Friends School of Wilmington

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Our Kindergarten Sea Stars visited the Joy & Justice Library this afternoon for some sweet reading time with their classmates. Can you decipher a few of their favorite titles from these emojis???

🐉 ❤️ 🌮
✏️🪧❌
🫐🐻🧑🏼‍🌾

(Dragons Love Tacos, Pencils on Strike, and Blueberries for Sal) 📚

This morning’s PA Sip & Social was a latte fun ☕️

Be on the lookout in tomorrow’s FriendsMail for ways to get involved with some of the affinity groups we heard from today, like Wednesday Weeders and dinner volunteers!

Imagine how your workday may change if you were greeted every morning with a hello and a welcome by 20 of your closest colleagues; if those peers thoughtfully asked how you were doing and shared in your joys or were empathetic to your struggles. Now, imagine how comforting that may have felt during your school day as a child.

For all of our students, that’s the power of the Morning Meeting. It’s a chance to connect with intention, establish the day’s expectations, settle the body and mind, and begin the day with JOY!

Here, 4th grade greets one another by singing “It’s a good day because I am here!” 🎶

What a BEAUTIFUL afternoon to party in the pines! An extra big thank you to our 4 amazing vendors who brought some serious COLOR to campus with a tropical bounce house, rainbow slushees, kinetic sand jars, and disco bead necklaces! What a perfect way to welcome the first full week of school☀️🌲🌈

GO FISH! 🐟🎣

8th grade scientists took a cross-campus field trip to Polk Peace Pond for some hands-on learning this week. They successfully caught several native fish species, which are now swimming happily in their new home…the Middle School aquarium!

Talk about a deep dive into ecology—literally! 🌿💧🔬

If ever you could 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 joy through a picture, these would be it. Happy FIRST DAY, Friends! The 2024-2025 school here is officially here!

Does this count as demure? Asking for a Gen X friend 😏

(P.S. Recognize this shirt? You may have spotted it at last week’s New Family Welcome, more than 22 years after its original production!)

Smiles, charades, and settling in. That’s a wrap on our whirlwind faculty/staff in-service week. SEE Y’ALL ON TUESDAY!

The courtyard has been cleaned, mulch has been laid, decks have been power washed, and pollinator gardens are abuzz with activity (literally)! Less than one week until the first day of school and we can’t wait to welcome you all back to campus☀️🌱

THANK YOU to our 5th grade families and teacher for organizing the campus cleanup; to for keeping our grounds beautifully maintained; to for making our buildings shine; and to and all of our student naturalists for caring for our native plants!

Arts, STEM, sports, and more! That’s a wrap on week 4

🧮 Peewee Mensa Club
🦸 Superhero Training Camp
🧬 Montessori Lab Explorers
🩰 Tippi Toes
🫧 Fun with Friends
📸 Digital Photography

All smiles for week 2 of summer camp!!!

🐠🪸 Under the Sea created rainbow fish, Dixie Cup whales, paper plate jellyfish, crab puppets, Q-tip rainbows, and play dough sea turtles

🏺🌻 Pottery took a field trip to Trask Family Farms to harvest wild blue clay from their clay pit which they then used to mold into small bowls

🌳💦 Nature Play made mud pies and bug houses, drew with chalk paint, played tag, and popped bubbles to their hearts’ content in the warm sunshine

🏗️ 📐 Drafting Academy learned about floor plans, elevations, and sections (and how to represent these views accurately in their drawings) to design their own custom cabins

🧮 ⚖️ Junior Mensa Club tackled the Fibonacci Sequence, Euclidean geometry, Möbius strip, and the Klein bottle, along with quite a few logic puzzles

🧬 🎨 Science & Art-themed Fun with Friends played outdoor games like Amoeba Tag and Circuit Breaker, created a Picasso-style self-portrait, and beat the heat with balloon tosses and sprinkler time

On June 19, 1865, enslaved peoples in Texas were finally informed that they were free, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today on Juneteenth we’re highlighting a number of Black Quakers and friends of Friends who were instrumental in the abolitionist movement. As Fannie Lou Hamer so powerfully spoke, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Historical biographies credited to the phenomenal

☀️ Week 1 summer camp scenes ☀️

What a way to kick off the season!

GROUNDBREAKING NEWS (literally) 🚧 🏗️

Construction is officially underway for our on-campus basketball court! Gotta say, this Fund-A-Need campaign was a SLAM DUNK 🏀

A soaking wet start to our first day of summer camp, but not even the rain can dampen our spirits ☔️

Makerspace built robotic arms while our Chess Grandmasters are already diving into variant games; Flip, Flop & Roll bounced and tumbled their way through the day and our Animal Architects met with local potter (and FSW alum!) Emma Brinkley to construct their own clay habitats; Plus our littlest campers—the Peewee Mensa Club and Soccer Shots superstars—spent some time with blocks, both the building kind and the defensive maneuver kind. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s sunshine brings!

🦾♟️🤸🏼‍♀️🏺🧱⚽️

We saw what graduation looked like from the lens of a professional photographer, but what about from the eyes of a graduate???

As this year’s virtual auction winner, the Tondeur Family won a social media takeover which means today’s IG is from rising 9th grader Phoenix’s perspective.

She’s an amazing artist, a carefree soul, bright and quick-witted with charisma for days. A fierce advocate for social justice and a friend to all, we were so lucky to have her as part of the FSW community for NINE years since her enrollment in Kindergarten.

In her own words, “I am a caterpillar / Comfortable in my cocoon / I am ready to fly as a butterfly.” GLOW, you’ve got an amazing high schooler heading your way!

Graduation looks a little different here at Friends. When there’s only 20 or so students in your class, we get to know you. Like, *really* know you. Like, you write and deliver a speech in front of the entire school and a teacher presents you with a personalized book kind of know you. And every student—no matter how long they’ve been part of our school community or where their next chapter takes them—is truly and authentically celebrated.

THANK YOU to for capturing the truest spirit of this day. Congratulations, class of 2024. What a beautiful year it’s been to watch you all thrive.

8th Grade Graduate Spotlight ✨🎓

Please join us in celebrating 9 of our incredible 8th graders from this year's graduating class! Today, we're proud to spotlight:

💡Jack Manning
🎨 Quill Windham
🏄‍♀️ Reese Walton
🥯 Phoenix Tondeur
💪🏼Jane Sullivan
🐉 Lucca Schroeder
🥁 Alden Polk
🙋🏽‍♀️Raven Myers
🌱 Katie McCudden

What do the poems on each slide mean? Well, as part of a longstanding annual tradition, our Middle School teaching team crafted personalized haikus for each graduate with great intentionality and deep care. Haikus were shared last week during an all-school meeting where students enjoyed guessing who each poem referred to! You really can learn so much about a friend in just 17 short syllables!

8th Grade Graduate Spotlight ✨🎓

Please join us in celebrating 9 of our incredible 8th graders from this year's graduating class! Today, we're proud to spotlight:

🎸 Ted Bowman
🏀 Heath Chisholm
⚽️ Ella Cohon
📚 Cameron Davis
🛝 Andrew Guendner
🥐 Logan Lewis
🎧 Eli Lukasik
👓 Jack Manning
🌟 Finley Matthews

What do the poems on each slide mean? Well, as part of a longstanding annual tradition, our Middle School teaching team crafted personalized haikus for each graduate with great intentionality and deep care. Haikus were shared last week during an all-school meeting where students enjoyed guessing who each poem referred to! You really can learn so much about a friend in just 17 short syllables!

This month and every month, we at FSW are proud to uplift the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Quakers have a celebrated history of social activism as abolitionists, feminists, and environmentalists, and our core guiding principles uphold the equal rights of ALL people ALWAYS. We continue to stand in solidarity with marginalized groups, advocating for justice and inclusion across all areas of society. There is still much work to be done, but we take heart in the changemaking process and the roles our students and teachers take in the journey.

What do satellite communication, dinosaur diets, and bioluminescence have in common with each other? They’re all self-directed research topics from our 7th grade science class, and today they had the chance to break it down for our 3rd graders during a mini science fair!

Why exactly was the 2011 tornado season so deadly? How exactly do the physics differ between bottle rocket launches and space rocket launches? And what are the chances 2 brown-eyed parents have a blue-eyed baby? Stop by Rob’s classroom to find out all this and more! 🧬🔭🧪

Today, our 5th grade Great Blue Herons displayed a year’s worth of hard work at their World Wisdom Fair! Students have been exploring countries from all corners of the earth, like New Zealand and Colombia, Turkey and Madagascar, and carefully curating artifacts for today’s suitcase showcase! 🌎 🧳 🗺️

In total, they researched and crafted:
▪️ Insightful 5-paragraph essays
▪️ Handmade traditional outfits
▪️ Detailed country maps
▪️ Delicious national food dishes
▪️ Illustrated “Cinderella” stories based on local folklore
▪️ Advocacy letters that offered unique solutions to water-based environmental challenges

Thank you to everyone who joined us on this incredible journey around the world! ✈️🚢🚂🚙

A big, busy week here at Friends and it’s only Wednesday!

1-3: 5th Annual Middle School Boat Regatta at Wrightsville Beach (thank you to the amazing folks at Wrightsville Beach SUP for hosting us)!
🛶🌊

4 & 5: Magnificent Mariposas Emergence with 2nd grade Seahorses and Kindergarten Sea Stars
🐛🦋

6 & 7: 4th grade native planting lessons with Karen
🌱🌼

8-10: Haikus & Gratitudes all-school MFW to celebrate our graduating 8th grade class
🎤💚

In honor of the upcoming yearbook, check out a few of my favorite pictures from this year! Don’t forget TODAY is the last day to place your order. Check your email/text for the link and get your copy now! 💚🧡💙

1 - Science Olympiad popsicle party
2 - Lower School book character parade
3 - PA co-clerks
4 - 6th grade science experiments
5 - Middle School basketball
6 - MLK Day program
7 - Middle School dance
8 - Kindergarten Kwanzaa lessons
9 - Artist Retreat object collections
10 - Night of Peace

As part of 8th grade’s final Language Arts project on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, they wrote and designed picture books which they shared with their 3rd grade buddies. Such a great way to connect concepts and use audience analysis to teach back their lessons! 🐖🐎🐗🐦‍⬛🐕👨🏼‍🌾

Crickets begin their magical tune
Ladybugs jig for the joy of June
Dragonflies dance as they dart by
Their whirring wings sing a lullaby
Bumblebees buzz a melody sweet
Caterpillars tap their many feet
Oh happy hearts beat just like drummers
As May brings on the songs of summer

🐞🐛🐜🐝🦋🕷️

Our Stepping Stones preschoolers are as busy as bees learning all about pollinators, plants, and creepy crawly bugs! Planting seeds, watering plants, labeling life cycles, building bug habitats, observing caterpillars, and more! It’s amazing to see our littlest students learning about and caring for all creatures of the world 🌱

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to present to you: 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝘿𝙖𝙮 𝙎𝙚𝙡𝙛𝙞𝙚 𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 with the Polk Brothers (featuring some pretty dang good slow-motion footage by Treyvor). I think I’ll just have Middle School be in charge of social media from now on because these pics are *amazing*