2006-2007 Fall/Winter Directions - Friends' Central School

Into the Woods
Second grade visits the Morris Arboretum
The trees were alive this fall at Friends’ Central’s
Lower School, and the halls were filled with Robin Hood’s
Merry Men, whispering pitch pines, talking rubber trees, and
even a Lorax or two. Brightly colored vines curled around and
illuminated the letters of the alphabet, painted clay birds and
evergreen branches perched in the windowsills, and when you
peeked into the classrooms, you just might have thought you’d
lost your way and stumbled into Pooh’s Hundred Acre Woods,
the Adirondacks, or Tolkien’s enchanted Middle Earth. But the
magic was all happening right here in Wynnewood. You were in
the midst of Friends’ Central’s very innovative and original Fall
Project.
Each year Friends’ Central’s Lower School follows an allschool,
interactive, thematic curriculum that each teacher develops
differently, using it as a starting point to work on the more
traditional curriculum concerns of spelling, math, and history.
This year’s theme was “Into the Woods,” and the topics teachers
chose for their classrooms included: the Hobbit’s Mirkwood
Forest, the Indonesian Rain Forest, the Pine Barrens, Little House
in the Big Woods, the Guatemalan Jungle, and the forest in folktales.
Science teachers identified the trees of Pennsylvania; art
teachers covered the hallway walls with leaf rubbings and pictures
of imaginary trees; the music teachers brought in different wood
instruments; and the physical education teachers built a maypole.
In September, the faculty marks the kick-off of the Fall
Project with an original play that showcases each classroom’s
focus, lots of laughs, and even a flying whipped cream pie! After
that, the activities and field-trips reflect the creativity and originality
of our FCS faculty. Third grade teacher Jack Briggs used
Sherwood Forest as the starting point for a social studies discus-
CAMPUS LOG – LOWER SCHOOL
sion of medieval life and culture. He worked on language arts
skills by reading to his students from Howard Pyle’s classic, The
Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and having them write their own
ballads and tales about outlaws. The children spent time roleplaying
and developing skits, having fun with the 40-pound coat
of mail Briggs has standing in the corner, the bow, the bugle
horn, and Maid Marian’s cape. They also talked about Sherwood
Forest as an actual place, subject to the same environmental and
social threats as any other tract of undeveloped land. For Science,
these same third graders went outdoors and adopted trees, drawing
and writing about them, and cataloguing the leaves they collect.
In the words of one student, “just being able to sit and get
to know a tree” made this fall special.
Pre-kindergarten teachers Sue Andrews and Jason Warley, on
the other hand, studied the South American rainforest. The children
in their classroom built a “Rainforest Café” from which
Pre-K B standing in their Rainforest Cafe
DIRECTIONS Fall 2006 / Winter 2007 19