End of March

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.