United Friends School

Today is Dec 1, 2020, otherwise known as #givingTuesday. We hope that you will donate to a cause close to your heart. If you would like to support United Friends School, we have several ways for you to give by going to: http://www.unitedfriendsschool.org/support-ufs/ What started as an idea back in 2012, has grown into a day that now inspires hundreds of millions of people. It’s an opportunity to give back what you can, to help others. Giving isn't just about money--even an extra moment of connection or kindness can make a difference in someone else's life today.

As we look towards the Fall break and Thanksgiving Holiday, our Rustin Class led by Amy Urick Wall have collected their dreams and motivations. We started our Dreams and Motivations unit reading the books A Giraffe Can't Dance by Giles Andrae and The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater. During our class meetings, we asked the question "What is a dream?" Our friends agreed that a person can have many dreams relating to different things. We talked about the word motivatio...n and explored what motivation means. The friends in the Rustin class came to a consensus that a person can find motivation in many different ways; through people, music, nature, family, etc. We then talked about different ways to find motivation and expressed how motivation can help people reach their dreams. We then shared our own dreams and motivations. During our Creation Station time, we created pictures of our dreams and how and where we can find motivation or "help" reach our dreams. - - - - As a reminder - For the week following Thanksgiving, we will move to a remote learning platform for the first time this school year to ensure a healthy return to school in December. Our entire faculty and staff give thanks for the incredibly supportive and gracious community of families that we serve and hold you all in the Light during the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Mott class has been learning about worms! So amazing to see our early-childhood learners engage in project based learning! Project based work allows students to participate in experiential learning in a collaborative environment by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. They can span multiple weeks and with most projects, it starts with inquiry-led discussion and moves on to hands-on-learning activities. Fun Facts: Did you know that worms br...eathe through their skin? Worms can regenerate? They don’t have eyes, but can sense light through their skin? Curious minds wanted to know how worms could survive inside during the winter months. By participating in a number of project-based activities to investigate what worms eat, to where they prefer to live, students were able to develop a worm habitat in the classroom. Finally, students met some worm subject matter experts over zoom. A worm farmer and an Author/Illustrator who showed us how he paints and draws worms. Students shared what they learned, and the experts answered so many of our questions. We're already hard at work on putting a book together on our worm unit.

SOUND ON! The Fox and Penn classes led by United Friends School teachers Dara Shomer and Shonne JJ have been researching matter, you know "that stuff" that takes up space. We needed a way to have our spooky ghosts (white balloons) rise-up. Our simple experiment took place this week. We used baking soda and vinegar to create an acid-base reaction. The two natural chemicals work together to create a gas (carbon dioxide). C02 needs a lot of room to expand and after it fills the bottle, it reaches the balloon to inflate. We hope you have a Happy Halloween!

We're carving out some time for Halloween fun! (Ok we really need to think of some better puns. Let us know in the comments if you can do better!) The Mott Class, for project work, made Pumpkins filled with wiggly worms! They hammered holes into pumpkins with golf tees, pulled the tees out and threaded pipe cleaners through. The Paul Class used pumpkin pie mix and corn starch to make pumpkin play dough!... Friday, we will have our all-school virtual Zoom parade to show off our costumes!