Blog

Middle School: Tying up the Trimester

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

Happy Friday! Another full week of middle school has come and gone. Trimester 1 has come to a close, and we will embrace new goals and lessons as we finish 2018. This week, we were lucky to have Officer Felicia from the Newtown Police Department visit with K-9, Aris, a sprightly, 2-year old German Shepherd. Demonstrations in apprehension and nosework were given as well as information on the process of acquiring and training a K-9 police dog. It is clear that the bond between Officer Felicia and her partner, Aris, is unbreakable.

This week in Humanities, 6th years began their unit on the Middle East and North Africa. They looked at the geography of the regions and began studying Mesopotamia. 7th years began their unit on Sub-Saharan Africa, also looking at the geography of the region including human geography and natural resources. 8th years began their unit on Black America, studying the origins of slavery in the colonies and the forming of classes with early legislation supporting both.

Math classes remained busy this week. The 8th years  just finished unit four, an introduction to functions.  The students learned how to represent functions using tables, equations, and graphs. They also learned how to find terms in arithmetic sequences. They will continue their work with linear functions as we begin unit five, which starts with slope and direct variation. 7th years also finished unit four covering factors, fractions and exponents. Students learned factoring monomials, finding common factors and common multiples, simplifying and comparing fractions, multiplying and dividing powers, and finally writing numbers in scientific notation. It was a full chapter! Next, they will begin chapter 5 learning rational numbers and equations. 6th years  have also completed unit four, covering equations and inequalities. The students learned how to solve one and two-step equations, and one and two-step inequalities. Unit four also included the graphing of inequalities. Next up are ratios, rates, and proportions!
In Science, 6th & 8th year students are working on identifying the formation of crystal structures based on the cooling process of magma. The seventh years are continuing their work and investigations on the periodic table of elements. Students are discovering how the arrangement of the periodic table of elements has come to be.
Enjoy the weekend!
**Two notes to parents: Please send your child/children in with water bottles for their daily drinks. We are trying not to use plastic, disposable cups in the classroom. 
Secondly, it is getting cold outside! Please make sure students come in with winter jackets and clothing that covers the legs. 
Thank you for your attention to this!

Laser Cutting in 2nd Grade

Posted on by Danielle Ulacco

 

Students in 2nd grade received a lesson today on positive space and negative space. Our in-house laser cutter, The Glowforge, has an awesome feature called tracing. What this means is this: you can turn a drawing into a physical object!

 

Steps;
1. Create a drawing or sketch on paper using a black marker *CONTRAST IS IMPORTANT*

2. Place the drawing inside the Glowforge laser cutter

3. Choose Trace on the web based software (this takes a picture of your sketch)

4. Choose the negative space that you want to cut away

5. Remove drawing from Glowforge and replace with material- in this case we choose Draftwood, which is easy to paint and color.

6. Press the glowing button on the machine

7. Watch and wait!

 

The lesson we started with was to create our names as solid pieces. One student also created an illustration which I scaled down and cut AND engraved. I can’t wait to see what these makers do next!

Mrs. Carroll’s Class: A Sea of Rugs

Posted on by Cindy Carroll

 

The love of ones environment is the secret of social evolution.-Maria Montessori

Retrieving a mat, picking it up carefully, finding the ideal space to work, and rolling it out provides an opportunity to practice gross motor skills and body consciousness. Everything that gets placed on the mat thereafter becomes the responsibility (and privilege) of the child working on that mat.

Montessori work mats delineate a work space as the child’s own and sets an intention to “work”.  Not only does the child know that their lesson is exclusive to them (unless they invite someone to join them on their mat), they also have the responsibility to put their materials away when they are finished before they roll up their mat, and signal the end of their work session.

Our floors have been a sea of rugs!  Your children are skillfully maneuvering themselves throughout the environment, careful not to disturb a friend’s work.  I continue to be amazed at their growing control and respect for both friends and the environment.

Until next week,

Cindy & Sharlene

Ms. Kayser’s Class: Thankful

Posted on by skayser

This month has been filled with so many amazing experiences! From the visiting firefighters, to our STARlab field trip, and Thanksgiving just last week, it has been non stop excitement. The most amazing part of all this is that your children still had the most beautiful focus and drive within the classroom. Although there were so many other things going on, they still were able to come into our quiet sanctuary and get lost within the works on the shelves. They are continuing to grow each and every day and are proving, now more than ever, that their curiosity and love for learning is able to persevere through the excitement happening around them!

In the classroom this month we have been studying North America in geography! The children absolutely adore learning about the continent that they live on, and are eager to explore everything there is to know about it. We have been learning about the people of North America, the animals that inhabit North America, and even got to weave our own Native American rugs! Mrs. Reid taught the children the history behind rug weaving and then gave the children the opportunity to create their own; it was a beautifully done project that had the children completely absorbed!

On another note, we hope that you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week. It is such a blessed time because  it gives us a chance to sit back and really think about the things in our lives that we are thankful for. Ms. Alli and I agree that, aside from being thankful for our families and friends, we are truly so thankful to have each and every one of your children in our lives. We took time in class to talk to the children about what they are thankful for before our Thanksgiving celebration and wrote them on their turkey headbands! We hope you enjoyed them as much as we did, some definitely put a huge smile on our faces!

All the best,

Ms. Kayser and Ms. Alli

Fun Holiday Warm-Up Games & Floor Hockey

Posted on by Pam Pascarella

 

In Physical Education class, students participate in warm-up games prior to the class activities.  Warm-up games this month were:  “Pluck the Turkey,” “Happy Thanksgiving,” “Happy Holidays,” and “Grinch Tag.” In the game “Pluck the Turkey,” students try to pluck as many turkey tails as they can.  If a tail is plucked, the student can come see Mrs. Pascarella for another tail.   In the game “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Happy Holidays” students have to pick a food or object that is associated with that holiday.  Students line up on one end of the gym and one tagger is in the middle.   For example, when the tagger (the caller) calls out “are there any turkeys?”  Those that chose to be turkeys would then try to run to the other side of the gym without getting tagged.  If tagged, he or she will join the tagger in the middle.  The game goes on until there are one or two students left that have not been tagged.  In “Grinch Tag,” all run around as elves preparing gifts for the holidays.  The Grinch is holding a green ball and tries to tag the elves with the ball and stop them from making presents.  Two students (Mr. and Mrs Claus) are holding a red ball and help the elves that are frozen to get back into the game and start running again.  In The purpose of these warm-up games are for students to work on their cardiovascular endurance, loco-motor skills, and prepare their bodies for activity so that they are less prone to injury.

Students in Kindergarten through fifth grade started a floor hockey unit this month.  The Floor hockey skills of dribbling, passing, and shooting were introduced.  To practice dribbling, we engage in an activity called “Walk Your Dog,”  Dribble Knockout, Dribble Relay, Keep-away, Knock the Pin, Steal the Bacon, and Sideline Hockey.  We practice these hockey skills in order to help students develop hand-eye coordination, agility, balance, and group cooperation.  At the end of each class, students participated in sideline hockey.  Sideline hockey is a game where only two to three students from each team come out to the court while the rest of their teammates are on the sideline and can help make passes.  Small sided games allows for students to be more actively participating in team games.

Upper Elementary: Thankful

Posted on by Brian Comstock

 

We had a great week last week beginning with bread making. The students chose to make chocolate, banana, and coffee cake. They shared responsibilities within their groups to read, measure, and mix the ingredients. On Wednesday, we enjoyed the bread and many more breads from other classrooms during the school wide Thanksgiving celebration. This week we welcomed our new mascots to the classroom. The black footed ferrets were named Shadow and Mittens. Each weekend a student will bring home a journal to write about their weekend with the mascots and share on circle the following Monday. Do not worry, the mascots are stuffed animals. We celebrated Mrs. Faust’s birthday on Tuesday and she was very appreciative of the kind notes, cards, words, and breakfast.

Mrs. Thomas: Thanksgiving Celebration!

Posted on by Stephanie Thomas

Thank you all for your kind donations of the apple bread ingredients! Your generosity made it so easy for Lisa and Elle to get right to work with the children.

Lisa and Elle made two batches with the children so that all who were interested had the opportunity to pour and mix the ingredients.

As we did last year, we invited our Community Service Volunteers to break bread with us in our room the day before Thanksgiving. Everyone had a wonderful time sharing their homemade apple bread with their friends!

We hope you all had a terrific Thanksgiving with your family and friends!

Changing the future with an Hour of Code

Posted on by Danielle Ulacco

We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly depend on understanding how technology works. Our MakerSpace provides each student at FWM with the opportunity to try new things, take risks, and develop their overall understandings of technology in our 21st century world.

Did you know that only a tiny fraction of students in the United States are learning how technology works? In America, only 35% of all high schools teach computer science. FWM is drastically different in this respect- we start teaching coding and programming concepts in kindergarten.

This week starts one of the largest student learning events in history: The Hour of Code, which takes place during Computer Science Education Week (December 3-9). Our students, will be participating in the websites and activities that have been made free and available to all students. Your child received a username and password to log in, and they were invited to take it home to continue. Please join your student in learning how to code and support Computer Science Education this week! (Even though we do it every day at FWM!)