Hello and Happy Fall, Lower Elementary Families!
Now that we’re past the initial start to the year, we wanted to take a moment to share some highlights from lower elementary...
Lunch!
Wow! What a delicious lunch we have the opportunity to enjoy from our lovely and competent nutrition team! From Mac n’ Cheese to Chana Masala, we are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for the delicious dishes coming for the kitchen. Thank you for helping your child have a healthy lunch each day, and if they bring it from home, think of giving them the opportunity and responsibility to prepare their own healthy lunch. Preparing food is a skill that we encourage the students to practice here at GRS.
Recess!
For the first 15 minutes of recess, Brent Cummins, our Outdoor Education Guide, has been organizing fun activities for the students to enjoy together in small groups. These are cooperative games where the students have to learn each other’s names and work together to meet a common goal. The purpose of this big work is to help the students learn about their peers and to learn fun, collaborative games! Ask your child if they have a favorite game that they’ve learned so far.
Classroom Beliefs!
At this point, each of the elementary classrooms has had the chance to meet as a community and build their classroom beliefs. Each classroom had a discussion about what their ideal classroom would look like, sound like, feel like, and this discussion helped the students create beliefs about how their classroom should be run. You will notice common themes of peace, kindness to one another, working on big work together, and taking care of our environments in each classrooms’ beliefs. See if your child has a belief they feel strongly about or if there is a belief they might find challenging to follow. Throughout the year, we will use our beliefs as a way to reflect on what is important to our communities, and we will work together to make appropriate changes if the community asks for it.
Workshops – Art, Outdoor Education, and Physical Expression
As an elementary community, the students will have the opportunity to take classes in art, outdoor education, and physical expression once a week (on either Monday or Tuesday). In art with Amanda, your child might have the chance to create a zine! In Physical Expression with Eric, your child might navigate through an obstacle course or complete a quest…as an elf! In outdoor education with Brent, your child will get to go to the park and learn about different plants, animals, and learn tricks for surviving outdoors! We spend three weeks doing a specific workshop and then we rotate to the next workshop. We just completed our first round of workshops and have just started our second rotation and we are so grateful for our expert guides running these workshops.
“The Great Lessons”
Many of our classrooms are still in the thick of telling engaging and impressionistic stories about history that Dr. Maria Montessori coined, “The Great Lessons.” These lessons and stories explore:
The Story of the Universe
Life comes to Earth
The Story of Humans
The Story of Numbers
The Story of Language
Again, these are told in the form of a story to capture the students’ imagination, curiosity, and sense of wonder. They act as touchstones for the work we will do together in history, geography, science, math, and language. They’re a blast to tell and they spark a lot of incredible questions and fun work!
These are just a few of the highlights happening in lower elementary. Enjoy a few snapshots as well! Until next time!
In partnership,
Jessy Eaton Fabel
Lower Elementary Guide in Spring Brook
