“Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.” -Maria Montessori

After three months of gathering information, interviewing family members, and writing research papers, the Autobiography Project is complete! Upper El students did an amazing job preparing and presenting their projects this week. They all seem to feel a real sense of accomplishment, seeing everything come together after so much focused work. They should all be very proud of themselves. As I watched each presentation, I noticed there was such a sense of joy among the students. We all enjoyed learning more about each other throughout this process. I hope you relished the opportunity this project provided to make connections and share details of your family’s history with your child. I am working on editing the video of presentations and will share it with you this weekend.

Please check your email for information about our overnight field trip to Nature’s Classroom coming up on May 24th through 26th. There are important documents to be filled out and returned to school which are coming home with students today.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Karen

We had a full week of putting the finishing touches on autobiographies. We will wrap up the editing and practice presentations at the beginning of next week and will be ready to record starting on Wednesday. I will send an email next week confirming the day each student will be presenting. They should plan on dressing in nice clothes for their presentation.

We were happy to welcome a new fifth grade friend to our class this week and would like to extend a warm “Welcome back!” to the Krueger family!

Thank you very much for your donations to our Brian Bags for The Brian O’Connell Homeless Project! The project’s website says, “We want to improve the world for everyone. We want to make life easier for those that are homeless by helping provide them with food and services. Our mission is to pass on aid in the name of Brian O’Connell who passed away while homeless. Everyone deserves access to basic necessities of life.” We spent our morning assembling twenty bags for the Project. The joy with which your children spend volunteering their time is inspirational, as always.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Karen

“As we observe children, we see the vitality of their spirit, the maximum effort put forth in all they do, the intuition, attention and focus they bring to all life’s events, and the sheer joy they experience in living.” -Maria Montessori

It has been a fun and busy week of wrapping loose ends up before break. We had lots of individual lessons, collaborative work,  and enjoyed a wonderful research presentation on the Amazon.

As we get ready to present autobiographies after we return from March break, the excitement in the classroom is building. During the last week of March, we will devote our work cycles to editing and finalizing papers and presentations, and recording. If students are not yet finished with papers, they will need to work on them over break. I am available during break to answer any questions and provide any needed help. I will be reading and editing  students’ docs over the next two weeks. I look forward to sharing the presentations with you at the end of our first week back!

I hope you all are able to spend some enjoyable and restful time with your beautiful children over the next two weeks!

This week we were excited to return to our in-person Monday morning meeting with Lower Elementary and Middle School. The eighth graders run the meeting and present current news and events at FWM and in the larger global community. The elementary students love this tradition and were very happy to be able to reconnect – spaced appropriately – with their older and younger peers.

Our recording of autobiography presentations is coming up. We will start recording presentations of those who are ready next week and will send the recording out to parents as soon as all are completed. If your child will not be ready to complete their paper by next week, please reach out so I can support you. I hope to be able to send the video by next Friday but I understand some may need a little more time to connect with extended family.

I have been in touch with Nature’s Classroom in Charlton, Massachusetts and our reservation for our overnight field trip is set! Our trip will be from the morning of May 24th to the afternoon of May 26th. Once we have received the cost from Nature’s Classroom and the bus company, I will send an email with details about cost, activities, packing list, and information. This is always a great trip for the students who go and, in addition to all of the wonderful experiences planned during Nature’s Classroom, even deeper bonds are formed between students during the trip. I will plan an informational meeting after we receive the paperwork from Nature’s Classroom.

We had a great time outdoors in the mild weather this week. (Please continue to send boots, even on warm days. Our outdoor spaces get quite muddy.)

We continued our math work with fractions and decimals this week. Students focused on a range of lessons, including equivalent fractions, adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators, multiplying fractions by whole numbers, dividing whole numbers by decimals with a remainder.

Our biology lessons this week focused on the vital function of nutrition in animals. We began with an impressionistic lesson with “Sock.” Using Sock, we explored several stages in which food is processed: ingestion, digestion, egestion, and excretion. Our second lesson focused on comparing the anatomy of the 14 different types of animals on our evolutionary strip, from porifera to mammals. Follow-up work consisted of students working with both sets of materials, practicing explaining the function of nutrition to a partner, and placing animals on the evolutionary strip according to their digestive systems.

In history, we looked at what an archaeological dig entails, including the different jobs that workers on a dig team have. We will complete our own impressionistic dig next week, with each student having a dig team role.

In grammar, fourth grade students are finishing up their work with nouns, and fifth graders continue to learn about the different types of adjectives. This week, fifths learned about indefinite, demonstrative, and possessive adjectives.

On Monday, we will have a small classroom celebration to recognize Valentine’s Day. Students are welcome to bring in valentines for their friends as long as they bring one for everyone. Thank you for signing up for your parent-teacher conference on Thursday! I’m looking forward to sharing your child’s progress with you.

We welcomed a new friend to our class this week! Jim Reagelan is a retired elementary Montessori teacher who is certified in Lower Elementary and is an experienced assistant in Upper Elementary. He will join us during work cycle two to three days a week to help where needed. We are fortunate to have Jim’s help and the students are already enjoying having the extra attention during work cycle.

We have been immersed in math work this week with individualized and small group lessons on whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. Students are working on lessons including fraction numeration and equivalence as well as fraction addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We also have some decimal work going on with decimal division. In addition to our work with fractions and decimals, students are working with the whole number operations of abstract compound multiplication and long division.

I’m looking forward to sharing your child’s progress with you during Parent-Teacher Conferences on February 17th. Please look for an email from me today with a link to sign up for your slot. If you don’t seen any dates and times that work for your family, I am happy to schedule something separately.

Students have been doing a great job remembering boots, warm coats, and snow pants for our daily outdoor play. They should also have gloves or mittens and hats with them each day. Some only want to wear their hoods, but those don’t tend to stay on during their joyful, rambunctious play.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Karen

We had a very full week in Upper Elementary. Our mornings – after yoga, tea, and our chapter book read aloud – were spent taking the ERB standardized test. Although test taking is something our Upper El students do only once a year, they handled it like pros. They stayed positive throughout the entire process and embraced the change in routine like the incredible students that they are. In between test taking sessions we enjoyed our time with each other, outdoors playing in the snow or indoors engaged in a Connect Four tournament. On Tuesday we invited the Lower El students to play with us outdoors at recess and the larger group had a great time sliding down the hill together. We wrapped up our week by giving to others as we made over 125 sandwiches for St. Vincent DePaul Mission in Waterbury. Thank you for your donations of our sandwich making ingredients!

I hope you stay warm and cozy this weekend and enjoy the snowstorm!

Karen