSpace. It started in December where we designed 2D snowflakes on our iPads and sent them to the 3D printer. We have now gone one step further and are going from pencil and paper drawings to 4 sided buildings.

First, students decided what they individually wanted to build, for example: a clock tower, donut shop, boats, neighborhood homes, local buffet, and a church. Once they had their idea in mind, they watched their teacher draw a large rectangle, with 2 square windows and a rectangular front door on a regular piece of paper. (Insert new vocabulary here: “drawn to scale”)

Then, we placed her drawing into our laser cutter (Glowforge), scanned it, inserted cardboard and voila- her drawing was cut out on cardboard! Once the fronts of our buildings were done, we talked more about scale, measurements, and how we can take one drawing and create as many copies of it on cardboard in the Glowforge as we wanted to.

We officially started assembling our 2D creations and the amazement and gratification felt by the students brought tears to my eyes. Showing them a finished building that I had created did not hold much weight, but having their imagination come to life in their hands was truly a remarkable moment. Students stood around our Cardboard City and just enjoyed gazing and thinking of where the roads, ponds, and parks would be drawn.

Once completed, we will put our city in the front entrance of the school for all to enjoy.

Happenings and Events

Posted on by Alison Kistner
Research Morning (Elementary & Middle School Students) this Thursday, Feb. 7th – 8:30-9:30am.   It is our Montessori tradition that the Elementary & Middle School students present their research. All are welcome with a special invitation to all Kindergarten students and their parents to come and see what the Elementary has in store for you.  Shuttle buses will begin running from Sand Hill Plaza at 8:00am. No parking is available at the school.

Parent & Teacher Conferences for Toddler – 8th Grade on Thursday, February 14th.  Please refer to the email from your child’s teacher to reserve a conference slot.

No School – February 18th – President’s Day

Parent Association Meeting – Wednesday, February 20th – 8:30-9:30am. – in the Conference Room. All are welcome and encouraged to attend! Join our STEAM teachers, Ms. Danielle Ulacco and Mrs. Jen Reid, as they provide an overview of our newest program: Middle School STEAM Class. Come and learn about the innovative projects and the digital fabrication tools that our oldest students have learned to master. Creative problem solving, empathy driven directives, and unmatched teamwork are only a few of that skills that our STEAM students experience in this inclusive class. In addition, upcoming volunteer opportunities will be discussed. We hope you can join us!

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Upper Elementary: Research Preparation

Posted on by Brian Comstock

This week the students began constructing their group civilization models in class. They formed a plan last week and divided up responsibilities to bring in supplies. In the meantime for homework they are making the final touches on their slideshow presentations. This is the first year the Upper Elementary has ever presented using slideshows. Mrs. Faust and I are excited about this new format!

On Monday we had a visit from two members of the Newtown Rotary Club. They provided dictionaries for each 4th year student and explained the purpose of the Rotary Club. We learned that although they are dictionaries the books they received are sometimes referred to as gazetteers, because they provide more than just definitions.

Not only did we work on models and have visitors this week, but we also celebrated five January birthdays at our birthday breakfast on Monday. That is a record for the largest birthday breakfast so far!

Mrs. Doyle’s Class: What Exactly Is a Normalized Classroom?

Posted on by Michelle Handibode

Montessori teachers are quite familiar with the term normalization.  It is something we strive for from the moment a child first enters our classroom.  To put it simply, normalization is an inner peace achieved through the ability to focus, concentrate, and self-regulate.  The children become confident in themselves and trusting of their environment, including their teachers.  Typically, in a Montessori classroom the first half of the year is designed to help foster normalization. Then in January we begin to see the bigger picture emerge. Children are engaged in longer work cycles, have the ability to successfully and independently navigate the classroom, and are eager to learn as much as they can in their environment. Dr. Montessori believed that normalization was “the most single important result of our whole work.”  From a teacher’s point of view it is both exciting and rewarding to step back and observe, or rather feel the energy in the classroom, without the focus being on the adults present.

We look forward to sharing with you all of your child’s social, emotional and academic growth during parent/teacher conferences.  If you have not done so you can do so by clicking on the link in the email previously sent or copying and pasting the link below in your browser.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b4ca9a82da7fa7-winter1

Stay warm and have a wonderful week!

Michelle & Sonja

Mrs. Carroll’s Class: Beauty and Poetry

Posted on by Cindy Carroll

 

“We especially need imagination in science.  It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”-Maria Montessori

We have had fun exploring states of matter this month. While our younger children generally chose to observe and repeat activities and experiments, our kindergartners enjoyed making predictions before doing experiments and then testing their hypothesis. Thank you Mr. Brown and seventh year students for sharing your knowledge of science, conducting an experiment illustrating the phase change from liquid to gas, and helping us to bring our month of matter to a close.

Parent-teacher conferences are fast approaching. We look forward to seeing you all and sharing your child’s journey. If you have not yet done so please take a moment to click on the link in the email previously sent or copy and paste the link below in your browser.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0f45aeab2da4fb6-winter

Make it matter!

Cindy & Sharlene