Hello St Croix Families,
We have had several wonderful weeks. With conferences and
half weeks, we got off our bi-weekly routine of updates, but here is the last
of March’s.
First, it was both informative and delightful to see you all
at conferences. THANK YOU for making time in your busy schedules to come and
spend time with us. As we mentioned in conferences, playing respectfully and
fairly on the playground has been a focus of both the adults and the children.
We continue to remind the students of the established clear parameters and make
sure communication among all playground staff is also clear.
Next, I would like to acknowledge and thank Jennifer
Gessner for her time and energy. She is our new classroom ambassador and has
been already very helpful. Rachael, who also did a fantastic job as ambassador
but had to hand it off due to her new schedule, continues to support the
classroom. She came during conferences, cleaned the fish tank and then gifted
us several new fish!
Thank you to many of you who have already sent items from
the wish list. It feels like Christmas when an Amazon box gets delivered to our
classroom.
We have new Practical Life works in our classroom which include
using screwdrivers, wire grippers and hammering! The students enjoy these works
a great deal. We started a bird study this past week and have been have many
specimens in the classroom on loan from Science House at the Science Museum of
MN. We have talking about various kinds of eggs, nests, songs and types of
bills. We have just begun this study and we will continue as Spring comes
around.
Two of my favorite things about Montessori education are
that we teach the "whole child" and that we focus so much on relationships, which
is assured by the three-year cycle. It is just wonderful to think that we are
going to be with all these students again next year. We have begun to talk
about their role in mentoring the new first year students and the various
lessons and modeling they will do. This has been both a motivator for work and
a reminder of how far they have come.
Here is what have been up to lately:
watching out curly willow sprout and grow roots and writing
/ drawing about it
making a lot of maps
reading, reading and reading
doing oral presentations on books we have read
huge 300 piece jigsaw puzzle
organizing ourselves better (cubbies, folders, copybooks
etc)
finishing our Read aloud book
Studying bird nests, feathers, bills, eggs
Yoga area in the classroom
Working with soft music
Have a WONDERFUL Spring break. We look forward to seeing
taller, smiling faces. We will be welcoming a new student to our classroom,
Liza.
