Blog

Ms. Handibode’s Happenings: First Stop, North America!

Posted on by Michelle Handibode

 

These last few weeks have been a particularly busy and exciting time for our class. We have traveled through space, explored the eight planets, discovered that the sun is a star, and rocketed back to planet Earth. We are now exploring the first of seven continents, North America.  You may hear your children call it the orange continent. This is because, on the Montessori globe and map, North America is indeed orange. We will continue to explore the animals native to our continent, map North America’s countries, examine topography, and study how a continent’s proximity to the equator impacts its climate.

The Montessori cultural studies curriculum provides children with an opportunity to explore the whole world, including the continents, countries, people, animals, terrain, music, and arts. Children use didactic Montessori materials to familiarize themselves with the needs of all humans for such things as food, housing, and clothing. This early cultural awareness helps cultivate independent, joyful citizens of our world.

We were so excited to have the Botsford Fire Department return to FWM to teach us all about fire safety.  The children asked very thoughtful and intelligent questions and had a great time learning about what to do in a fire, the equipment firefighters use and even got to spend some time on a fire truck.

Wishing you a week filled with peace and love.

Michelle & Maria

Mrs. Lopes: A Look at Our Week

Posted on by Amanda Lopes

These last few weeks have been a particularly busy and exciting time with your children. We have traveled through space, explored the eight planets, discovered that the sun is a star, and rocketed back to planet Earth. We are now exploring the first of seven continents, North America.  You may hear your children call it the orange continent. This is because, on the Montessori globe and map, North America is indeed orange. We will continue to explore the animals native to our continent, map North America’s countries, examine topography, and study how a continent’s proximity to the equator impacts its climate.

The Montessori cultural studies curriculum provides children with an opportunity to explore the whole world, including the continents, countries, people, animals, terrain, music, and arts. Children use didactic Montessori materials to familiarize themselves with the needs of all humans for such things as food, housing, and clothing. This early cultural awareness helps cultivate independent, joyful citizens of our world.

We were so excited to have the Botsford Fire Department return to FWM to teach us all about fire safety.  The firefighter demonstrated to the children what to do in a fire, showed them the equipment the firefighters use, and each child had the opportunity to spend some time in the fire truck.

Wishing you a week filled with peace and love.

Amanda & Hema

Lower Elementary: Building Community in Action!

Posted on by Ashley O'Connell

In our Lower Elementary class, we have weekly class meetings where students get to problem-solve together as a team. These meetings are all about making sure everyone feels heard, tackling problems as a group, and coming up with solutions that we all can get behind. When kids are part of the process, they’re way more likely to stick to the rules they’ve helped create!

What Happens During Class Meetings?

  1. Compliments and Appreciations
    We kick things off with five minutes of gratitude. Everyone gets a chance to share something positive, like a compliment or a thank you. It’s the best way to start on a happy note!
  2. Review a Past Problem
    The secretary (one of our student roles!) reads out a problem and solution from a past meeting. We have a quick chat to see if our fix is working or needs tweaking.
  3. Brainstorming Time
    Got a new issue? Bring it up! The person who added it to the agenda explains the problem, and then we all brainstorm possible solutions. After the brainstorming process, we vote on the solution we think will solve the problem the best.
  4. Connection Activity
    To wrap things up, we end on a fun note—telling jokes, riddles, or solving quick mysteries together.

Meeting Jobs

To keep things running smoothly, everyone has a part to play:

  • Facilitator (that’s me!): I keep the meeting on track and make sure everyone gets to share respectfully.
  • Time Keeper (student job): Keeps us on schedule and lets us know when it’s time to move on.
  • Scribe (that’s me again!): I jot down all the brainstormed ideas on the board.
  • Secretary (student job): Writes down the problem and solution in our Class Meeting notebook—a permanent record that anyone can check out anytime.

These meetings are such an awesome way for kids to build real-world skills like problem-solving, teamwork, and decision-making. Plus, they’re just fun!

Mrs. Sargeant: A Peek at the Week

Posted on by Christine Sargeant

These last few weeks have been a particularly busy and exciting time with your children. We have traveled through space, explored the eight planets, discovered that the sun is a star, and rocketed back to planet Earth. We are now exploring the first of seven continents, North America.  You may hear your children call it the orange continent. This is because, on the Montessori globe and map, North America is indeed orange. We will continue to explore the animals native to our continent, map North America’s countries, examine topography, and study how a continent’s proximity to the equator impacts its climate.

The Montessori cultural studies curriculum provides children with an opportunity to explore the whole world, including the continents, countries, people, animals, terrain, music, and arts. Children use didactic Montessori materials to familiarize themselves with the needs of all humans for such things as food, housing, and clothing. This early cultural awareness helps cultivate independent, joyful citizens of our world.

We were so excited to have the Botsford Fire Department return to FWM to teach us all about fire safety.  The firefighter demonstrated to the children what to do in a fire, showed them the equipment the firefighters use, and each child had the opportunity to spend some time in the fire truck. The children (4 to 6 year olds) wrote thank you notes to the Fire Department, which Ms. Ildi hand-delivered.

We’re also very grateful to Ivy’s Mom for coming in to bake a gluten-free pumpkin bread, which was quite tasty. The children enjoyed the experience and were thrilled to share our bread with the entire FWM community at the Thanksgiving ceremony. Even though Thanksgiving has passed, we will continue to foster a sense of gratitude all year long.

Wishing your families a wonderful week,

Christine & Fatima

Mrs Wilson: Hello December!

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

Hello December!

This month, the children will dive into exploring the various holidays celebrated during this festive season, including Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. We’ll see vibrant colors like blue, silver, red, and green, along with festive objects such as gelt, dreidels, a menorah, decorations for the tree, bells, and gingerbread men. My goal is to encompass all these holidays so that every child feels included and gets a glimpse into how others celebrate, fostering a sense of belonging in their environment.

This week, I started giving lessons at the art easel. In the toddler program, art focuses on the process rather than the product.

We also celebrated a friend’s third birthday! Happy Birthday to our friend.

For our food tasting, we tried the super sour and juicy lemon. Enjoy looking at the puckered faces!

Love and Light,

Cynthia and Sara

Ms. Marissa: Weekly Update

Posted on by Marissa Frisk

This week a new friend joined our class! The children welcomed her with open arms, showed her around the classroom, gave her lessons on new work, and were great role models in general.

The weather brought a lot of excitement – a Kindergarten student gave us a lesson on how to put snow gear on in the correct order. Snow pants, boots, jacket, hat, and gloves! After watching the lesson, we all gave putting our own snow gear on a try. So many children were able to dress themselves, and most others only needed a small amount of help. Encourage independence at home – the children are so capable! Sometimes, we say, “I can help with my words,” if we think they need a little “sportscasting,” and then sometimes, we, of course, just go ahead and help if a child truly needs it.

We introduced the children to the tradition of St. Nicholas and read a book about his history. We left a pair of empty boots in the hallway, and the next morning, we were surprised with boots filled with candy canes!

Next week, we look forward to hearing about Christmas and Hanukkah.

Have a lovely weekend,

Marissa & Sue

Ms. Mollie: Hello December!

Posted on by Mollie Smith

This start to December has been absolutely lovely……but mostly filled with SNOW! What an absolutely amazing experience it is for the children to get to experience snow, to feel it, to smell it, and to play in it! We have had so much fun going outside to play, and while that has been a favorite, our daily classroom walk, no matter the weather, has been what the children have been asking for.  Being outside with the children brings them a sense of calm and peace that only the winter months can give. December has been amazing for helping us prepare for the holiday celebrations that will soon be celebrated. 

Each day, the children learn about what makes each holiday special; we are using so many new words to keep up with our ever-growing language. The children are strengthening their hands and bodies with work that challenges them and helps them practice those refinement skills. The children are curious and love learning about the new cultures and traditions. The energy and excitement for this season are truly special, it’s a joy to share with your children!

With Full Hearts, 

Ms. Mollie and Ms. Lizette

Middle School: Week in Review

Posted on by Michelle Lamb

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Prior to the break, the school came together for a celebration led by the Middle School. The program included the presentation of the elements, class gratitudes, singing “Light a Candle for Peace,” cultural blessings, and sharing bread. It was a wonderful way to send us off for the long holiday weekend.

This week brought the first glimpse of snow for most of us. Middle School students enjoyed being outdoors, especially throwing snowballs. Students are welcome to bring in snow gear whenever we have snow so they can enjoy being outside. We suggest all students have a spare set of gloves left in their lockers for the spur-of-the-moment snowball fight.

Here’s what went on in classes this week:

6th-grade Humanities continued working on their class novel, Out of My Mind. Students had smaller group discussions, which they led themselves, and participated in large group discussions surrounding the assigned chapters. They will continue in the book next week. The 6th grade also worked on writing this week. The class completed editing practice, continued conferences with Mrs. Lamb, and began their longer December writing assignment based on a few prompt choices. One of the choices, to write a persuasive letter to Mrs. Lamb with a plan for the Middle School trip, was a favorite choice. The students are still working on them and will read aloud once completed.

The 7th-grade Humanities class is devouring the book The Giver by Lois Lowry and, with it, discussing the notion of Utopia. This fictional dystopian novel sparked a conversation about what is not perfect, what might be perfect, and what would need to be perfect in order to make Earth a utopian place to live. Students are almost finished drafting pieces that speak to this idea. Next, students will imagine their own Utopia in an interesting group project called The Community Project.

The 8th-grade Humanities class completed their first novel, If I Ever Get Out of Here, by Eric Gansworth. In the end, the themes of friendship, loyalty, belonging, and growing up stood out among students. They led discussions this week using questions they developed. Additionally, the 8th grade workshopped their thesis statements for their “Reimagining History” essay. They will spend next week researching and drafting.

Separately, the 8th grade worked in Leadership to create more of the Fraser Woods annual ornaments that they will sell at the pop-up shop before the winter concert. They also tried to finalize the design for their latest item, a charcuterie board.

Math

Pre-Transition: This week, the class dove right into Chapter 4, “Using Subtraction.” Students learned all about three different models for subtraction: the takeaway model, the slide model, and the comparison model. They also used fact triangles to find related facts for addition and subtraction. The class closed out the week by taking the Chapter 4 quiz.

Transition: This week, the class began Chapter 5, “Patterns Leading to Addition and Subtraction.” They applied properties of addition and subtraction to simplify expressions, learned rules for adding positive and negative numbers, discovered how to calculate the absolute value of a number, and used fact triangles to depict relationships between numbers. The class wrapped their week by taking the Chapter 5 quiz.
 
Algebra: This week, Algebra students jumped head first into Chapter 5, “Division and Proportions in Algebra.” They came up with definitions for algebra and fractions and put them together to discover what an algebraic fraction is. Then, the class practiced multiplying, dividing, and simplifying algebraic fractions. They concluded their week by taking the Chapter 5 quiz.
 
Geometry: This week, students started Chapter 5, “Proofs in Congruence.” They discovered how to justify conclusions about congruent figures, identified and determined measures of parts of congruent figures, and practiced making one-step proofs. Students took the Chapter 5 quiz on Friday.

Science
6th grade:
Students began the week by making their very own fossil casts.  Students made salt dough and used objects around the room to simulate how casts are made.  Everyone had a blast, and learning took place during the process.  The latter part of the week focused on plate tectonics.  Students were introduced to the topic using our techbook and then the topic was reinforced with a partnered webquest.  It was a great first week back from Thanksgiving break!
7th grade:
This week started off discussing states of matter.  The class talked about how matter changes from one state to another, and we learned the proper vocabulary terms for each.  Students then moved on to discuss the properties of each state of matter and how the molecules move in each state.  This brought us to define the difference between atoms and molecules and led to the class’ first look at the periodic table.  Friday’s class ended with an introduction to An Interesting Molecule project, which we will work on next week as well.  Be sure to ask your student which molecule they are choosing to research!
8th grade:
This week focused on photosynthesis and cellular respiration, the processes that sustain life on Earth.  The class analyzed the equation of each reaction and was able to see how each relied on the other as a singular cyclical event.  The week ended with students researching experiments to show the relationship between photosynthesis and cellular respiration.  Next week, students will design and execute their own experiments to show how this cyclic relationship ensures a constant exchange of gases and energy between living organisms and the environment.
We hope you had a wonderful weekend!