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FERNWOOD FAMILY NEWSLETTER #19, 1/14/25

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

FERNWOOD PTO APPAREL SALE!

Fernwood Honors Choir Singers Sing Out!

Skate Night at Bayview High School

SCHOOL AND CAMP CLOSURES for 1/20 and 1/24

A Morning of Montessori Event

Student Well-Being Survey

Fernwood Soup & Chili Supper and Social Event!!!

Learn to Speed Skate at the Pettit

OUR SCHOOL IS COOL!

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

~Monday, January 20th, 2025, NO SCHOOL and no CAMP

~Tuesday, January 21st, 2025, 6:30pm, Fernwood Fund Meeting, VIRTUAL ONLY, email brett.mytys@gmail.com for link

~Friday, January 24th, 2025, NO SCHOOL

~Thursday, January 30th, 2025, 5:30pm, SEC Meeting, In Person in the Fernwood Library 

~Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 6:00pm, PTO Meeting, Fernwood Library and virtual https://meet.google.com/xyc-wwnz-czu

~Friday, February 7th, 2025, 5:30pm, Soup and Chili Night, Fernwood Cafeteria 

~Tuesday, February 11th 2025, 6:30pm, Fernwood Fund Meeting, 6:30pm, Fernwood library and virtual, email brett.mytys@gmail.com for link

~Wednesday, February 12th, 2025, 5-6:30pm, New and Returning Student Open House, Fernwood Montessori School

~Thursday, February 13th, 2025, 6:30pm, Music Parents Meeting, Virtual https://meet.google.com/fpf-rvca-uuk

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FERNWOOD PTO APPAREL SALE!

Announcing the annual PTO Apparel Sale with a COOL NEW T-SHIRT DESIGN featuring the Fernwood class pets!  Celebrate our menagerie with your ‘fit!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to this new design, classic designs (We never go out of style!  We never go out of style!) are also available for purchase.  The PTO is also selling sweatpants, sweatshirts, tote bags, beanies, and more!  Ordering will be available starting on 1/14 and close on 1/28.  Orders will be delivered to school and sent home with students.  

A special thank you to Michelle Stehlik and Andrew Adair for their help in creating the design and drawings!  

Please see below for a flyer and a link to the site for ordering.  Please note, the site is best viewed on a computer screen rather than a phone screen.  

https://dunns-fernwood-spirit-24.itemorder.com/shop/sale/

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Fernwood Honors Choir Singers Sing Out!

Please congratulate Cole Jarvis, Penelope Sullivan, Henry Mahnke, Tegan Werner, Sunny Neumeyer, Greta Brown, and Zoe Koll!  These seven students represented 85 of the best voices in fifth and sixth grade across the state of Wisconsin in the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association Elementary Honors Choir. They put in after school and recess rehearsal time for weeks leading up to this event and prepared five songs in multiple parts from memory, in four different languages. They rehearsed from 8:30 AM until 4 PM on Saturday with a concert in the beautiful chapel on Lawrence University’s campus.

Thank you to the Fernwood Music Parents for sponsoring and subsidizing the majority of the registration costs for the students to have this experience. See below for some pictures and videos of our students in action!                        

      Honors Choir Singers

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Skate Night at Bayview High School

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SCHOOL AND CAMP CLOSURES for 1/20 and 1/24

There is no school on 1/20 and 1/24.  Fernwood Camp will be closed on 1/20.

Fernwood Camp will be open on 1/24 from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm.  Interested families should sign up at the Camp desk.  Spots are first come, first serve.  

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A Morning of Montessori Event

A wise Montessorian once told me that we here at Fernwood are part of a long history of Montessori in Milwaukee (and really globally).  We are stewards of this tradition and a chapter of this story….. 

Please join our community at the district wide Morning of Montessori Event (formerly the Montessori Summit) at McDowell Montessori on 2/8.  Anyone and everyone is invited!  This event and celebration showcases what Montessori in MPS does through presentations, glass classrooms, and information sharing!  Childcare available!  See below for details.

MPS_MontessoriSummit Flyer.pdf

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Student Well-Being Survey

Student well-being is an important part of social-emotional health. Student education improves when we pay attention to well-being. Milwaukee Public Schools wants to improve student well-being. MPS listens to student feedback to enhance our students’ learning experience.  

The Student Well-Being Survey is new this year. Students in third through twelfth grade will give feedback using this survey. The survey asks students to rate their feelings and experiences at school.  

This survey will be taken three times per year: October 7–18, 2024; January 6–17, 2025; and May 5–16, 2025. The survey will take about 15 minutes. The results will not identify your child. Your child’s individual responses will not be viewed by school staff. Student responses will be grouped to help staff choose schoolwide supports and services. 

If you do not want your child to share their feedback, please call your child’s school to inform them of your request. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fernwood Soup & Chili Supper and Social Event!!!

Soup slots are filling up quickly, so sign up soon to be part of the Fernwood annual Soup and Chili Supper and Social Event! On February 7th, the Fernwood Café will transform into an all-you-can-eat soup tasting event featuring dozens of delicious soups prepared by Fernwood families. Soups will be served from 5:30 PM to 7:15 PM, with admission costing $2 for students, $5 for adults, and free for children 3 and under. Don’t miss this fun-filled evening of community and comfort food! If you’d like to contribute by cooking and serving a soup, visit this link to sign up: https://www.mealtrain.com/potlucks/ldg1n4

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Learn to Speed Skate at the Pettit

Did you know The Pettit is one of only two indoor long-track speed skating facilities in the country? And The Petitt is only 13-minutes from Fernwood? Registration is now open for Youth Skating and Learn To Speed Skate lessons. The Learn to Speed Skate program teaches students progressively more difficult moves through six levels of skating for short-track or long-track skating. The first class is used to gauge their skill/ability and place them with the best class for the remainder of the lessons. Classes are open to all ages 3+ to adult. Speed skate rental is available, or participants can bring their own hockey or figure skates. All lessons take place on the 400m Oval which is home to an official Olympic Training Facility.

Age: 3 to Adult. 3+ Tot ‘N Me. 4+ for other programs. 6+ for Learn To Speed Skate. Coordinator: Carolyn Spiewak, Director of Speed Skating, cspiewak@thepettit.com Fernwood Parent: Ryan Lent, rlentgroup@gmail.com

Instructor: Pettit National Ice Center Staff

Cost: $99 per session

Session #3 Dates: January 7 – February 18, 2025 (Tuesdays or Thursdays at 6:15pm)

*No classes January 28 – February 2, 2025

Session #4 Dates: February 15 – March 26, 2025 (Tuesdays or Thursdays at 6:15pm)

Location: Pettit National Ice Center, 500 S. 84th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53214

Pettit Learn to Speed Skate.pdf

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OUR SCHOOL IS COOL!

There’s always something COOL going on at Fernwood!  This week in honor of the COOL new Fernwood t-shirt design featuring our COOL class pets, I bring you the COOL and fascinating biography of Cheerios Posey, class pet in Room 252.

Cheerios was given to Room 252 in 2015 by a Montessori teacher from a different school.  Cheerios was named so because the pattern on her shell looks like the breakfast cereal.  Cheerios continued her Montessori studies under Ms. Natasha’s expert instruction and bonded with many new friends.  Cheerios also learned to skateboard (Cheerios shreds.mov)!

During her time at Fernwood, Cheerios often summered at a craftsman bungalow on the shores of Lotus Pond in Milwaukee’s Humboldt Park.  One summer, Cheerios fell ill and former Fernwood Parent Coordinator and current Fernwood Paraprofessional Jenni Navidad connected Cheerios to expert medical care.  The veterinarian deduced that Cheerios had a respiratory infection.  During treatment for this infection, it was also determined that Cheerios had worms.  The type of worms Cheerios had could only have originated on the continent of Africa (because these worms were resistant to our North American deworming treatments).  Thus, Cheerios must have started life in Africa and had somehow been brought to Milwaukee (foreign exchange student? witness protection? We will never know!*).  Probably, the worms had lied dormant in Cheerios’s body each winter due to the (non-African) cold winter weather and then flared up each summer when it got warm (this was a VERY talented vet).  In addition, it was determined that Cheerios is in fact a specks hinge back tortoise, not a turtle (tortoises live like 30 years, so if anyone wants to watch a tortoise over winter break in 2044, drop Ms. Natasha an email!).  

Long story short, Cheerios’s respiratory infection was treated, she convalesced at the Navidad household, and she’s back to pursuing her Montessori education and modeling career (did you see the new Fernwood t-shirt design?).

This story caught my attention for a lot of COOL reasons!  These students got to see how animals get shipped around the world to become pets (is this good?  is it fair?  how does this even work?), they saw how an animal adapted to a different environment (pretty well all things considered!), they learned how a vet solved a difficult problem, and they learned about bacteriology and parasitology.  Our class pets teach kids how to care for living things but they do SO MUCH MORE for our kids’ education.  COOL!  

*If Cheerios needs to be extradited, Fernwood Montessori will cooperate with all foreign law enforcement.