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Basketball Fun in PE Class and After-School!

Posted on by Pam Pascarella

This month Kindergarten through Middle School students practiced and participated in the team sport of Basketball. At the Kindergarten and Lower Elementary levels, the objectives are designed to develop hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness. We practiced dribbling a ball with either hand while changing pathways, direction, and speed. We worked on passing a ball to a stationary and moving target using both a bounce and chest pass.

In addition, students had to catch a passed ball while they were stationary and in motion. We demonstrated the proper technique of pivoting while holding a ball and identified markings on the court.  Students were also given a choice to use a blue basketball which is lighter and easier to shoot into the net.  A shorter net was also used for those students not able to reach the taller nets.  The goal is to modify each sport to have students be successful.

At the Upper Elementary level, we learned to differentiate roles of offensive and defensive players and understand and use simple basketball rules. Games played are:  Dribble Knockout, Knockout, Spot Takeaway, and Steal the Bacon.  At the Middle School level, the focus is on practicing the fundamentals such as:  foul shooting, passing, lay ups, ball handling, dribbling, rebounding, defense/guarding, and footwork.

Students in grades 4th through 8th grade are encouraged join the FWM basketball team.  Practices for the Upper Elementary level are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school until 4:15 PM.  The focus is to practice the fundamentals of basketball and to go over game like situations.  The middle school practices are held during the school day from 1:55 to 2:50 PM on D, E, and F day.  All games are held after school for both groups.  The Upper Elementary has one team and the Middle School has a varsity (7/8) team and junior varsity (6/7) team.  The season for each team consists of four games played against other independent schools.

Middle School: Looking Forward

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

 

It’s a new year with so much to look forward to, but before I get to that, I must acknowledge a few items occurring before we left for winter break.

What an exciting end to 2018! Our holiday celebration and concert were great fun. Students were high energy and full of joy. Our 8th years did a great job preparing and executing our Alternative Gifts Market, which would not have been made possible without the generosity of the FWM community. The 8th years raised more than their $5,000 goal! They could not have been happier to earn that money for the charities they felt strongly about. Additionally, we want to thank the middle school students and families for our holiday gifts; your kindness is appreciated.

Jumping to this past week, all middle school students are doing research! 6th and 7th year students have completed topic proposals for their research projects surrounding the theme, Innovators and Inventions Changing the World. The proposals included their topic, what they want their audience to leave knowing, a thesis statement to use as their “north star” for the project, and questions to guide their research. We also reviewed the importance of using reliable sources, paraphrasing, and using the guided research note doc to organize notes and sources.  These projects will be incredibly diverse! Meanwhile, the 8th year students have chosen topics and written thesis statements for their expert projects.

Science was exciting this week with the Periodic Table of cupcakes! The presentation by the 7th years was well researched, clear, and interesting. They combined both scientific facts and history as well as reflected on the way they decorated and arranged the cupcakes. There was even a student dressed as Dmitri Mendeleev, one of the major contributors to the periodic table! Well done!

Also in Humanities, 6th year students began studying ancient Egypt and reading Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s, The Egypt Game. 7th year students are beginning Facing the Lion by Joseph Lemosolai Lekuton. Before we begin studying the Maasai people centered in the novel, we discussed nomadic v. urban cultures and traditional v. modern cultures. Also, we talked about the effects of Western influence and European colonization in parts of the African continent. Finally, the 8th years continued their studies and discussed the causes of the Civil War.

In math, the 6th years are finishing unit 5 in their textbooks and will soon take a cumulative test on units 1-5.  Next week they will begin working on percents.  This will include changing percents to decimals and/or fractions and back, percents greater than 100% and less than 1% and finding a percent of a number.  They will also work with percent increase and decrease. The 7th years are currently working on ratios and proportions.  They have been introduced to similar and congruent figures and learning how to find missing sides when presented with two similar figures.  Next, they will be making scale drawings before moving on to probability. The 8th years continued working on their graphing skills.  They have learned to find the slope of a line and to write the equation of a line when they know the slope and one point.  They will be introduced to writing equations for parallel and perpendicular lines and scatter plots. Their unit will culminate with graphing absolute value functions.

Finally, the middle school students started new community service groups and electives. Electives this trimester are the Rube Goldberg project, chess, and writing the middle school play. A lot of exciting and thoughtful work being done in electives this trimester!

While this post was long, the middle school teachers are excited about all of the work being done. There is so much to report this time of year!

 

Peek into 2018 Holiday Celebration

Posted on by Yun-Kyung Kim

 

We are deep into January already, but I would like to invite you to take a look back at our Holiday Celebration. From the earliest preparations to the finishing touches and the final performance, our students worked hard and harmoniously. With love and enthusiasm the children filled the gym and our hearts with song.

Ms. Kayser’s Class: A New Chapter

Posted on by skayser

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. – Melody Beattie

The holiday season came and went in a hurry and the new year has officially begun. The students came back into the classroom with such a beautiful enthusiasm, it took our breath away!

This new year has already been filled with exciting new changes! We have a new student in our classroom, Gregory, who has already made such a wonderful impact on us and our students. We are so happy to have him with us and look forward to spending the rest of the year learning beside him.

The other new addition to our classroom came in the form of a four legged friend! We are now the proud owners of a crested gecko! The children are beyond thrilled to have a new pet to take care of alongside Honey, our betta fish. The beautiful terrarium that our gecko calls home is a tranquil place for the children to explore up close. If you have time, please stop by to say hello! The children are so proud to share our new friend with anyone who comes to visit. We did a vote this week on the name of gecko and the children have ultimately decided on Sunny (Sunshine)!

On a side note, Ms. Alli and I would like to say thank you for all the thoughtful and heartwarming Christmas gifts we received before break. We are so thankful to be a part of such a loving community, and share these special moments with you all. Our gift every day is being able to teach your children, so although the gifts were appreciated, we are already spoiled!

Ms. Kayser and Ms. Alli

Mrs. Thomas: Before Winter Break

Posted on by Stephanie Thomas

Before we left for our winter break, the children explored Christmas in our environment through many works and activities.

We had a faux evergreen tree for the children to decorate with ornaments. Manipulating the fabric loops to hang on the tree was a challenge that the children truly enjoyed. In the sensory bin, magnetic wands were used to search through “snow” (white packing peanuts) to find metal jingle bells. Red, green, silver, and gold were in many practical life works. The children liked pouring, posting, peeling and sticking, and transferring with items of these colors.

Ms. Kayser’s Class: The Season of Celebrations

Posted on by skayser

“The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart” -Helen Keller

If we could view the world through the eyes of the children, our lives would be filled with so much joy and happiness. This fact is more apparent now, during the holiday season, than any other time of the year. The holidays are such a special time for us all, and sometimes it is hard to sit back and really immerse ourselves in the wonder of it all. The children have taken us back to the days where the magic of the holidays trumped everything else that was happening in our lives. Although this month is short, and there are so many events and celebrations going on in the school, we have really been able to enjoy this special time together learning about all the holiday traditions celebrated around the world.

We began our month celebrating St. Nicholas’ Day. We discussed how in other parts of the world, people celebrate different holidays during the year and this one in particular was one that is celebrated in Western Europe. We sat around our circle and shared the story of St. Nicholas and the children excitedly placed a pair of boots outside our classroom in the hopes that we would be visited by the Saint himself! I still cannot describe the beauty of how their faces lit up to the sight of the boots filled with greens and candy canes outside our classroom the following day. Moments like that are what make the hustle and bustle of the holiday season so worth it.

The next holiday we got to experience was Hanukkah. Thank you to Seth and Gia Feltman for coming in and bringing beautiful artifacts to share with the children. We sat together and learned about how Hanukkah is celebrated and then got to share a meal of latkes and applesauce. Yum!

The festivities continued this week with our Christmas celebration. Thank you to all the parents who helped provide the cookies, supplies and help for the cookie decorating! The celebration began with the story Ten Christmas Wishes. As I read the final quote from the book, I couldn’t help but stop to look around at all the beautiful children of our class. “Ten Christmas stars are shining bright, the last one is for you, So close your eyes and make a wish, May all your dreams come true!” These children are such a gift to us and our wish is for them to continue to be the kind, special individuals we have grown to love so much.

Happy Holidays,

Ms. Kayser and Ms. Alli

Middle School: Authentic Assessment and A Week in Review

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

As we wrap up our last full week of 2018, I always reflect upon my year. The other day, a student gifted me with her art project (led by the incredible Ms. Reid). It brought full-circle another reason that I choose to teach at a small, independent school: authentic assessment. While we have tests and quizzes, it is the observations and presentation of material in unconventional ways by the students that prove they are truly learning.

The painting (see photo gallery), inspired by Native American artist and member of the Navajo Nation, Shonto Begay, demonstrates the state of Indigenous Americans in our country. Begay paints beautiful landscapes with the realities of life on today’s reservations. The student’s painting does just that- in front of the serene, mountainous landscape, is a girl without facial features, symbolizing the lack of attention plaguing today’s population. Additionally, she has western clothing, showing assimilation and loss of culture due to colonization. Finally, the woman is hiding a bottle behind her back, which demonstrates the challenge of addiction that can be seen in reservations. We spent a good chunk of our fall in 8th year Humanities studying the history of the U.S. through the lens of Indigenous Americans.

This is what teaching is all about. Whether it is science, math, physical education, or the arts, when a child shows mastery of an entire unit through something other than a test, it is a complete victory. Applied knowledge across the curriculum and moments like this one are what “fill the gas tank” for a teacher.

A Week in Review:

In math, The 6th years are progressing nicely.  This week we began our investigation of proportions.  After covering rations, the class learned about unit rates and how to determine the “better buy.”  They then moved on to proportions.  Next up students will be exploring similar figures. The 7th years continue their work with fractions that include variables.  They learned how to reduce, find the greatest common factor, finding the least common multiple, adding, subtracting and multiplying using their previously acquired prime factorization skills. Finally, the 8th years have been introduced to slope, direct variation, and rate of change.  Also introduced was slope-intercept form of a linear equation (y=mx+b).  They will be using this information to draw graphs and write equations when they know two points on a line.

In science, the 6th and 8th years continued working on identifying igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Students discovered the process of how metamorphic rocks are created using heat and pressure with clay and beads while demonstrating the layers of sedimentary rock using soil samples and water. The 7th years finished their unit on the periodic table of elements and are planning for the construction of the periodic table of cupcakes.

In humanities, the 6th years were assessed in geography of the Middle East and North Africa and pondered the question, “Can modern humans know the history of a group of people who did not have writing, or can we only really know about people who kept written records of their activities and achievements?” 7th years are studying sub-Saharan Africa, and continued to explore the continent by studying South African history, particularly apartheid, and western influence in traditional cultures, beginning with Mali. Finally, the 8th years looked at the Great Compromise decided upon by the Continental Congress and resulting 3/5 Compromise that were decided upon at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Both affected people of color in our country.

The middle school teachers hope you have a lovely winter break with your families!

Creating Mandalas with Flower Petals

Posted on by Jen Reid

In this project, Middle School students used flower petals to construct mandala designs. First, students learned about the history of the mandala by looking at and discussing historical and contemporary mandala artworks. The name, mandala, comes from the Sanskrit word for circle and refers to the sense of wholeness created by circular forms. In Buddhism, mandalas represent the ideal form of the universe and are a physical representation of meditation. Next, students were given a variety of flowers and were asked to visualize ways of creating a well-balanced radial composition through arranging the flower petals into a symmetrical or asymmetrical design. Students strategized ways to complete their design by pressing the petals, using rulers, and arranging the petals before gluing down. Working with non-traditional art materials in this way allowed the students to gain a deeper understanding of working with multiple parts to create a whole. Each flower petal mandala is unique and colorful, just like the individual who created it! 🙂