District News

Families were welcomed to Ferndale Lower Elementary (FLower) to visit classrooms, meet teachers, and learn about current curriculum. We are so thankful to all of our families for your support and engagement. What a great start for our Little Eagles!

Wednesday night, three Ferndale Family groups dedicated to supporting the music and fine arts programs of the district held their first meetings of the 2023-24 school year. BandAid, Orch-Support and Fine Arts Boosters (FAB). Great ideas were shared, and members planned out a great year!

1st and 2nd grade students use their imaginations to create paintings for Constitution day during art. They watched a video about the constitution and then they got to decide how they wanted their American flag to be drawn on their paper. Students then were allowed to use watercolor paint to add color where they wanted.

FHS students and neighboring artists are enjoying the new CASA location! The Center for Advanced Studies & the Arts (CASA) is a consortium school serving Berkley, Clawson, Ferndale, Lamphere, Madison, Oak Park and Pontiac school districts. They offer sixteen Advanced Placement courses, a vibrant visual arts curriculum, and a robust advanced dance program. Their new location is at 22180 Parklawn in Oak Park.

Social Justice students 6-8 working and supporting each other while reading the class book “New Kid” as part of our Identity lesson. 

The Social Justice elective is a one semester course for middle school students to examine issues that impact diverse groups of people.  The course begins with an introduction to what defines social justice and continues with a close look at disparities based on race,  poverty and gender identification.

The book "New Kid" helps us to truly dive into the term "Identity". In this book there is an African American boy who attends a new school where everyone is very different from what he is used to. He faces many cultural battles with peers at school and teachers as he learns how to navigate a new environment while staying true to who he is. Students really enjoyed reading it!

Last week room 24 from FUEL had to create the tallest tower they could with only twenty sheets of paper! Watching everyone's creativity shine was so cool to see, and they created some pretty great towers in the process!

Tink, a certified therapy dog, who lives with Mr Turner of FMS, made her first visit of the school year. 

Tink, who is certified through the Bright and Beautiful Therapy Dogs, visits FMS on the 1st Friday of every month. Today, she was joined by one of her therapy pals, Annie, a pointer. 

Be sure to stop by the FMS commons during lunch, or swing by room 301 to get some puppy love!

Ferndale Upper Elementary families walked the halls of FUEL this week during our Open House, learning about our facilities, meeting teachers, and discovering our programs. We love to see our school family come together!

Fur Angels therapy dog Annie made her first monthly visit to UHS today. Students and staff enjoyed petting and cuddling with Annie during CPC. We look forward to more visits throughout the year!

Our 1-3rd grade Montessori classroom at FUEL celebrated Dr. Maria Montessori’s birthday (8/31/1870) by learning more about her, singing, and releasing 2 swallowtail butterflies that emerged from their chrysalises today! It was a lovely way to celebrate our return to the classroom.

During Social Emotional Learning (SEL) sessions this week at FMS, several students learned to deal with frustration appropriately through play. While standing up the dominoes, sometimes they would fall, and students would have to start over. One student in Mrs. Collins class, Exzavior, demonstrated executive functioning skills by developing a harm reduction strategy: completing small sections at a time so that only a small section would fall if an accident occurred. Once the small sections were all set, students went back and carefully filled in the gaps with more dominoes. During the lesson, the dominoes accidentally fell many times, but everyone practiced walking away, deep breathing, talking about what was frustrating (including positive self-talk), before coming up with solutions.

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Music is in full swing at Lower Elementary with Mrs. Duncanson & Ms. Krum. Students have been hearing stories, singing, dancing, and playing & learning about different instruments as we start our new year. Ask your child if they can tell you the difference between a guitar and a Ukulele. *Hint* maybe this photo of our Music teachers will be a helpful clue!

In 4th & 5th grade music with Mrs. Duncanson, students have been working on what it means to be welcome. To share a few, some students said welcome means: "You are loved" "I fit in" "Food" "I am safe" "I belong" & "smile". Students have also been playing our "You Belong Here" pattern on our barred instruments: Xylophones, Metallaphones, and Glockenspiels.

First Fives is already working hard on our fine motor skills by pokey pinning, cutting with scissors, using playdough and tweezers.

What are fine motor skills you may ask? Fine motor skills can be thought of as the small movements of muscles that involve using the hands and fingers together to perform movement. Fine motor skills are movements such as pinching or grasping. These types of movements are important for young children to practice as they develop because they help a child lay the foundation to do such everyday tasks as buttoning a shirt, tying shoe laces, grasping a pencil, using utensils, typing on a keyboard and much more. Fine motor skills can also help develop hand-eye coordination in young children.

Learn More About Fine Motor Skills

The Special Agents of the CIA Lima Company (Mrs. Danielle Cover's first grade Cover Intelligence Agency) took on their first Top Secret Mission: discover the names of all of their classmates written around the room. The trick was the names were INVISIBLE!

Special Agents used their super spy skills to uncover the names with black light flashlights. When a name was found, Special Agents recorded them in their Top Secret notebooks. The mission was successful and all 22 names were found! Way to go CIA Lima Company: Mission Accomplished!

The district welcomed a few members of the Class of 1973 to campus for a building walk-through as part of their 50th Class Reunion weekend. Pictured here with Superintendent Goodrum is Bob McGee, reunion organizer and former Mayor of Ferndale. Mr. McGee made a stop by just to say a word of thanks from their class for the arrangements made for their visit!

UHS welcomed our new and returning students with our 'First 4 Days' programming. Students participated in a variety of discussions and activities throughout the week designed to familiarize students with UHS, our staff, and each other. The week culminated with field day activities to celebrate a great start to the school year.

Mrs. Pagonas' and Ms. Berris' senior English classes worked on creating self portraits made from adjectives that describe them as people and students.

Students had to work and collaborate together in Mr. Florkowski's Geometry classroom. The team building and engineering challenging was to construct the highest tower possible using spaghetti, tape and a single marshmallow.

Students Meagan Parham and Sydney Adams complete an exploration activity for Sequences and Series in Algebra 2.

Students in Mrs. Lopiccolo's Honors Geometry class worked on a non-curricular task that helps develop positive classroom norms and introduce the principles of Building Thinking Classroom. The first few days of school are essential to setting two-way expectations and creating an environment for student learning.

This week, FUEL 4th graders had the amazing opportunity to harvest what they planted in the FUEL gardens last year as 3rd graders! Students went out to the gardens with Ms. Hillebrand & Ms. Tiffany to harvest from our Big Green garden and got to see all the amazing growth from this summer!

This spring, our Montessori classroom paired up with Mrs Watson’s 5th graders to plant a native and pollinator garden at FUEL! Pollinator habitats provide essential food sources and nesting habitat for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other essential workers in our ecosystem and food web. Native plantings select flowers, grasses, and other pollen and seed producers that have developed a symbiotic relationship with native wildlife. Native plants are also more resilient to local climate, seasonal changes, and soil conditions while developing deeper root structures that support healthy soil and greater bio-accessibility of nutrients for plants, animals, and insects. A big THANK YOU to those who donated plants and our PTA for making this possible!

On Thursday, June 1st 1st-3rd grade Montessori students at FUEL welcomed their very special adults for Bring Your Grown-Up to School Day! Each child chose three or more materials they’ve used throughout the year and showed their grown-up how to use them, explaining how the tools helped them in their learning. They also shared their portfolios of great works that they keep for all 3 years they are in the program. It was amazing to see the pride, ownership, and joy these scholars have regarding their work! They were excellent teachers! Thank you to all the special grown-ups who attended!  

118 Ferndale students crossed the stage this week to receive their Tri-County Educational Center (TCEC) diplomas! Congratulations to all of you on this achievement. We are so proud to call you Ferndale Eagle Alumni.

The graduates boarded the Detroit Princess River Cruise earlier this week to celebrate with classmates and family. The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time cruising the Detroit River and enjoying lunch together.

The District Calendar for 2023-2024 is now available as a PDF. Click here to view.

TCEC students were invited to celebrate the end of the year with staff at Universal Nonstop recreation center and everyone had a great time experiencing bumper cars, VR, rock climbing, games and go carts. Great work this year, students!

5th Graders enjoyed an overnight outdoor education experience this week, with 3 days at Camp Cavell on Lake Huron. Students were able to scale trees and repel down as well as discovering local wildlife (and a few domesticated friends) with hands-on and microscope assisted opportunities. Throughout the trip, friendships were forged through cooperative challenges and collaborative free play, with plenty of time exploring and relaxing on the beaches of the ancestral lands of the Wyandotte nation. We are thankful to the past, present, and future stewards of these natural spaces for this experience.

A special shout out to K-5 Camp Coordinator, Adrianne Quinn, who has managed and coordinated all of the elementary camps over the past ten years. We truly appreciate her commitment to the outdoor education program that is a hallmark of the Ferndale elementary experience. We will miss her as she heads into camp "retirement" in the coming school year!