Good Day, LEW Families!
I hope that this weekend of beautiful weather has given you all the opportunity to go outside and enjoy it.
Community Meetings
Since day one, all of us in LEW have been learning about the importance of community meetings and practicing every day. I wanted to give you a glimpse of what the meeting looks like. At the end of the day, we gather in the circle and the meeting leader (third graders have started taking on this role) will call the meeting to order. We begin with Acknowledgements. The meeting leader calls on students to acknowledge others for doing something helpful like, "I acknowledge Erik for helping me with my weather graph." Then we move on to Good Stuff Play. The leader calls on students and they will say something like, "I have good stuff play jump roping at recess with my friends." Then we move on to Good Stuff Work. Again, the leader calls on the students and they say something like, "I completed my vertebrate work today and I'm proud of how it turned out." We end the meeting with Business. During the business portion, students can bring up problems or questions like, "Should we play music during clean up?" or "Should we share food at lunch?" This is the meat of the meeting and the students truly have to learn how to listen to one another respectfully and present reasonable solutions. Eventually the meeting leader will read out the solutions, we vote and the leader announces what the solution that we have agreed to try. We check in about the solution at future meetings to see if we truly addressed the problem. Finally, we adjourn the meeting with a call-response Navajo poem called, "In Beauty May I Walk." (see link below) It's an incredible poem that the students enjoy leading. If there's time we sing a couple of songs, accompanied by Erik's guitar (the students really enjoy this - you look around the circle and see students playing air guitars), and we finally end with the "Good Bye Song." So much growth and learning happens in these 20 minutes meetings. We learn how to work as a group rather than 32 individuals. Erik and I are noticing that the students are really starting to value this time. If you have the chance, ask your child about what they think about community meetings.
What we're studying
All grades practice daily to work with numbers and operations (+ - x / ) in varying degrees of difficulty. In addition to their math work...
First years are continuing their study of time, working the with decimal system through the golden beads, sewing globe pillows with all of the continents, identifying and creating 6 different quadrilaterals, and studying the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates.
Second years have learned about the parts of a volcano and are now currently in the process of making their own model volcanoes (be ready to do your own explosion at home - you just need baking soda, vinegar and a little red dye for effect). The second years are also reviewing the 6 quadrilaterals, but they are going to discover the relationships of the lines in each shape (parallelograms have two sets of parallel sides, trapezoids have one set, etc.). They have learned how to make line graphs and have been plotting the daily temperatures. They are also writing fun little animal riddles about the 5 vertebrates. See if your child remembers some of their little animal stories.
Third years are working hard to finish up their space research. On Wednesday, the third years will put on an exhibit for the class and they are excited to start creating their displays. There will be exhibits on Saturn, Jupiter's moons, our moon, Mars Rovers and more! At the end of the month, the third years are going to get the chance to go to the Exploradome at the Bell Museum - check below for details.The third years are also embarking on the incredible Montessori work called "The Fundamental Needs. " They are discussing and creating models that represent our material needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) and spiritual needs (love, art, music, etc.). They have also discovered that there are only 7 triangles in reality - see if they can tell you what they are.
Upcoming Events
On Friday, October 23, at 1:15 until 3:00, Lower Elementary West will perform the fruits of their two-week residency with the St. Paul ballet in a performance called Luna Bella. After working on campus every day for these weeks, the children will show what they've learned for anyone who wishes to come and see. Hope you can be there!
One volunteer wanted for a trip to the Bell Museum third graders - October 30 - 9:15 to 12:00
Third years get the chance to do the Astronomy Adventure at the Bell Museum! This means they will get to go inside the Exploradome and do the astronomy labs with the experts. It will be a great way to culminate all of the work we've been doing about space over the last month.
I need 1 volunteer to come on this trip with us. We will be taking public transit to the U of M at about 9:15. Your bus ticket and ticket of admission will be covered and we should be back at GRS by 12:00. Please let me know if you'd like to join us on this space adventure!
Big Thanks
To Joanna, Cate, and Jason for generously taking care of snack thus far.
To Heather for working with first years on sewing their pillows.
To Nicole for bringing in a beautiful bouquet of flowers last week.
To our future reading buddies, Meredith, Joanna, and Kerstin, who are graciously volunteering their time and energy to reading with are beginning readers.
And to Keri and her neighbor for donating all those calendars and yarn balls.
Thank you!
That's all for now.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
In 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
