Dear Parents,
This time of year brings an opportunity for deepening in learning. Routine and rhythm have been established in the classrooms creating a calm and order that can allow class work to flourish. A new level of interest is active both in students and teachers.
We can see this in the activity of small hands that are ready to knit, and in the maturing minds that are enthralled in science experiments.
Take a few minutes to see what learning can be- alive, imaginative, rigorous and lasting.
~ DVWS Faculty
7th & 8th Grade
Block: Chemistry- metabolism demonstration of sugars, bases, acids and enzymes. These reactions are happening all around us and in us. Students are able to observe these events firsthand in a microcosmic experiment.
Spanish: Conversation games have kept us laughing and learning about irregular verbs and adjectives.
Handwork: Machine sewing. Beginning to sew pants.
Music: Music theory in the circle of 5ths, and understanding different scales.
Movement: Capture the Flag.
5th & 6th Grade
5th/6th Graders help 1st grade knit.Block: Drama- play practice of A Wrinkle in Time. Come see the production on Nov. 20th at Matthews Middle School.
Math Skills: Metric conversion and graphing. Students classified all of their Halloween candy by type and are graphing the results. Reese's came out on top at 132.
Spanish: Conversation games have kept us laughing and learning about irregular verbs and adjectives.
Movement: Baton relay race.
Extra Lesson: Obstacle courses requiring teamwork, math frisbee, balance beam beanbag toss, and form drawing.
Language Arts Skills: Grammar- adjectives of quantity and quality.
Handwork: 5th Grade- casting on and knitting in a rib pattern for socks. 6th Grade- embroidery cloth for handwork bags.
Music: Music reading for recorder -quite different from string instruments. Singing parts.
Movement: Baton relay race.
3rd and 4th Grade
Block: Human and Animal. Discovering how humans are similar and different from animals, beginning with the study of the cuttlefish and field mice.
Arts: Form drawing.
Language Arts: Writing paragraphs, introducing "describing words," and reading "tall tales" such as Ol' Paul about Paul Bunyan.
Math Skills: Problem solving using story problems and skill review.
Movement: Builders and Bulldozers relay.
Music: Songs about trades. Finding and playing songs on the flute that are familiar to our singing voices.
Handwork: Finishing crocheted flute cases.
Spanish: The children have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some Bible stories they heard last year...this time in Spanish! Even the tiniest details aren't lost on these kids.
2nd Grade
Block: Math-place value. Learning to stretch numbers. Stories from Number Town continue unfold as two wanderers leave Number Town and encounter an Indian woman who trades in beads. She keeps track of her beads by grouping them in sacks by tens, hundreds, thousands and so on. To keep track of how many sacks she had to trade, she wore a necklace of colored beads- orange for a thousand, red for hundreds and so on. Students are given necklaces each day to practice place value and number stretching skills.
Spanish: The children delighted in reenacting the story of Stone Soup by making a pot of their own- and eating it. Delicioso!
Handwork: Knitting and purling a rainbow ball.
Music: Flute practice. We wrote our first song about autumn.
Movement: What time is it Mr. Wolf?- a game of anticipation.
Extra Lesson: Painting exercises to develop use of outer and inner space.
1st Grade
Block: Form Drawing. Students develop essential visual-spatial and motor skills.
Math Skills: Using the four processes.
Spanish: Spanish Animal Bingo has been officially declared "the best game ever."
Handwork: Our first knitting day. The fifth and sixth graders, now confident in knitting, visited the class to lend a hand.
Music: Listening skills, tone identification, songs with fine and gross motor movements.
Movement: What time is it Mr. Wolf?- a game of anticipation.
Extra Lesson: Developing awareness of the six directions, and hand and finger strengthening. Body geography.
Early Childhood
The kindergarten classes take weekly hikes to a natural, wooded area to play, explore, build, and do simple woodworking projects. The one-mile round trip allows for many opportunities to run, roll, jump, zig-zag, and hike on non-landscaped, sometimes unpredictable, natural terrain. This is wonderful for balance and responsive movement! We return with hardy appetites for hot soup and oatmeal.
Parent-Child classes meet each week to share circle time with autumn rhymes and finger games, a hearty snack and parenting experiences. Parents in the class are reading The Incarnating Child, discussing children's drawings, and learning how to crochet.
