Many of you have seen your child come home with a little, yellow felt circle pinned to their shirts, representing their “love lights.”  This is actually the fourth, inner circle representing the spirit of a person.  

As we have progressed through our peace lessons this year we have expanded our awareness of the four aspects of a person; body, mind, emotions and spirit.  The largest circle represents body, followed by mind, then emotions and in the center is the yellow, spirit circle.

As an extension of learning about the body, Ms. Melissa spent time recently talking about the spinal cord and its very important function of connecting commands sent to the mind, and executing the command through the body.  She played the game of “Simon Says” with the children and they got to experience the sensation of really listening to the instructions, or not, and feeling the disconnect when they realized they had moved with out the “Simon Says” directive.

We explored the five senses this week and the children were quickly able to isolate which of their five senses they had used to match color tablets, identify sounds with their eyes closed, smell the difference between an orange and a piece of chocolate, and watch Ms. Melissa grade (put in order) the wooden cylinders with her eyes closed using only her sense of touch to guide her.

 These lessons help the children identify aspects of themselves that they have in common with each other and it gives them labels that help them communicate more clearly with each other.

Sometimes, when a child is having a hard time emotionally, it simply is a matter of helping them identify their emotions, such as “were you mad about that?”  You can see the tension drain from them as they know that they have been heard and they are more willing to soften their stance and work through the disagreement.

Every peace lesson is closed with “Making Silence”, a centering exercise that is as simple as it is profound.  We encourage you to ask your child about it and if you want, let them lead you through it.  Here are the words:

I cross my legs,

I place my hands on my knees,

I make my back very straight,

I tell my body to be still,

I tell my mouth to be quiet,

I take a deep breath,

I close my eyes,

I make silence and feel my love

 

Thanks to all the parents who helped us on our field trip to see “The Little Mermaid” performance at Green Valley High School.

REMINDERS:

Saturday, 1/31:  Middle school community service fundraiser – parking lot sale at FMS.

Tuesday, 2/3:  Shark Reef field trip is scheduled for all P1 students. Please dress your child in the blue, Foothills Montessori School tee shirt.

Wednesday, 2/4:  Kindergarten enrollment information night at 5pm. For parents of students entering the kindergarten program for the 2015-2016 school year.

Tuesday, 2/10:  P1 Kindergarten field trip to Estes McDoniel Marine Lab.

Thursday, 2/12 Valentine celebration in P1.

 Friday, 2/13:  No school, teacher in service.

Monday, 2/16:  No school in celebration of President’s Day

Friday, 2/20:  PTO Family Dance

Thursday,: 2/26:  Parent-Child Night.  Families with the last name starting with A-L are invited to be here from 4:30-5:15 and families with a last name starting M-Z are invited to be here from 5:30:6:15. Join us with your child as they show you their favorite Montessori works.

A great big thanks to Ava and Noah and their families for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.