Greetings LEW Families,
--
What an incredible week! We capped it off with a fantastic performance by all at St. Thomas University on Friday.
Bella Luna
Lower El West and Upper El West got to see the fruits of their labor from all of their work in Creative Movement. With excitement and a little uncertainty, the lower elementary students went on stage first. They showed the audience how they warm up with grande plies, jetes, tendus, piques, coupes ... they are much better at remembering what each French term translates to in English. Then they performed three choreographies and the audience had to guess which emotion they were performing through movement - no words allowed! The students did so well that the audience was able to guess each (anger, happiness, and sadness) with ease. Next, the upper elementary went on stage in small groups to perform their own choreographies and again the audience had to guess which emotion each group was trying to emulate. The lower elementary students were excited to see familiar faces on stage, doing similar moves that they learned in movement and they had fun participating in the guessing game. Finally, St. Paul Ballet went on stage and performed Bella Luna. This was absolutely magical (and, honestly, quite emotional for me and Erik), because we could hear all of the students whispering excitedly about the characters and the story. They've gotten to know the characters and the story so well over the last three weeks - Michelle and Preston from the St. Paul Ballet were incredible instructors. The students were mesmerized - they were sad for Izzy, excited by the soldiers, grossed out by the character, Scuaracce... The story was truly brought to life and we are so grateful for the experience we got to have with the St. Paul Ballet company. We will see them again in December to see Clara's Dream. We'll keep you posted. We absolutely want to keep this partnership alive.
Request for Video of the LE performance
Unfortunately, my camera only captured a snippet of the lower elementary performance. I know many of you wanted to see the performance, but couldn't make it. If anyone has a copy of the lower elementary performance, we would be extremely happy if you could share it with us :)
In the classroom...
First years are creating designs with parallelograms, trapezoids, hexagons and more. They are are writing fascinating stories and magazines. After collecting leaves with Erik, the students learned about the parts of a leaf. They are also exploring the parts of fish and creating habitats. First years are also continuing their work with the decimal system and the golden bead material.
Second years are exploring the relationships of equal sides, parallel lines, and angles in 6 different quadrilaterals. They are also creating elaborate skeletons of the 5 vertebrates and they are continuing their practice with telling time and practicing stamp game addition and subtraction.
Third years are creating elaborate exhibits once again, but this time they are creating Roman and Greek cities that feature all of the fundamental needs of people (food, shelter, clothing, art, etc.). They have also learned about the origin of Roman Numerals and have discovered that there are only 7 triangles in reality. See if they remember all seven and if they remember which 2 triangles are impossible to create. They are diagramming sentences that have articles, adjectives, nouns, prepositions, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and conjunctions. Finally, they've had the chance to experiment with chlorophyl and what it does for the plant.
Big Thanks
Cate and Jason for providing October's delicious snack.
Joanna, Meredith, and Kerstin for being our reading buddies.
Heather for all your yarn balls (huge amount of work) and help keeping our classroom spick and span.
Nicole for the beautiful flower bouquets.
All of you for sending in materials like calendars, boxes, and precious objects so that the students can do their big and ambitious work. It truly proves to the students that we value their ideas and creativity.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Jessy Eaton Fabel
Lower Elementary Guide"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori
