This week we began a very special relationship with Grady and Rex from Newtown Strong Therapy Dogs. They will be our reading buddies every Tuesday morning. Our new friends will visit us for one hour every week and the children will take turns reading to them. Each week a new set of children will read to the dogs.

We are all very excited about this opportunity! Reading to dogs has many benefits. It gives the children an opportunity to practice reading and allows them to gain confidence and fluency. It has many emotional and social benefits as well. Being with the dogs can be calming, reduce stress, bring comfort, and increase kindness and empathy.

This Tuesday, the children greeted Grady and Rex with joy and enthusiasm. About a third of the class got a turn reading this week. It was a truly special time and we are looking forward to their return on February 27th.

While our third-year friends are out of the room this week, taking part in the ERB standardized test during the work cycle, we have a smaller group left in the room. During this time, the students have been enjoying working independently and with their classmates  on a variety of work, including the Cosmic Mat, the animal Who Am I cards, and Reading Comprehension.

Continuing with our study of Units of Time, we have started learning about personal time lines. We have discussed different cycles of time, such as days, weeks, months, years, seasons, decades, and centuries. This week we made a Family Graph of our class in random order using our ages. We will continue by putting our next graph in chronological order. The children were amazed to see how long their teachers’ columns were. Some even thought that one of them wasn’t going to fit inside our circle.

The children were inspired by the book Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport, which we read at the beginning of the week. They are enthusiastic about researching peacemakers of the world and many are already asking to start writing their papers. We are looking forward to all of the wonderful, focused research that is about to happen!

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

We had lots of fun at recess after last weekend’s snow! The children had a blast sledding on our playground with the sleds Miss Ryerson brought in. They took turns and worked together, going down the hill two at a time.

We are happily hard at work not only on our academics, but also preparing for a wonderful Holiday Celebration. The children’s voices sound beautiful. We are looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday morning.

The children are doing a wonderful job leading by example. This is something we have been working on and discussing as a group. One of the ways they help each other quiet down is by making a coyote symbol with their fingers. This means “the coyote is listening” and is a gentle reminder that it is time to use a quiet voice.

 

“But those children who have been able to work with their hands make headway in their development, and reach a strength of character which is conspicuous.” -Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Maria Montessori believed that when children do meaningful work they achieve self-satisfaction. Part of our meaningful work is the care of our classroom. Each week students select the classroom jobs they will have for the week. Participating in the care of our classroom is real work with a practical aim. Doing this Practical Life work helps the children to develop inner discipline, a feeling of self-worth, and an understanding of what work is. The children feel the satisfaction from completing a meaningful task and a sense of ownership in their classroom. Some of our daily and weekly jobs are: taking care of Rocky (our leopard gecko) and Fraser, vacuuming, dusting, emptying the trash, rolling the rugs, cleaning the tables, setting the tables, and organizing the books in our classroom library. Before starting our weekly jobs this week, older children gave younger children advice about how to complete their tasks efficiently. Children whose jobs for the week had already been completed offered to help their classmates. When the bell was rung letting the children know time was up for jobs, many wanted to continue working.

We also place a great emphasis on meaningful academic work for each child. During their work cycle, which is two to three hours long, the children are able to plan the work which is worthwhile and appropriate for them. This creates a feeling of ownership and focus within the children.

 

 

The children enjoyed baking bread to share with their Lower School, Upper Elementary, and Middle School friends at our Thanksgiving Celebration. Thank you Margaret, Kianna, and Eric for volunteering your time to help them. We had a beautiful ceremony last Wednesday. We started by calling forth the elements of air, fire, water, and Earth with a poem read by a Middle School student. We sang a song together as a school and then Upper Elementary told the history of Thanksgiving. Next, each level, Lower School through Middle School, shared what they are thankful for and Middle School shared eight prayers of thanks in different languages representing the many different cultures that make up our community. We ended with the sharing of bread. This ceremony is a meaningful tradition for Fraser Woods.

Third year students told the story of the creation of the universe to the second and first year students. Throughout the story, they performed demonstrations which illustrated the different scientific concepts in the lesson. The third years worked hard, practicing their parts, in the weeks leading up to the lesson. Telling the creation story has become a rite of passage for our third year students.

First year students practiced partner reading during Reader’s Workshop. Examples of respectful partner reading were modeled during the mini-lesson and then the children practiced with their peers. They were able to decide together which books to read, respectfully share the book with their partners, and help each other figure out challenging words.

Second year students learned about measuring angles with the Montessori Protractor. This material is a complete 360°. Students have learned the history of why the circle has 360° in a previous lesson about the Babylonians. They will learn to put angle inset pieces into the Montessori Protractor to measure, add, multiply, subtract, and divide angles. Later they will transition to the standard protractor.