22 | Acton-Boxborough regional school district
At Merriam School, experiential, hands-on project-based learning provides opportunities for students to develop skills, self-confidence, a sense of responsibility, and enthusiasm for learning. Math, science, language arts, social studies and the arts are integrated into interesting, challenging projects. Merriam emphasizes community building, supported by activities like our weekly All School Meetings as well as special activities with our multi-age “family groups” like Community Day , Theme Day , and Field Day . Students stay with the same family groups throughout their time at Merriam, gradually assuming leadership roles as they progress through the grades. Highlights of the year included: • Maintaining Merriam’s weekly All School Meetings via Zoom from March 2020–June 2021. This structure connected us to one another by grounding us in our community. From our own homes we sang together, danced together, bird watched together, shared regular art shows, and were able to present our learning and class projects to the school as an authentic audience. • We created a digital library of picture books in order to maintain “zoom-style” reading buddies across the grade levels.
• We integrated our theme “bridges” into classrooms which involved civil engineers from a local firm presenting at an ASM , and then they met with individual classrooms to complete a bridge building challenge. The engineers planned with our students, helped them think about real world applications, asked them questions to support the revision process and of course attended the ultimate bridge test. • First graders planted a garden as a culmination to their inves- tigation, “How do living things grow, change and survive? • During our winter Literacy Week , High School students read books to our students in various languages, and we had authors visit every classroom to read and talk about being writers, all via zoom. Children loved these interactive opportunities with incredible role models. • Sixth graders ended the school year by presenting their Merriam culminating project at our Topics Fair . • Merriam fourth graders collected cards of cheer for the elderly community. These cards were delivered to Acton seniors with meals for those who needed them during the pandemic. • We deepened our collaboration between teachers and families in order to support the learning of every child as we navigated COVID.
Juliana Schneider Principal Bryant Amitrano Assistant Principal
Merriam Core Values • Risk taking • Persistence in Learning • Respect
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