Elementary Basketball Skills and Fun Games

Posted on by Gina Tryforos

This month the Lower and Upper Elementary practiced and participated in the team sport of Basketball. 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. In the Upper Elementary level, we learned to differentiate roles of offensive and defensive players and understand and use simple basketball rules. We especially enjoy the games. Games we play are: Dribble Knockout, Knockout, Spot Takeaway, and Steal the Bacon.

This month, I also started incorporating Plickers Magnets. Plickers magnet assessment is a relatively new to in the Physical Education community. Plickers magnets help students gain autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  Each student now has more control over  his or her individual road to mastery of various skills. It is a tool that allows the assessment of students’ knowledge through multiple choice questions or assessing how they felt they did in class. Plickers allows students to take ownership of their learning and creates a respectful class culture around individual differences. Every student is given a number so that they remain anonymous from one another.

 

Lions and Tigers… and MAKERS! OH MY!

Posted on by Danielle Ulacco

By no surprise at all, 2nd and 3rd year students have become masters of their making. In January, students were introduced to our green screen movie making technologies. Once they learned how to capture audio and video, and change the visual behind them. Students’ imaginations led them to riding on waves, dancing and singing alongside a superstar, interviewing their favorite celebrity, catching a football pass from Tom Brady… and even more!

These Lower Elementary Students also tried out our MakeyMakey’s this month. MakeyMakey’s are circuit boards that act as a keyboard click and/or mouse click. Once powered by a USB connection to a computer, you use alligator clips to connect the circuit board to something conductive. In class, we started with play-doh and created buttons to act as our controllers for a game.

Throughout the month, we also explored the capabilities of our Bee-Bots (programmable robots) and used them to navigate across grids while using appropriate vocabulary. We practiced picking a starting block and an ending block and solved the mazes together. On our iPads, we used the Osmo applications to build tangrams and to practice our artwork. Proudly, the 2nd and 3rd year students continued constructing beyond their heights with Kēva Planks and Construction Straws.

January also allowed for more in-depth creating of stop motion animations with story lines and voice-overs (see videos below).

2018 Winter Olympic Games!

Posted on by Pam Pascarella

 

The Extended Day, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary participated in Winter Olympic Games stations in class. The students were questioned on their knowledge as to why there are only five rings and what the colors represented. They were also asked where they Olympics were taking place and what continent that country  was located in. The students participated in the following winter Olympic Game stations: Curling, Biathlon, Speed Skating, Ice Hockey, Skeleton/Luge, Ski Jump, and Bobsled. At the end of class the students assessed which station they liked the most. The stations they most enjoyed was the bobsled and ski jump!

Lower Elementary Reading Buddies!

Posted on by Karen Sankey

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.

LE Research and the Periodic Table of Cupcakes

Posted on by Karen Sankey

The days leading up to Research Night are some of the busiest and most wonderful days of the school year. The children are focused and enthusiastic about researching the peacemakers they have chosen. Their work ranges from reading about their person with a teacher and selecting pictures for their posters to independently finding information and answering research questions which guide them into writing papers. We are all learning so much about the wonderful peacemakers who have had a positive impact on the world.

There are many benefits to the children participating in this focus on research. One is the collaboration which takes place between the older and younger students. They also get to experience intense focus for an extended period of time while they are researching. This is a great way for them to begin to become comfortable with public speaking as well. First and second-year students answer questions about their research as parents walk around and look at the posters on display and the third-year students give their first oral presentation. Students continue presenting every year, becoming comfortable and poised by the time they give their Expert Project presentation during their eighth-grade year.

We always enjoy getting together with our Middle School friends. This week, the seventh-grade students taught us about the Periodic Table of Elements and shared some delicious “periodic table cupcakes” with us.

Lower Elementary Visitors

Posted on by Karen Sankey

This week we had our first Moving Up day of the year. Third-year students spent the morning in Upper Elementary and Extended Day students spent some time with us in Lower Elementary.

Multi-age groupings are an advantage of a Montessori classroom. They give the children the opportunity to go through a cycle of being mentored, practicing mentoring, and becoming the mentor. This week our third-year students practiced being mentees and our first-year students practiced being mentors to their Extended Day friends. It was a joy to see students at both levels completely engaged and happy working with their future classmates. Our first-year students did a wonderful job planning work that was enjoyable and interesting for the Extended Day students.

We hope you will take advantage of the opportunity on Thursday evening to attend the Moving Up Information Night to learn about Upper Elementary. It is also a great time to schedule an observation. This is especially important for third-year parents, but all are welcome!

Lower Elementary – A Short and Quiet Week

Posted on by Karen Sankey

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.

Lower Elementary Kindness and Enrichment Fun

Posted on by Karen Sankey

“If education recognizes the intrinsic value of a child’s personality and provides an environment suited to spiritual growth, we have the revelation of an entirely new child whose astonishing characteristics can eventually contribute to the betterment of the world.” – Maria Montessori

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and break with your children! We are happy to be back, working hard and having fun.

Maria Montessori’s primary goal for education was to bring about a better and more peaceful world. Staying true to this goal, we spend intentional time in our classroom on kindness and caring for one another. Focusing on this now will help the children to grow into peaceful, compassionate adults. The children in our class regularly and spontaneously help their classmates in need, from helping each other with challenging work to cleaning up spilled test tube division beads.

We are fortunate to have some wonderful enrichment teachers in our school. Second and third year students are fully embracing working cooperatively in our MakerSpace. They are using their creativity and learning problem solving skills by building with hands-on materials and engaging with technology. First year students are having a great time learning about rhythm in Music class.