Happy Birthday Gettysburg Address!

President Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address,

“The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here.”

 In fact, the nation long remembers the short remarks delivered in that two-minute speech.  It reinvigorated our national ideas of liberty, equality, democracy, and unity.

The inspirational 273-word speech marked a turning point in American history and has become one of the most important statements on liberty ever written.

The eighth graders accepted the challenge to memorize and recite the words of the Gettysburg Address as they commemorated the  150^th anniversary of its poetic words and powerful message. 

Visual Literacy and the Lenni Lenape

I Notice and I Wonder

Research shows that children need multiple opportunities to apply and practice what they have learned, particularly those important skills that they carry across the disciplines. At EMS, giving students opportunities and time to think creatively and critically is embedded into the curriculum design.

The third grade Lenape Research Unit provides an excellent example of how technology enhances the research process. Third graders took photographs of a recreated Lenape village on a field trip. Utilizing iPhoto, airdrop, and ComicLife, children learned to communicate and collaborate more effectively. Students uploaded photos to iPhoto, enhanced and edited, and then imported the images into ComicLife. It is through ComicLife that students began to see more clearly how to answer questions about the photos. As they looked at their images, “What do I wonder?” and “What do I notice?” were the questions students asked themselves. Noticing questions required students to look for clues in the pictures. Wondering questions led students to new sub-questions. Children collaborated by sharing their photos through AirDrop.

Whole to Part Relationships, Digging Deeper

Visual literacy is a key aspect to reading and writing. These digital tools help support picture analysis by helping to evaluate, organize, and categorize images. While looking at the “whole” image, students practiced thinking skills such as collecting evidence, identifying the main idea, and inferring. ComicLife supports children in their ability to arrange ideas in a visual format.  The design of the comic allows children to “zoom in” and “zoom out” of a picture to notice different details.  The integration of knowledge and ideas gleaned from pictures is a literacy skill that supports the development of how children demonstrate their understanding of information.

EMS Educators Bringing Maker Culture to the Classroom

Recently a team of educators from the Lower School attended a one-day workshop in New York City led by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Dr. Gary Stager, the authors of Invent to Learn, Making, Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom.  These authors explained how to bring powerful ideas from science and the Maker Culture to the classroom. 

 

One of the most attractive aspects of bringing the maker culture to schools is how it values the contributions of children as inventors and innovators.  In the workshop, Dr. Stager was very direct in his message - knowledge is a consequence of experience. In the Lower School, we are constructing these kinds of problem-solving experiences for our students that emphasize doing, thinking, creating and making things better!

 

EMS Students Present at National Chemistry Week Celebration At LSC

 

Seventh grade Physical Science students at the Elisabeth Morrow School once again presented demonstrations for the North Jersey Chapter of the American Chemical Society as part of their National Chemistry Week celebration. Taking place at Liberty Science Center, this event had traditionally only featured presentations by high school and college students and teachers, as well as pharmaceutical and chemical companies. Elisabeth Morrow students have participated for the last several years-the only middle school group to do so.  Almost every seventh grade student at the school participates.

“I believe it’s important for students to see a wider community of people  getting excited about science,” says Gail Weeks, science teacher. “When students have the opportunity to feel that they are doing science, not just passively learning facts, it can be very exciting and empowering for them. Having such a positive first-hand experience at an early age can help students feel more confident in what can sometimes be viewed as an intimidating subject.”  She adds, “Students may be more likely to view science as a career option, a profession to respect, or just an area of interest as they get older.”

Volunteering to present also is a great service learning experience for EMS middle school students. “They have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and practice public speaking while having a great time- our students always tell me how much they enjoyed the day,” Weeks says.

After the event at LSC, each student receives a letter from the American Chemical Society thanking him or her for doing a presentation. A copy of this certificate goes in the students’ permanent school records. “Our students feel such a sense of accomplishment and pride after their participation. I feel so fortunate to be able to share my own enthusiasm about science with such capable students,” Weeks says. “I also love being able to show off the high caliber of our students and our science program.”

So Many Ways to Learn -- From a Pumpkin!

After an exciting visit to a pumpkin patch, Kindergarten students engaged in a variety of activities with the pumpkins at school. Each child carefully observed their own special pumpkin in order to describe its attributes through words and representational drawings and paintings. They also compared the pumpkins by identifying their similarities and differences. After putting them in size order from smallest to largest, the children predicted which would weigh the most. Predictions were also made of how many seeds there were inside...would it be more or fewer than 100? Finally, the seeds were planted to to grow a new crop for next year! 

Students as Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Jessi Almstead, First Grade Teacher

 

First graders and I are learning from each other in L10! So far this year, students have taught the community:

• How to hold a violin
• How to make a family book
• How to make a Jamaican flag
• How to use Spy Gear 
• Who Ninjago is

Special Shares are perfect opportunities for students to empower themselves by taking on a teacher role, and to practice public speaking skills. For the classroom community, these are treasured moments when we get to know each other in meaningful ways.

This week, a group of students participated in an introduction to playing cello, led by one of their peers. Novice students practiced active listening while their student-teacher guided them step by step. 

We look forward to the many lessons we will learn from the teacher in each of us!

Elisabeth Morrow Math Team Places Second In Statewide Competition

On Saturday, October 19, Chrisie Anagnos, Tanvi Jonalagadda Austin Kwak, Harry Moon, Lee Staphos, Kira Trout, and Emily Yu competed in the 42nd Annual Christian Brothers

Academy Eighth Grade Math Contest. More than 200 students from 35 public, private, and parochial schools participate. In our second outing in this competition, our team again came in second place in the private/parochial school division. Austin Kwak garnered third place individually. Mrs. Toth coached the team. Congratulations to all!

Kindergarten Music Makers

Kindergarten students began their journey to musical literacy by exploring the xylophones in the music room. With a partner, the students experimented with how to make different sounds with their mallets, and many of them noticed that the bars of the instrument were labeled with letters from A to G.  This lead to a discussion about how the musical alphabet only has seven letters, then repeats.   

The students were then given the challenge to find the letter "D" on their xylophone and to play it on the steady beat while singing "Jack O Lantern."  Many of the Kindergarteners remarked on how tricky to was to play and sing at the same time, but all agreed that it was fun to be in charge of their own music making!

Buddy Day Fun

EMS' first All School Buddy Day happened earlier this month. This program is an addition to the All School Assembly program that began last year, with the grades grouped together as follows:

8th grade/3rd grade
7th grade/2nd grade
6th grade/1st grade
5th grade/Kindergarten
4th grade/Threes and Fours

Our goals are to develop lasting relationships between students and teachers, to provide opportunities for leadership and to build a strong school community.  The buddies complete projects together and have a good time learning more about their fellow EMS students!

Ladybugs!

In kindergarten, our current theme is ladybugs.  Mrs. Milne gave the children live ladybugs in science to take home and observe before letting them go.  Some of the activities we have done have been collage ladybugs, ladybug apple snacks, observational drawings.  We launched our first letter study (Ll) and made finger painted large leaves in the style of Eric Carle (whose books we have been reading, beginning with "The Grouchy Ladybug")  incorporating science mini-lesson on mixing colors as well.

The children began learning about things such as life cycles and symmetry which will be revisited.​