WMS@Home - Distance Learning

• Practical Life activities including peeling clementines and sweeping the floor.
• Montessori lessons like the Color Box 2.
• Gross motor/movement motor activities such as creating a stepping stone walk and virtual yoga.
• Science activities including making playdough and learning about the lifecycle of a frog.

Like our toddlers, our home learning plans for Primary students consist of opportunities to connect with teachers and classmates through live meetings and specials, along with recorded content (like the videos the teachers created together before we headed home) and suggested activities to work on away from the computer screen.

Primary students are encouraged to include household chores (like preparing snacks) in their daily schedule and enjoy plenty of outdoor time. On some days, students are provided with challenges (like creating a leprechaun trap, designing a fairy garden or making a gratitude jar/journal) that they are later invited to share with their teachers and classmates.

Kindergartners continue to attend Specials classes with their cohort and receive additional assignments in all core subject areas as well as special challenges for them to complete with their families while at home. For this group, teachers put a special emphasis on continuing to build the academic foundation students will need as they enter first grade in the fall.

In the Lower Elementary Program, students are able to work more independently than our younger students. They look forward to the daily connections they make with their classmates via Zoom meetings for the class as a whole and through Specials programs.

As they do in the classroom, students use daily work plans, completing assignments that cover all areas of the curriculum. This week, students have started using Khan Academy for math assignments. They are also working on long-term projects like reading and writing biographies and creating time capsules that will integrate writing exercises to help students document their lives during this very unique time in history.

Staying active is an important part of the day for these energetic first- through third-graders, who love working up a sweat in Zoom physical education class and after-school enrichment activities with our Extended Day staff.

For Upper Elementary and Middle School students, the move to home learning plans required less adjustment than our younger students. While our oldest students are missing their daily face-to-face interactions with friends and teachers, they are accustomed to working independently and completing assignments using Google Classroom. At both of these levels, students meet as a class each morning, and then move onto more individualized schedules.

Upper Elementary students meet in small groups for math and reading, and attend cultural lessons as a class. This week, they will be embarking on Passion Projects, an opportunity for in-depth exploration of a topic that interests each child, and receiving a lesson from a parent on how to make masks for first-responders from home.

Middle-schoolers also attend science, book club and Specials classes through Zoom and check in with their teacher for individual lessons and help throughout the day. They are now in the process of choosing topics for a persuasive essay related to the criminal justice system and inspired by their Supreme Court projects.

Our oldest students are remaining active with two PE classes per week and after-school enrichment activities.