Octobern14-October 18

Dear Parents,

Please mark your calendars:

Tuesday, October 22:    Small Hands Catalog orders are due. 
Friday, October 25: Fall Festival at school from 5 p.m.-7 p.m.  
                                Students are invited to wear their Halloween costumes.
Monday, October 28:    Teacher Work Day. No school for students

Do you have a sense of what is going on in the classroom?  I struggle as to what to include in our weekly news. In a Montessori classroom students are not all doing the same thing.  How should I communicate what each student is working with on a daily basis?  Life is never boring, nor or any two days exactly the same in a classroom environment. I think that is especially true in a mixed aged Montessori classroom.  As the teacher I see learning happening everywhere.  I suspect as a parent you are often relying on faith that your child is learning, engaged in productive work, and thriving socially in our classroom.  Montessori schools do not necessarily have a work sheet to send home so that you have written proof of what your child is doing.
I will continue to try to keep you informed as to what your child is doing and encourage you to contact me with any questions/

A group of second year students worked for several hours over the course of three or four days creating an imaginary island.  The imaginary island puzzle, one of my favorite materials, consists of 84 multi directional, non-interlocking puzzle pieces which portrays common land and water systems, mountains, coastlines, river systems, etc. The complete puzzle includes a small ship, symbolic flora and fauna, a compass rose and grid numbers, and exploration cards. Students determine where on the globe to place their island. They choose a location using longitude and latitude degrees. That single decision is the basis for determining the basic needs of the indigenous people of their imaginary islands; type of shelter, dietary and clothing needs, means of transportation, communication, etc.  There are exploration task cards requiring the students to determine a system of government and monetary system.  None of this work can be captured on a work sheet.  

The older students are working on a European explorer project. What we are studying is almost irrelevant because the real work is learning how to take notes, paraphrase, organize information, self /peer edit an essay, work through a writing conference with a teacher, write a bibliography etc..  It is a big project. lasting several weeks before any end product is available for your review. 

Parents are always welcome to visit the classroom and become involved in classroom lessons. You may schedule a classroom observation anytime after Halloween.

We are ready to introduce our Spanish program with Rosetta Stone.  In order to get started, I would like to confirm your child's email address.  Please help your child select a password.  The password should have at least eight characters and include one lowercase letter, one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character ( #,&,$,). Please send this information to me via an email by October 23.

Thank you to Stuart Brown, Sherri Kempf, Michelle Manzon, Kim LoGuidice, Kim McNally, Matt Gunter, Tim Finnegan, Stephanie Foster, Cory Foy and Summer Bell for chaperoning on the Ft. Caswell trip.

Thank you to the LoGuidice family for the library books.

Thank you to Aurora Toennisson for coming into the classroom to share information about the role of insects in the garden environment. 

Thank you to Michelle Manzon for chaperoning the UE students on the Colonial Living trip.

Warm Regards,

J
 

UE Field Trip

Learning about the cannon.

Reading about Pugh's rock.

The Cider Mill

Tasting the apple cider.

The Blacksmith.

Ready to see the cannon fire!

Lola and the women's traditional colonial wear.

The Candlemakers.

On Tuesday October 15, we celebrated Stella's Year Around the Sun.

Quote of the Week.

Entomology Lesson from Mrs. Aurora.