LEW Newsletter 1-31-2016

Happy almost February!

 

I had the pleasure of a having a short respite from technology up in the beautiful north woods of Minnesota for the past two days and it was wonderful. Hope all of you get a chance to get some downtime this weekend as well. 

We enjoyed another great week - a 5 day week which will be somewhat few and far between in this coming month.  Coming up this month we have one more week of movement before we switch to our weaving & felting specialist for this next "quarter." We will also get to look forward to guest speakers and a couple of field trips! Check the dates below.  

 

What we've been working on

This week, Erik and I told impressionistic and historical stories about the beginnings of written language.  I told the story of "The Paper that Sees and Speaks" and Erik told the "History of Written Language." These stories are apart of the Great Lessons that Montessori found students to be incredibly drawn and inspired by. This might be a fun topic for discussion at home if you have time.  

All of us have been continuing our work with phonics and spelling as well as daily math practice, but in addition...

First years have been having fun classifying things like animals, habitats, star wars characters... and producing an incredible amount of writing! They have also learned about the three ways in which to classify triangles by sides - equilateral, isosceles, and scalene - see if they can remember what these words mean. They are also practicing more with clocks and they have begun creating dioramas and biome boxes based on the temperate forest of North America.

Second years have learned the meanings behind the names of polygons such as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons...all the way to decagons.  They are continuing to work with art of language and understanding how to use affixes. Second years are also learning about the meanings of the colors and symbols  on flags, specifically flags in North America.

In geometry, third years are learning to find the perimeter of more advanced shapes. Some are even creating blue prints for a pool that they will then need to find the distance around.  We are also beginning a huge project called "Study of a Nation" or S.O.A.N for short.  We learned that a nation isn't just a random country on a map - a nation is made up physical features like rivers, mountains, canyons. A nation has railway, highway systems and airports. Our nation is made of up 50 states each with their own name, capital, state flag, state bird, and state flower. By the end of this work, each of the students will have a collection of maps that demonstrate how dynamic our nation is.  We ended the week by celebrating 5 ancient civilizations that the students chose. There were Native American plays, medieval outfits, Roman "wine" and artichokes, viking goddesses and traditional oat cakes - it was a blast! Check the photos.  

 

Upcoming Events

 

February 8^th – Guest speaker, Thomas Fabel, will be coming in to do an Abraham Lincoln impersonation and discussion with the students

 

February 10^th – Field trip to Dodge Nature Center to explore animal tracks outdoors and to learn more about reptiles and amphibians.

 

February 11^th, 12^th, & 15^th – No School – All Faculty Retreat and President's Day

 

February 26^th – Field trip to the Ordway for a dance performance

Enjoy the remainder of your weekend!

All the best from us both,

Jessy & Erik

No School Monday, February 1st

Hello LEW families,

Monday is a grading day for all faculty as progress reports will be coming out soon.

This was surprising news to me and Erik, so we had a feeling it might be a surprise to you as well. 

Let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

--

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    

LEW Newsletter 1-16-2016

Hello LEW Families!

Week two back has been busy as all of us are getting back into the swing of things. It's incredible to see the students come into the classroom with the motivation to go deep into their works. The routine is very established during work time and we've established even stronger routines during other parts of the day that needed a boost - namely clean up. We are also to the point when the students can independently write and/or read, which has made our readers and writers workshop time feel very purposeful. The field trip was amazing at the Ordway this past Tuesday. We had a great time watching and dancing with Ballet Hispanica! 

What we're working on

First years are continuing their practice with stamp game addition while simultaneously practicing their addition facts for 10. Ask your child about the snake game.  The students are also practicing their writing about what they enjoy about the winter.  We have some amazing story tellers in this group. They are also becoming more and more acquainted with the parts of a clock and creating their own.  Finally, the first years have been continuing to study water and conduct experiments related to surface tension.

Second years are also continuing their practice with the stamp game and subtraction with borrowing.  They are mastering their doubles and doubles+1 math facts as well. The second years had a writing session with Erik and also had a chance to write about some of their favorite winter memories.  Through looking at different pictures of cultures around North America, the second years are sorting and classifying the photos into groups to represent the fundamental needs. This group has also gotten into promoting water conservation and have been making posters to spread the word.  

Third years are spending a lot of time on multiplication and mastering x facts. See if you can find time to play some multiplication games - we're specifically trying to memorize skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s and some are working on 6s, 7s, and 8s.  Once they have their skip counting down, this will truly help them in their exploration of long multiplication with the checkerboard (amazing material).  The third years are also practicing their story telling and are learning how to assess great story telling. Their origin stories are coming along and they are approaching the stage where they can be "published." In history, third years are going deep into a vertical study of the fundamental needs. A vertical study means that they will choose one culture - i.e. the ancient egyptians or a native american tribe - and then research how all of that culture fulfilled their needs (clothing, shelter, food, transportation, etc.) There will be an opportunity to have an exhibit of this big work which the students get very excited about.  

Events and important dates

February 11 & 12 - No School for an all faculty retreat.

February 20th The Great River Soiree - This is our biggest fundraiser of the year and it's an absolute blast. We sent home more information about the Soiree in Thursday Folders.

Thanks to all of you for all of the generous box and yarn donations! We're definitely all set for our upcoming projects :) 

Have a great long weekend!

Warm regards,

--

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    

LEW is in need of more shoe boxes...

A message from Erik (email is malfunctioning):

Hi All,

Anticipating a new wave of diorama work, I'd like to humbly ask you for more boxes.  The last donation was overwhelmingly generous, and it was much appreciated.  Any kind is good, but medium size or small would be best, so as to meet the needs of diorama-makers.  I appreciate your help, and all the support you have shown me during my recovery and return.

My best to all of you!

Erik

Happy New Year and Reminders

Hello LEW Families,

Happy New Year! I hope this email finds you rested and reconnected.  I meant to send this message to you yesterday - sorry about that. 

We are excited to see all the kids again and reconnect as a community.  Erik has returned and it feels wonderful to be reunited.  It was a pretty fun and exciting day. Lots of children catching up with one another, returning to old projects and starting new ones.  We know this can also be a time of scramble to get things ready for school to start again.  So here are some helpful reminders to get us back into the swing of things.

Please help your child to remember the following items for school:

indoor shoes

water bottle

Thursday Folder

winter gear (snow pants, hats, mittens, warm jacket, boots)

It is also a good idea to ask your child what they are looking forward to working on when they get back tomorrow.  Because they do not have a lot of followup work upon return here are some ideas of they are stumped...Writer's Workshop, spelling practice, continue math work, thank you cards, or some other independent research.

Coming up soon:

The Ordway: Dance Brazil field trip next Tuesday, January 12th

No School on Monday, January 18th (MLK Jr. Day)

Warm Regards,

--

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    

LEW Holiday Newsletter

Season's Greetings!

I hope this message finds all of you well and in the company of loved ones.  I'll try keep and keep this brief as I am sure you are all busy with the holiday bustle. 

I've attached some pictures and highlights from last week. There are pictures from the Winter Solstice Celebration and Clara's Dream - Behind the Curtain.

Winter Solstice Celebration

Let me just say how much fun it was to celebrate with all of your children. We legitimately celebrated 5 holidays in 1 day to celebrate the Winter Solstice from around the world and they pulled it off beautifully. We had one group dedicate their display to the holiday of Santa Lucia which is celebrated in Scandinavian countries. They made crowns with candles and had fun crosswords and coloring pages. We had a group do a Hogmanay (pronounced: hog-MUH-nay) celebration for the Scottish New Year, accompanied with a fun play and sing along of Auld Ang Syne. They also created their own color by numbers and coloring pages to commemorate the one of the largest fireworks displays in the world. Going further east, we had a group create a Teng Cheih exhibit to celebrate the Chinese celebration of Winter Solstice. There were lanterns and dragons and little gifts in red envelopes as well as a huge, beautiful Pinata made by one of our students and her grandmother (love the fusion).  We also had a classic game of dreidels and the students generously shared delicious chocolates to play the game properly. The Hanukkah group was quite busy of course.  We then had a stand to celebrate Boxing Day which is celebrated in the U.K., Australia, and Canada. The students created a play and demonstrated how boxes are stuffed with gifts to give to those in need.  I just wish I had more pictures to truly show you how much fun (and exhausting) this celebration was.  I'll be sure to try and send video of the plays to you once I figure it out. 

Clara's Dream

What a great way to cap off 2015! We got to see our friends Michelle and Preston from the St. Paul Ballet and they gave us a fun sneak peak at their rendition of the Nutcracker.  They showed us the famous Snow Scene and snippets of all of the dances in the Land of Sweets. I forget how there are so many songs from this show are so well known and so timeless. The dancers also took us back stage to see the costume areas, the props, the back drops, the box office, and their rehearsal space. It was an absolute blast. 

As if things couldn't get any better, Erik surprised us back at school when we returned. Only a few of the students got to see him, but it really was a incredible surprise. He's looking great and definitely healing. After being in the classroom, he felt excited to be back in the swing of things. His hope is that he will feel strong enough to return on January 4th with the rest of us. Sending him thoughts and wishes of healing :)

Finally, I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all an incredible holiday and we look forward to seeing you in 2016!

All the best,

--

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    

LEW Newsletter 12-12-2015

Good afternoon on this toasty December day,

First of all, just wanted to happily send the news out again that Erik is back home and on the mend. Hooray! Thank you for the quick responses to sending a meal to his family today.

Kind Language

With the holidays approaching and what with the added excitement and energy that comes with it, I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the importance of the community and how we try to nurture it in LEW.  At the core of community is how we relate and communicate with one another.  The students themselves declared that our community should sound..

"Considerate, Peaceful, No Harmful Words, and that we All Do Our Part"

Recently, we've noticed that we need to refer back to these beliefs.  On the one hand, the students are truly bonding with one another - even across grade levels. On the other hand, since they are more comfortable with one another, we tend to forget our grace and courtesy and talk more forcibly with one another when there are disagreements. Even so, saying things like "shut up" or calling people names is not only unacceptable, but it completely goes against what the students believe our community should sound like.  Language that is harmful or intended to hurt is not what we want the students to fall back on. Instead we coach them to use "I language." For instance, "I felt frustrated when you kept interrupting my work and I need to you wait for me to be available."  It's inevitable that we will disagree with one another once in a while, but we can still problem solve respectfully.  

One way we intend to help the students feel more comfortable using this language is to model some scenarios in meeting where we use "I felt..because...and I need..." language to solve our problems. Also, if we notice that a student is using harmful language, we help them take a moment to calm down.  Then, we go over what happened and practice using the appropriate language the second time through. The goal is that the harmful language is addressed as soon as possible, but if for some reason we are not able to walk through the problem that day (because it's the end of the day or what not), then I will send a note home to the students' families so that they can practice at home.  Then the next day the students will make things right with one another - i.e. restitution.  

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the use of kind language, I would be more than happy to talk with you.

What we're working on

We're winding down, but we're still working!

First years are studying the story behind the months of the year, working with money quantities, and learning about how we can help conserve water.

Second years are finishing up the fundamental needs, creating physical maps of north america, and brushing up on subtraction with borrowing. 

Third years are continuing their study of the Timeline of Humans and writing fascinating origin stories - like the first fire, the first boat, or the first piece of art. They are also continuing their practice with 4-digit subtraction with borrowing and checking with addition.  They are also practicing their x facts - see if they can do the multiples of 3, 6, 7, 8, or 9 up to times 10. 

Gex needs a home for the holidays!

Unfortunately, I am somewhat late with this request. Gex, our beloved Bearded Dragon, needs a home for the holidays.  He is extremely docile and very easy to care for. The students are professional caretakers at this point! If you would be interested in housing a bearded dragon from December 18-January 2, please let me know. 

Book Drive

Thanks so much to all of you for your book drive donations. There is still time to donate! Please bring any gently used books to school by Dec. 18. The Minnesota Literacy Council and the children they serve would be incredibly grateful.

Clara's Dream and Winter Solstice Celebration

Thursday and Friday will be special days in lower el.  We will have the chance to have a little winter solstice party planned by the students and a chance to take a trip and see the ballet, Clara's Dream at Macalaster College. What a great way to send off 2015! 

I hope all of you are finding time to enjoy the season ... and also finding time to relax :)

All the best,

--

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