Winter break is here, giving us a chance to reflect on the year and all of the growth and changes our students have already shown.  

We see the positive effects of the children having clear expectations from us in the classroom.   Every day we are delighted by the ability of our students to complete deeper and more meaningful tasks.

Winter break provides us with a chance to relax, read, and spend unhurried time together.

Setting up home routines will make it easier for children to enjoy the free time, as children generally feel more confident and supported when they know what is expected of them.

Children love to sort items and truly delight in contributing the care of the family. It might be a good time to introduce unloading the dishwasher (starting with the utensil basket), sorting laundry, matching socks, and being responsible for returning toys and games to their assigned places.  

Daily feeding of pets could also provide your child with the chance to contribute to the care of the overall family.  

Being mindful that process and routine are the deeper lessons conveyed to a child when they are doing a task, let the results (product) be less important than the act of doing something positive for the family.  

Most importantly, we sincerely hope that this time together is flavored with peace and joy.

Building the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

We were so pleased with the winter performance, “December Gifts,”

and are greatly appreciative of Ms. Diana (Gabriel’s mom) and Ms. Brianne (Alex’s mom) for taking the lead in painting the shirts worn during our program.  

Completing the 1-10 hanging bead stair paper.

Special thanks to Ms. Mae (Vivian’s mom), Ms. Karri (Gabrielle’s mom) and Ms. Celeste (Cora’s mom) for baking special marshmallow cereal wreaths with us this week, they were delicious.

REMINDERS

Winter break is from Monday, December 19th through Tuesday, January 3rd (school closed).

School resumes on Wednesday, January 4th.  

No School on Monday, January 16th in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

Kindergarten enrollment information night is Wednesday, February 1st.

First grade enrollment information night is Thursday, February 2nd.

A special thanks to Raania and Vivian, and their families, for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.

A great, big thanks to E6 for sharing holiday stories and snacks with us!

Developing a relaxed and firm grasp of a pencil is a major milestone for the primary aged student.  It begins with the strengthening of the hand and finger muscles and then training the thumb and first finger to grasp objects effectively.  This is also known as the pincer grip, and is one of the keys for fine motor skill development.

It is the foundation for learning how to write comfortably, for using scissors, buttoning buttons, and eventually for tying a shoelace.

In the Montessori classroom, we emphasize the development of the pincer grip by having a wide variety of grasping and tweezing jobs.  There is also ample opportunity for early writers to practice their skills by tracing their name, and other work like tracing letters and numbers.

It is easy to spot a student who is early in this process, as they tend to “fist” the pencil instead of holding the pencil using the pincer grip. Often it is the repetition of helping the student realign their grasp that begins to build the muscle memory of holding the pencil correctly.  

Using scissors effectively can also take time and practice.  Starting with the correct grasp of the thumb is the first step.  Then coordinating the three fingers to hold the bottom part of the scissors is the key to cutting.  

Once it has clicked in the student’s mind how to use the pincer grip,

than other activities requiring fine motor skills come a little easier such as holding utensils, buttoning a sweater, and even learning how to zip a zipper.

We were delighted to have Victoria Bloyd (Kendall’s mom) and Stephanie Vause (Vanessa’s mom) share some North American traditions with us.

Victoria, Kendall and her sister (Teighlor) shared a summer vacation trip to a Native American settlement in the south, and they brought ample pictures and artifacts for the students to observe.

Stephanie set up a tortilla making project in the kitchen and each student enjoyed sampling the fruits of their labor.  Thank you very much for your thoughtful and interesting demonstrations.

Reminders

Kindergartners are visiting Sunrise Senior Living Center of Henderson on Wednesday, December 7th to share their holiday singing cheer.  Please have your child wear their green FMS field trip shirt.

Our winter performance is on Tuesday, December 13th at 9:30 am.

Winter break begins on Friday, December 16th with half day dismissal at 11:15am and school resumes Wednesday, January 4th.

Completing the “100 chain.”

A big thanks to Cora and McCoy, and their families, for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.