We opened our week with a West African dance and drumming group who preformed for the primary classrooms.  There were four performers who filled the multipurpose room with songs and drumming.  Several of the children were invited to learn a dance and go on stage.  The finale was amusingly performed by the dancers and most of the primary teachers who were taught a traditional “harvest dance.”

We are looking forward to our parent teacher conferences starting next week and appreciate the quick response from our families for signing up.  Please keep in mind that the meeting is for parents without your children as we want to utilize the time slot (15minutes) most efficiently in giving you a view of your child in our classroom. 

Thursday, October 25^th you will find P1 transformed into the country of BOLIVIA as we participate in our Foothills Montessori School’s International Children’s Day. We are excited about bringing this part of South American culture to life in our classroom.  Please check SignUpGenius for more details of how you can get involved.

A big thank you to the Sanchez family for providing delicious snacks for the classroom this week!

Have a good weekend.

Ms. Lina, Ms. Nancy, Ms. Julie

As we settle into our daily routine, we are seeing our brand new students engaging in lessons and getting their hands on foundational Montessori materials including the classic sand paper numbers (0-9) and sand paper letters.  These are materials designed to convey a tactile and visual representation of the building blocks of Math and Language.  It is a joy to have students respond willingly to sitting for their lessons and to see a new understanding of the materials once the lesson is given.

 At the same time, we are observing our older students engage in higher level thinking by using the more advanced materials in the room.  The older students really do lead the younger ones, simply by engaging with the materials and creating an example of how to do the work.   Our room is filled with children not only thirsty for lessons and new experiences, but also a willingness to reach out to other children in the class, often demonstrating their new found knowledge directly to their peers.

We are grateful for the parents who have returned our volunteer sheets and are happy to inform you that Maria Berkovits has stepped into the role of our room mother.  Maria has an education background (among other skills) and brings to our classroom an easy and efficient manner.  She has set up different sign up sheets on our “Sign Up Genius” website and we encourage all of you to explore the site.

 We are still looking to fill in our snack schedule so if you are interested please check our sign in sheet available at the door or through the Sign Up Genius web site. 

A big thank you to Krishna and his family for providing the delicious healthy snacks  this week. 

Have a wonderful weekend.

Ms. Lina, Ms. Nancy, Ms. Julie

We are having a good week of exploring classroom materials and engaging in many lessons of Math and Language both in English and in Spanish.  We were also visited by large and very hungry tomato worms, thanks to Bella and her family!

We are spending time reinforcing classroom etiquette and the importance of rolling mats with care as well as handling the materials with focus and respect. 

It was very inspiring to see so many families attend last weeks Parent Orientation Night and we encourage continued communications and dialogue between the classroom and home. 

A big THANKS to Tally and the Wallington family for providing snack last week for our classroom.  We also appreciate Nicholas and the Zoppas family for providing snack for our classroom this week.  Eating snack is an important component of learning social graces in the Montessori classroom and we are grateful for the care and thought put into the variety and quality of the snacks provided.

Welcome to our new school year.  Using our Spanish language, we say “Bienvenidos” to convey the same greeting.

We are covering themes for each month of the school year.  In September we will be learning about safety and community building along with health and nutrition.  In our science area we will be talking about “living and non-living” things.  Please take the opportunity at home to share examples of these broad themes with your children.  We are also looking at food groups and discovering the importance of good nutrition.  In our geography area we are using jobs showing the connection between land and water. 

Our first weeks together are also a prime time to instill a sense of ownership and responsibility for the jobs inside the classroom.  We practice taking jobs off the shelf, using them in the manner they were designed for and then returning the jobs to their proper space in the classroom.  Sitting with attentive listening ears is also a continuous theme we are committed to nurturing in each of our students. 

SNACKS:  A big “THANK YOU” to Ms. Cavalle and to Emma Berkovits for providing our first week of delicious snacks. The signup sheet for bringing snacks next week is outside our front door.  Thanks in advance for your support.