Makerspace Monthly Update

Posted on by Carl Frisk

As the school year winds down, these students’ journey of creativity, curiosity, and skill-building continues.

Middle schoolers built a stomp rocket launcher and then designed and built their own rockets. They used altimeters to determine the angle to the rocket’s peak height, which we then used to calculate the altitude, with the highest rocket going 72 feet high. Of course, Upper and Lower El saw this and wanted to get in on the action, so they built and launched their own rockets as well.

Kindergarteners continue to explore handwork with sewing, knitting, and weaving, but we’ve also introduced the ChompSaw cardboard cutters to give them an additional tool and skill to use going forward. They practice using it by drawing shapes with paper and then cutting them out, with the intention of doing this with cardboard in the future once they get the hang of it.

Middle school has also begun work on the stuffies they will gift to kindergarteners at the end of the year. This has involved learning how to thread and use our sewing machines, making patterns with all the necessary colors, and working out the order of construction so that the stuffies will be as cozy as possible.

The school year might be winding down, but the work in Makerspace never does! I look forward to seeing what these incredible students can make in the weeks we have left.

Physical Education Monthly Update

Posted on by dfisher

“The Woods Wall” was introduced to all PE classes last month. At the end of each class, students who exhibited good sportsmanship toward their peers are given the opportunity to toss a tennis ball into a vertical tube from a predetermined distance. Making the shot earns students their picture on “The Woods Wall.” Students from kindergarten through middle school have been enthusiastically trying to make the shot, and I look forward to “The Woods Wall” welcoming new members soon.

Middle school and upper elementary students are in the middle of a handball unit. In addition to learning the rules and strategy of handball, emphasis has been placed on teamwork, communication, and sportsmanship. The warm weather has allowed the students to play the fast-paced game both inside and outside on the turf.

A recent highlight for the lower elementary students was “Pool Noodle Relays.” Each leg of the relay requires teams to add an additional student to their noodle until all team members are holding the noodle for the final leg. Watching the students communicate and effectively work together with their teammates was awesome to see. Hearing them cheer on their peers is as good as it gets.

The kindergartners all loved playing “Take a Chance.” Each student is given a bowling pin to protect and a foam ball to throw and try to knock down their classmate’s pins. After throwing their ball, students have the option to leave their pin to retrieve another ball or continue to stand guard. When a student’s pin is knocked over, they perform a physical activity (jumping jacks, bear crawls, etc.) before standing their pin up and returning to the game.

Performing Arts!

Posted on by mkirk

These past few weeks in performing arts have been full of music, acting, and lots of dancing! All classes have been working on their new repertoire for the Spring Concert, which will be on May 23 at 5 pm! We cannot wait to share all of our music with you. Primary students have really enjoyed the acting game “magic curtain!” Students stand behind a “magic curtain,” and when the curtain rises, they become different characters and show these characters to their audience through their actions. Students have also been doing an excellent job being music detectives with tempos! Students have been having a lot of fun identifying and moving to different tempos of music. Students have been playing many musical games and learning many new songs! Two new favorites have been “Charlie Over The Ocean” and “Bluebird, Bluebird”.

In LE, students are very excited to have added another performing arts class to their weekly schedule! Once a week, the entire LE class comes to the performing arts room to work on our mini musical! Students are singing, dancing, and acting up a storm! We will present this project on May 2nd at 10 am during Grandparents and Special Friends Day! All parents are invited to join us as well! LE has also been working hard on their rhythm and pitch-matching skills. Our rhythm and pitch exercises are getting much more advanced, and the students are doing so well!

UE and Middle School students are also doing amazing work in performing arts! It is so impressive to see how hard the students are working on putting together a full-scale musical, as well as continuing to do all their work on choral music and music theory! We have been working very hard on learning all of the music, choreography, and blocking for our show, which we will be presenting for the community on May 2nd at 7 pm! Students have been hands-on in helping create sets and props as well!

March-April Spanish Class

Posted on by Liset Ray

Primary and LE: “Mi cuerpo”; UE: “La Comida”; MS: “La Universidad y Las Profesiones”, reading, comprehension, listening, and vocabulary from each topic. A general review of all we have learned to this point in this school year has been done at every level. In addition, FWM students are still working on their usual conversation, such as Spanish greetings, feelings, the calendar, and description of weather, as repetition is the key to learning another language.  They are continuously improving their Spanish understanding. Students from Primary, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, and Middle School listened carefully to Spanish books and songs and participated in interactive games that were displayed during class.

Primary and Lower Elementary students started to learn names of some parts of the human body in Spanish, the lesson is called “Mi cuerpo;”: cabeza, hombros, rodillas, pies, codo, ojos, orejas, boca y manos. Using the same type of Montessori lessons, such as three-period learning cards and matching cards to reinforce concepts, Upper Elementary Students are learning about food in Spanish “La Comida.”  They continue practicing their writing, listening, and vocabulary through activities, worksheets, and games we use in class. The children also really enjoyed singing and participating in classroom games. Spanish Montessori Lessons were presented in class and left in their classroom to be practiced during the week in addition to some worksheets.

Middle School students also continue working year-round on their Spanish greetings, description of weather, feelings, and their daily calendar that includes days of the week, months, and seasons. Students continue working on the Spanish curriculum in the “Somos” program.  They also focused on learning the verb “Querer” (want to) and its different conjugations depending on the pronoun used. They are practicing it in worksheets that include exercises focusing on listening and comprehension. We are reading short stories for youth in Spanish to enhance their vocabulary, reading, listening, and comprehension.

All the students at FWM are enjoying learning Spanish, and I am very pleased with their progress in accomplishing goals in my class.

Art: Middle School “Soundsuit” Sculptures

Posted on by Jen Reid

Throughout this trimester, Middle school students worked in the style of American contemporary artist Nick Cave to create a small-scale model of a “Soundsuit.” Cave’s Soundsuits are surreally majestic objects layered with meaning, blending fashion and sculpture. Cave uses found objects, craft materials, and traditional processes such as crochet and beading to adorn his sculptures: his work has been described as “metaphorical armor.” The use of found objects introduces elements of nostalgia, and his subject matter is related to the Black experience. Many of his pieces are used in choreographed performances, and their resulting sounds when in motion become part of the work. 

Each middle school student was given a blank plaster figure to construct their Soundsuit on. Beginning with sketches and finding inspiration through collecting materials, students altered their armatures by adding wire, sewing fabrics on, or gluing materials onto the figure to build volume and visual interest. The results are looking wildly complex and imaginative. I want to thank Mrs. Sara Hunsucker for providing us with the handmade plaster figures, as well as co-teaching this lesson with me!

Physical Education Monthly Update

Posted on by dfisher

Despite the temps being frigid outside, the students have been keeping plenty warm and active in the gym engaging in various games and activities. 

The kindergartners continue to work on moving safely around one another and remaining in control during physical activity. One recent activity that helped hone these skills was “Line Tag” where students are tasked with evading taggers while navigating around the gym jogging only on the marked lines on the floor. Watching the students’ faces light up as they do their best to avoid taggers while remaining in control on the lines was awesome to see. 

Lower elementary students have been working on improving their sportsmanship and communication. A recent highlight was “Wolves Den,” which asks students to sneak around behind the back of one of their classmates (the wolf), and then freeze when the wolf turns around. If the wolf says they saw one of their classmates moving, that student goes back to the start and tries again. Witnessing the students change their strategy after having to restart was wonderful to watch. 

Upper elementary students came together to tackle “Mission Impossible.” Students were given a bucket of items to use while making their way from one end of the gym to the other without touching the floor. They were required to use all of the equipment in the bucket while ensuring everyone made it across. Seeing the class work together to find creative ways to use the equipment while adopting a no-student-left-behind mentality made the activity a highlight. 

Similarly, middle school students were recently challenged by a team building activity titled “Hoop It Up.” The activity asks students to work in pairs to lift hula hoops off of the gym floor and back to their home base. Students are only permitted to lift and transport the hula hoops using the two jump ropes each team is given. Teamwork is required to wedge the jump ropes under the hoops and balance them as pairs walk back to their home base. It was inspiring to watch the class cheer one another on as they carefully balanced the hula hoops.

Spanish Class-February

Posted on by Liset Ray

Primary and LE: “Los meses del año”, “Las Estaciones” y “El Clima”; UE: “La ropa”, “Los Números del 1 al 100” y “Que Hora es”; MS: Unit 3 “El Canal De Panamá”. In addition, FWM Middle School students started a research project presentation “Remarkable Person from the Hispanic Community” and learn more about these successful people and their impact in society.

FWM students kept working on their usual conversations about feelings, Spanish greetings, the calendar and description of weather. They are continuously improving their Spanish listening, comprehension, vocabulary and pronunciation. Students from Primary, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary and Middle School listened carefully to Spanish books, songs and participated in interactive games that were displayed during class.

This month, Primary students focused on “Los Meses del Año”,” Las Estaciones” y “El Clima”. Students practiced new vocabulary through Spanish Montessori lessons that were left in the language shelves of each class for the students to practice for the entire week.

Lower Elementary students also learned “Los Meses del Año”,” Las estaciones” y “El Clima”” through Spanish Montessori Lessons and supported by Spanish level appropriate classwork sheets displayed during class.

Upper Elementary Students put in hard work, reviewing and learning more about the numbers from 1 to 100. Following this unit, UE students worked in “Que hora es?”/What time it is?  In this unit students learned how to tell the time in Spanish and, they practiced reading analog clocks to tell the time. These lessons were supported by a classwork giving them the opportunity to practice the new lesson learned.

Middle Schoolers learned about “El Canal de Panama”. This chapter generated a lot of interest in MS students, because they learned the importance and many interesting facts about the canal, such as when it was built, its importance for the world economy and mainly how it works. In this chapter students learned how the Canal works and where it is located. Also, middle schoolers in kept learning more vocabulary through songs and games. Also, they kept practicing their reading and comprehension. Middle school students are practicing a lot of reading comprehension, writing, and listening, through the units of the new curriculum. This month MS students started their “Remarkable Person from the Hispanic Community” presentation, where students chose a person of their interest, did research, and summarized it in a 5 minute class presentation.

All the students at FWM are enjoying and leaning Spanish and I am very pleased with their progress accomplishing goals in my class.

Performing Arts!

Posted on by mkirk

It has been another wonderful few weeks of singing, dancing, acting, and music-making in the performing arts room!

At the primary level, students continue to develop their musical ears through pitch-matching activities and games. Students are really enjoying the circle game, Charlie Over the Ocean! This is a call-and-response song and game which allows the students to work on their pitch-matching skills. Students also really enjoy using their imaginations to create circle stories as a class. Another drama game that the students have been really enjoying is Statue! Using only our bodies and our facial expressions, students create statues when different emotions are called out. The primary students are great little actors! Using our sweet beats song, students also create a measure of music in 4/4 time using quarter notes and eighth notes. Primary students are also very excited about all of the new music and dances we have been learning in class!

Lower Elementary students have been focusing on their rhythm skills! Students are sight-reading many different rhythm exercises using quarter notes, quarter rests, and eighth notes. Students also continue to develop their musical ear using Solfe. The Lower Elementary students are super excited about a new project that we have begun as well! We will be doing a mini-musical in the spring! All of the students have been starting to work on their characters, songs, and lines from an adaptation of the Aristocat. This project is super exciting since students are learning all of the aspects of putting together a show, such as choreography, blocking, character work, voice work, and much more!

In Upper Elementary, students had their final performance of the Reader’s Theater project! I could not be more proud of each and every one of the students for their hard work! We used this Reader’s Theater project to work on character building and proper vocal technique when speaking in a performance. Students also created their own costumes! Upper Elementary students have been working hard on their vocal skills. They are focusing on breath support and vowel placement as we are working on a lot of new repertoire in class. Students are also super excited to begin working on our spring musical, Finding Nemo Junior, which they will be performing with the Middle School.

Middle School students had an extremely busy few weeks! I was so impressed with the quality of work the middle school students put into their play! They did an absolutely fabulous job writing the script, creating characters, creating props and sets, and putting a whole show together in two weeks! Working on acting skills with the Middle School was amazing! The students used all of the techniques we have been learning in our drama portion of performing arts to develop their characters and bring this show to life! Students in Middle School have also been learning new repertoires, working on their vocal strength through proper vocal technique, and developing their musicianship through site reading and listening activities. Each student also had the opportunity to audition for the Middle School play Finding Nemo Junior! All of the students are super excited about this new project!