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Buckeye Class:

Spring has finally arrived!

Thank you all for taking the time out to attend conferences. We really enjoyed sharing  with you what your child is up to in class. Seeing their individual growth in kindness, confidence and academics made it fun to share!

We began our month working on a practical life skill, slicing. Food preparation is such a fun and valuable skill as children truly love being able to do things for themselves. During work time the children had opportunities to slice up a cucumber, eat it, and clean up after themselves. More food to come later!

In science we found out that matter is anything that takes up space and that matter can be a solid, a liquid or a gas, depending on its qualities. We were able to observe a liquid (ex: water) taking on the shape of its container, while a solid (ex: frozen water) does not. Air, on the other hand, fills all available space. A SINK/FLOAT work was introduced explaining what it means to be more dense or less dense than water. We look forward to conducting some more hands-on science experiments.

We discussed the water cycle being the constant movement of water and an appreciation for the availability of water.

This month we started a lengthy unit study of our own beautiful state of Washington. We begin with a cosmic view that ties everything together, leading with the universe and ending with the city we live in. Using paper maps, puzzle maps and models of the earth, a picture is painted of where we are in the world.   (Universe, galaxy, planet, continent, country, state, and city)

We learned all about different biomes in Washington state including their unique and specific climates, animals and flora and fauna. We have also been talking about the state symbols like the bird, flower, gem, fruit etc.… Because our state fruit is the apple, a little apple tasting experiment was conducted.

Kids have been working hard on a spring themed project that will come home in April.

Thank you to Mrs. Leach who shared with the class some of the traditional activities she has enjoyed during the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day including parades, story telling and spreading love.

We can’t wait to dig into plants and gardening!

Hemlock Class Newsletter for March

A big Thank you to all of you for meeting with us for conferences. It is an important time to connect. We learn a lot from you about your child and can inform you about our daily activities in class as we do not have time to do so during drop off and pick up! Thank you again for partnering with us in making your child/children successful!.

Spring is in the air and things are changing. New friendships are forming for a lot of children and how to navigate them is another skill to figure out. We keep our eyes and ears open inside as well as on the playground but appreciate your input, too. ProCare works great for quick messages.

The month of March is our Unit month in class and we are diving deep into -Birds-So far we covered birds in general: beaks, feathers, claws, nest building, egg laying etc. Then we looked closer at different types of water birds, birds of prey from the PNW and tropical birds. We also explore birds that do not fly and birds we see in our area. The children learn lots of bird related songs, make bird puzzles, parts of bird books and read Library books about the subject and some children even write and draw their own! It is very impressive how much detailed information the children remember and all of them have a favorite bird! In practical life the children can create their own nests, feed chicks and write with feathers and feel feathers in different ways. There is dry pouring with bird seeds and gluing of bird pictures available. In other classroom areas we have bird memory as a favorite and matching birds to each other or their homes. Every week a new activity is added 🙂

The time change made some children a bit tired but overall seems to have no effect on our learning. The children started with their Spring project since time flies by and there are several steps to prepare it 🙂 It will come home for Spring Break.

Thank you all for sending in snacks and water bottles as having snack with a friend is an exciting social time during class.

St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated with stories and lots of children wearing green. On the same day we had to say Good Bye to our friend Irfa from the afternoon class. Her family is moving to Canada and we will miss her dearly! We wish her all the best!

Hemlock Class:

This month we started teaching peace as we began the peace curriculum where we talked about what inner peace means and ways to find that inner peace. We call it a love light. The children were shown different breathing techniques to calm themselves down. The virtue of class peace bottles was discussed, which involve Red- truth, orange- personal best, yellow- peace, green – friendship, blue- kind words, purple-joy. We keep reminding children about these virtues. February was also all about celebrating: the Chinese and Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, and President’s Day. The children learned about the meaning of these celebrations and were able to fine-tune their art skills by creating different arts and crafts. Valentine’s Day is always a highlight for the children, and they enjoyed decorating their own Valentine’s bags to hold the cards that their fellow students brought to give out. Distributing the cards into the bags of each child is something the kids always look forward to. We also had a simple snack of watermelon, cantaloupe, and muskmelon cut in heart shape and cherry tomatoes filled with cream cheese and spring onion (put together to look like a tulip flower). We continue to work on how to treat each other with respect, try to be helpful to each other, and enjoy doing things as a group.

We are starting our next unit about birds. Soon your child will be sharing some fun facts about birds.

Buckeye Class:

We started February off by talking about safety at circle. This included understanding that firefighters are not scary and that people should trust them. We learned about what smoke detectors do, and not to touch hot things. Lastly, we discussed how to walk safely in parking lots, streets, driveways and neighborhoods. We also had guest night. This is one of our favorite and most popular events at our school. There were many children who brought their guests and showed them what they do at school. For Valentine’s Day we decorated bags for our valentines, then made cards for our parents. We learned about what love is and where Valentine’s Day came from. On Valentine’s Day, the children passed out their valentines and ate a small plate of fruits. We also introduced land and water forms. We learned about peninsula/gulf, strait/isthmus, cape/bay, archipelago/system of lakes, and island/lake. The children have had the opportunity to pour water into our land and water form models and place objects like fish, trees, people, bridges, and animals around them. Another holiday we learned about is Carnival. Carnival is a fun festival of merrymaking; people dress up in costumes, participate in parades, and decorate floats. There is music everywhere, which makes people dance and sing in the streets, young and old alike. It is pre-dominantly a Roman Catholic festival, the last “hurrah” before the beginning of the season of lent (a period of fasting and reflection) which ends on Easter. Ms. Ross showed pictures of popular Carnival destinations around the world: the famous carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans, elaborate costumes and masks in Venice, Italy, and of her home town in Maastricht, the Netherlands, where people celebrate for three days and even most stores, schools, and businesses are closed during this time. On our nature walks, we are beginning to see a few early signs of spring including trees budding! We will wrap up the month with talking about the presidents on our coins and a few other presidents.

Hemlock Class

We welcome all of you in the new year. January is the month of transition, the reflection of the past, and looking forward to the future. We are happy to see the children back in the routine. We can see their excitement to be in the classroom and with each other. It motivates the teachers too. We are happy to know that they were able to remember the classroom rules.

We started the month with our planet Earth. We learned the position of Earth in Space and how it is divided as land and water using our Sand Paper globe. Using a colored globe, we learned the seven continents’ names. We also learned that Earth is flattened as Western and Eastern hemispheres for our convenience and where all continents fit in the hemispheres.

We are learning the different landforms and excited to learn and identify the landforms in our map. They were happy to make
landform books. We read a book about Martin Luther King Junior and his speech about “I have a dream” and his contribution towards equal rights for everyone.

The Montessori curriculum emphasizes peace in the world. We provided eligible tools to foster self-awareness in children. We learned how to calm our bodies and feel the love within us. We learned our Outer self, Middle self and Inner self-using a Matryoshka Doll. We did an activity about a circle of self-awareness. We will continue our peace education in February too. We celebrated Leon’s 6th, Aiyana’s 5th , Harris’s 5th , Sienne’s 3rd and Chloe’s
5th birthdays

“An educational method which cultivates and protects the inner activities
of the child is not a question which concerns merely the school or the teachers, it
is a universal question.” – Dr. Maria Montessori.

Buckeye Classroom:

We hope all of you had a wonderful start to the New Year! The winter season is a great time of learning in the classroom, and often leaps of progress happen during these months. The first week after returning from winter break, we talked about what a year is, and how it is divided in months, weeks and days. We discussed the calendar and the different seasons. The children were able to concretely experience this by working with a long chain with 364 beads, divided by 12 silver beads, and laying down month and season cards. Some of the older children were excited to make labels with their birthday and find the particular bead for this date on the chain.
We continued that week with learning about the South Pole, Antarctica, and the best-known animal from the southern continent – the Penguin. Several children made a “Parts of a Penguin” booklet, which you may have seen coming home. Somehow in the colder months we must think about the colder parts of our world, because later the children also learned about the North Pole, the arctic tundra, and the animals that live there. We put out three-part nomenclature cards (pictures and labels) with miniature animals, igloos, and Eskimos, and this soon became a favorite work of many children.
What would January be without snowflakes? We learned about water molecules, freezing water vapors, ice crystals, and that the ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) and that snowflakes are always six-sided.
January has been a fun and busy month of learning! We also learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and about his dream that one day everyone would be treated as equals and live in a society where black people and white people would live together in harmony. The children enjoyed singing the song “Freedom, Freedom, Let It Ring” during circle (to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”):
“Freedom, freedom, let it ring.
Let it ring, said Dr. King.
Let it ring from North to South.
Let it ring from house to house.
Let it ring for everyone,
All across the whole nation.

Let it ring for black and white,
Let it ring both day and night.
Let it ring for young and old,
Forever may its song ring bold.
Freedom, freedom, let it ring.
Let it ring, said Dr. King.”
Hemlock Class

We welcome all of you in the new year. January is the month of transition, the reflection of the past, and looking forward to the future. We are happy to see the children back in the routine. We can see their excitement to be in the classroom and with each other. It motivates the teachers too. We are happy to know that they were able to remember the classroom rules.

We started the month with our planet Earth. We learned the position of Earth in Space and how it is divided as land and water using our Sand Paper globe. Using a colored globe, we learned the seven continents’ names. We also learned that Earth is flattened as Western and Eastern hemispheres for our convenience and where all continents fit in the hemispheres.

We are learning the different landforms and excited to learn and identify the landforms in our map. They were happy to make
landform books. We read a book about Martin Luther King Junior and his speech about “I have a dream” and his contribution towards equal rights for everyone.

The Montessori curriculum emphasizes peace in the world. We provided eligible tools to foster self-awareness in children. We learned how to calm our bodies and feel the love within us. We learned our Outer self, Middle self and Inner self-using a Matryoshka Doll. We did an activity about a circle of self-awareness. We will continue our peace education in February too. We celebrated Leon’s 6th, Aiyana’s 5th , Harris’s 5th , Sienne’s 3rd and Chloe’s
5th birthdays

“An educational method which cultivates and protects the inner activities
of the child is not a question which concerns merely the school or the teachers, it
is a universal question.” – Dr. Maria Montessori.

Buckeye Classroom:

We hope all of you had a wonderful start to the New Year! The winter season is a great time of learning in the classroom, and often leaps of progress happen during these months. The first week after returning from winter break, we talked about what a year is, and how it is divided in months, weeks and days. We discussed the calendar and the different seasons. The children were able to concretely experience this by working with a long chain with 364 beads, divided by 12 silver beads, and laying down month and season cards. Some of the older children were excited to make labels with their birthday and find the particular bead for this date on the chain.
We continued that week with learning about the South Pole, Antarctica, and the best-known animal from the southern continent – the Penguin. Several children made a “Parts of a Penguin” booklet, which you may have seen coming home. Somehow in the colder months we must think about the colder parts of our world, because later the children also learned about the North Pole, the arctic tundra, and the animals that live there. We put out three-part nomenclature cards (pictures and labels) with miniature animals, igloos, and Eskimos, and this soon became a favorite work of many children.
What would January be without snowflakes? We learned about water molecules, freezing water vapors, ice crystals, and that the ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) and that snowflakes are always six-sided.
January has been a fun and busy month of learning! We also learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and about his dream that one day everyone would be treated as equals and live in a society where black people and white people would live together in harmony. The children enjoyed singing the song “Freedom, Freedom, Let It Ring” during circle (to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”):
“Freedom, freedom, let it ring.
Let it ring, said Dr. King.
Let it ring from North to South.
Let it ring from house to house.
Let it ring for everyone,
All across the whole nation.

Let it ring for black and white,
Let it ring both day and night.
Let it ring for young and old,
Forever may its song ring bold.
Freedom, freedom, let it ring.
Let it ring, said Dr. King.”

After this topic we moved a bit deeper into peace and harmony with activities on Peaceful Meditations. This covered learning about positive and negative emotions, breath awareness, making silence, a love light that represents the love within us, and an introduction to meditation and self-awareness (Mind in a Jar). There are several new items for the children to explore on our Peace Shelf, such as the Peace Basket, the Peace Rose, the Love Lights, and the Circles of Self-awareness.
We continued with learning about Lunar New Year, and several children enjoyed making Chinese Lanterns. We want to thank Martha Tran (Martin and Lana’s mom) for sharing stories and information on Lunar New Year during our circle time. The children are very excited when a special guest comes to visit! We encourage all parents (and grandparents) to share any special gifts, talents, or information they have with our classroom!
We also thank those of you who came to Kindergarten Information night. The Kindergarten year in a Montessori classroom gives the child an experience like no other. Not only do they get to be a leader and a mentor, they also develop skills they have been practicing for a couple of years here. The Kindergartners continue to grow socially and emotionally while still in a safe and nurturing environment where they know everyone, staff included, and everyone knows and loves each child.

After this topic we moved a bit deeper into peace and harmony with activities on Peaceful Meditations. This covered learning about positive and negative emotions, breath awareness, making silence, a love light that represents the love within us, and an introduction to meditation and self-awareness (Mind in a Jar). There are several new items for the children to explore on our Peace Shelf, such as the Peace Basket, the Peace Rose, the Love Lights, and the Circles of Self-awareness.
We continued with learning about Lunar New Year, and several children enjoyed making Chinese Lanterns. We want to thank Martha Tran (Martin and Lana’s mom) for sharing stories and information on Lunar New Year during our circle time. The children are very excited when a special guest comes to visit! We encourage all parents (and grandparents) to share any special gifts, talents, or information they have with our classroom!
We also thank those of you who came to Kindergarten Information night. The Kindergarten year in a Montessori classroom gives the child an experience like no other. Not only do they get to be a leader and a mentor, they also develop skills they have been practicing for a couple of years here. The Kindergartners continue to grow socially and emotionally while still in a safe and nurturing environment where they know everyone, staff included, and everyone knows and loves each child.

Classroom Review

Hemlock Class:

What a busy few weeks we had. Everything had to happen after Thanksgiving but before the break. We brushed up on our knowledge of different holidays of the season like Kwanzaa with the different meanings of the colored candles and homemade gifts for meetings with friends and family as well as Hanukkah with the miracle of the oil lasting for 8 days and nights. We used a Shamash candle to light up the eight candles on the menorah and the Children learned how to play the dreidel game, too. Then we delved a little into German Christmas traditions with Advent wreath, Advent calendar, Christmas markets and Saint Nicholaus story and traditions. We smelled a “Raeuchermaennchen”, tasted “Lebkuchen” and learned to sing “Oh Tannenbaum”. As for Christmas the American way, we learned about the reason for the season as well as lots of Christmas songs (“Rudolph the red nosed reindeer’, ‘Frosty the snowman’, ‘12 Days of Christmas’ just to name a few). We looked at the parts of a poinsettia and learned about its history and origin. Did you know the red leaves are called bracts?

The children were very busy crafting a surprise for you and making their own ornaments to help decorate our classroom tree and they are eager to bring them home!

Thanks to everyone who sent in a book for our book exchange! It is nice to give something and also to receive/chose something different as well. On our last day in the classroom, we enjoyed a nice treat with all our classmates. The plate was filled with a watermelon slice shaped as a Christmas tree and a carrot cake present under it and Santa (strawberry with whip) on the side. The children were able to make their own carrot bread the day before! Busy days:-)

Thank you to all for the thoughtful and wonderful gifts for us teachers! They are much appreciated and will be cherished throughout the break.

We wish all our families a happy and healthy holiday season and are looking forward to seeing everybody again in 2023! Have a lovely break!

Buckeye Class:

Hopefully all had a great Thanksgiving break. We ended the month of November with a bit of a history of Thanksgiving.

We had a short and very busy month here at school, as I’m positive you did at home. It was fun to hear about all the holiday activities that the children were getting to experience at home with their families.

We have been focused on the “peace virtues” including truth, personal best, peace, friendship, kind words and joy.

In the classroom, the children were very busy creating a holiday gift for you.

We also spent a bit of circle time talking about Christmas around the world and which traditions each continent celebrates, including their similarities. I think they enjoyed the fact that the Australian Santa is a surfer and that instead of stockings, in Europe, the children get goodies in their shoes.

This included the traditional Christian story, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and Saint Nicolas Day (Sinterklaas), including a special gift.

Color mixing in the practical life area was a popular thing.

Children worked hard on their Christmas gift for you! (Many steps)

It is fun to see your children leading the show and tell circle and the joy they get in executing this leadership role.

Other jobs they enjoy include setting out the lunch name tags, deciding on weather and discussing the calendar.

An abundance of Christmas ornaments have come home, for sure, and other seasonal art works.

The book exchange was a big hit.

We introduced the balance beam, living vs. non-living and the dreidel game.

Christmas music boxes were offered to quiet tables at lunch, and that was a popular and exciting thing.

Holiday songs included:

Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, I’m a little Snowman Short and Fat, Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and I Have a Little Dreidel.

Looking forward to the new year!

Hemlock Class

In the Hemlock Room, It is such a pleasure to see children settling into their routine, more readily engaging in new works. We started off this month by learning about corn, parts of a corn and how corn grows. We talked about turkeys and Parts of a turkey. They are enjoying making a Parts of a Corn and Turkey books. Tweezing kernels off an ear of Indian corn has become the favorite.  They are even going to use the kernels to make their paper corn.

We discussed about why some animals are busy preparing a hibernaculum to take a long deep sleep called hibernation. They were excited to learn why they take a deep sleep.

The story about Early pilgrims, why did they move out of their country, their journey in the Mayflower, and their life in a new country. We also talked about what are we thankful for.

The children happily participated in preparing cornbread and learned to make butter to enjoy in class.  As a part of the Thanksgiving tradition we had a Happy Thanksgiving meal with the children and recited the child’s Thanksgiving poem, which they practiced for quite some time.

New works like metal polishing, rice grinding, cinnamon grinding have been shown.  Many new thanksgiving theme songs and poems have been introduced.

We have been practicing some brain gym exercises and different breathing exercise to calm ourselves down.

Buckeye Class

This November we had our first conferences of the year.  It was wonderful getting to speak with most parents in person about your children and get a feel for how the children are doing from the parent’s perspective.

At circle we are talking about the peace bottles.  Each colored bottle represents a different virtue of peace.

         Red – Truth

         Orange – Personal Best

         Yellow – Peace

         Green – Friendship

         Blue – Kind Words

         Purple – Joy

Each day we focused on a different virtue and throughout the school year, if a conflict arises, we can think back to our peace bottles and remember to honor the virtues. We also brought out the peace rose.  The peace rose is something we keep on the shelf and the children can take it out if they need to have a conversation with another child to resolve a conflict.  The children take turns talking as they pass the rose back and forth.

Another circle topic this month was thankfulness.  We asked the children about what they are thankful for in their lives and they later got the chance to write it on a small leaf and hang it on our “thankfulness tree”.

We will also be having a thanksgiving feast at the end of the month.  We read the book Stone Soup which is about a community of people adding things they like to a soup so they can all enjoy it. Each child gets the opportunity to bring in a vegetable of their choice to add to our own stone soup that we will cook and eat together.  We also made butter by putting heavy whipping cream in a jar and shaking it.

We are continuing the nature walks that we began last month.  Every child is able to go on a nature walk every other week.  It is exciting to see how the forest changes as the weather gets colder.

Classroom Review

Buckeye Class:

This month we’ve been embracing fall (although the weather on most days still felt like summer!) The children learned about seasons, what happens to the trees, why leaves change colors, and why they eventually fall off.

During circle time on Indigenous Peoples Day we discussed what this day means, and learned a little bit about the European explorers, the mapmakers, the spice traders and the Native Americans.

After this, we moved on to zoology and explaining the difference between vertebrates (animals with a backbone) and invertebrates (without a backbone). The children had the opportunity to sort a variety of animals into the respective categories. We learned about spiders (invertebrates!), their body parts, and looked at many different kinds of spiders. Your child might have brought home a “My Parts of a Spider Book”. We also stressed the message that spiders are our friends and that we treat all living creatures with kindness and respect. We have started learning about all things pumpkin, and several fun pumpkin activities have been brought in. Towards the end of the month Ms. Govindaraj from the Hemlock classroom will talk to us about the Hindu festival of Diwali, and we will end the month with bats, owls, Dias de los Muertos, and – of course – Halloween! On the day of Halloween your child is welcome to come to school in a costume, if they wish (no weapons or scary costumes, please).

Two circle time songs the children especially enjoyed this month are “Way up high in the apple tree (five red apples smile down at me)” and “Five little pumpkins (sitting on a gate)”:

Way up high in an apple tree

Way up high in an apple tree,

5 red apples smiled down at me.

I shook that tree as hard as I could,

Down came an apple! Mmm, mmm… it was good!

Way up high in that apple tree,

4 red apples smiled down at me.

   3 red apples…

      2 red apples…

         1 red apple…

Way up high in that apple tree,

No more apples smiled down at me.

I shook that tree as hard as I could,

Down came no apples! They’re gone for good!

Way up high in that apple tree,

No more apples left for me.

_________________________________________

Five little pumpkins 

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate

 The first one said, “Oh, my it’s getting late”

 The second one said, “There are witches in the air”

 The third one said, “But we don’t care”

 The fourth one said, “Let’s run and run and run”

 The fifth one said, “We’re ready for some fun”

 Then “Ooh” went the wind and out went the lights

 And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight

Hello Hemlock families,

           Welcome to the October month news edition. We enjoyed every bit of the extended summer. Like the outside weather, our classroom is packed with laughter. Children come around with classroom routines and getting to know each other. We, teachers get to know the new children. It is great to see the older children help the younger ones with the classroom rules and work. We could see Dr. Maria Montessori’s envision of the mixed age group being fulfilled.

We started this month with apples which are our state fruit and went on with spiders and pumpkins which can be seen in every other grocery store. We learned the parts of an apple and pumpkin by dissecting them. We learned the life cycle of them too. We talked about the different types of apples and enjoyed the mindful eating of apple slices. We learned about the oxidation of apples and why apples float in the water by experiments. We enjoyed carving the pumpkin and made a Jack-O-Lantern. Children were excited to nail the pumpkin. Children learned about the life cycle and parts of a spider. They were thrilled to see the exoskeleton of a big spider.

They also watched the growth of the spider by an experiment. To our surprise, there was a huge spider web in our back window with a spider in the middle. Children searched every place in the playground for a spider web. They made parts of a pumpkin, spider and apple books. We talked about gourds as they share a common family with pumpkins and Day of the dead and how Halloween started.

Way up in the apple tree, itsy bitsy spider, 5 little pumpkins and witches brew were hit songs among them. We look forward to seeing the children dressed up in their Halloween costumes. We had a chance to explore our rainy-day playthings because of the bad air quality. Ms. Govindaraj enlightened us about Diwali, a celebration from India and one that she celebrates each year.

 We can’t wait to see you all in the conferences on November 3rd and 4th morning and November 18th for PM children. We are closed on November 11th Friday for Veterans Day and November 24th and 25th for Thanksgiving.

“Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of the society.”

————–Dr. Maria Montessori.

Hemlock Building

Welcome back returning students and a big welcome to the Hemlock class for our new students!

It has been a good start into our new school year. Mrs. Fidelis, Mrs. Govindaraj and Mrs. Dykstra are looking forward to a great year with your children.

All beginnings are not the same and as it takes some students longer to get accustomed to a new routine, it is easier on others. The nice thing is, we have a lovely community where some older students take the younger ones under their wings and everyone is most understanding with the sad faces. We all had to learn. It will get better!

We have a nice group of children, who are kind and helpful with one another:-)

In the first few weeks we take the time to explain the ways around a Montessori classroom and make sure the children understand why we push in a chair and return work to the shelf; why a mat on the floor is a workspace to be respected and that works are for individual children and we take turns doing them. At snack/lunch time children take out their own food and clean up after themselves. We are there to provide support but the goal is to support your children in helping themselves.

If you like, you can continue this at home as well and let your child/ren do as much for themselves as possible and help you, too. Folding washclothes, sorting socks, setting utensils on the table for dinner, watering plants (outside first:-), counting apples at the store when putting them in a bag etc. are all great ways to incorporate your children in meaningful activities.

We tried to catch water bottles as they came to school and mark as many as possible to prevent a mix up. The same issue will arise as it gets colder and jackets come to school and so many other personal items (hats, scarfs, gloves etc.). Please help us and remember to mark all of your child’s belongings! If you do not want to write on an item, use a piece of masking tape which can be removed.

If you have general questions please feel free to ask during our Curriculum Night on the 22nd of September. Individual conversations will have a time and place during school conferences in early November where you have all of your child’s teachers undivided attention. We are looking forward to telling you all about your child’s discoveries by then. (Sign ups for conferences are available by late October).

Thank you for trusting us with your children, it is a pleasure to work with them and to get to know each individual child!

Buckeye Building 

Here’s to welcoming 15 returning families and 9 new!  We are so thankful to be lucky enough to spend this time with some of the youngest members of your family.

We launched off with our five classroom rules.

1. Be kind to everyone
2. Touch only your own work
3. Work quietly, use walking feet inside and inside voices
4. Use the materials gently
5. Put your work away ready for the next person

We have been learning ways we can take care of our environment, lots of lessons on grace and courtesy, how to carry a tray, walking around our mats, rolling up our mat, and how to wash hands and blow our noses.  These skills will make your child feel successful and kind in their classroom community.

International Day of Peace was on September 21 where we learned the song “Light a candle for Peace” and joined our friends from the Hemlock class to sing all together.  We will be teaching the peace virtues in a couple of weeks.  We are now learning about our world.  We introduced our sandpaper globe showing land and water.  The colored globe identifies continents.  At circle we showed how to take a sphere and make it flat like a map.  The children really enjoy singing “I am a pizza.”  In the next couple of weeks, we will be teaching all about Fall.

Classroom Review

Hemlock Building

The Hemlock building has spent much of the month of April planting and growing things.  We started with making the Seed Eggs made of paper scraps and native flower seeds.  Each child brought home an egg to plant in their own gardens.  After Spring break, we planted our own vegetables and flowers in raised planters located in the playground area.  The kids took turns amending the soil, planting the beginning plants and now the kids will be sure they are watered.  Soon we will sample and harvest some of our vegetables like carrots, beans and snap peas.   We also learned about the parts of a bean and each child planted their own bean to water and wait for a sprout to grow.

      In thinking about Easter, we learned the parts of a flower and the parts of an egg.  We had a science experiment where we put an egg with its shell in a glass of vinegar for 2 days to see what happened. It was fun to see an egg with no shell left that we could call the ” naked egg.”

       Earth day was the 22nd. We talked about how we can conserve water and be kind to the earth.   Mrs. Govindaraj littered the school grounds with papers, cans, cartons, etc. and the kids collected them and decided if it should go in the recycle, garbage, or compost bins.  This was a lot of fun for the kids.

        We will spend the last week of April learning some basic yoga and beginning French for colors and numbers.

Buckeye Room

It has been wonderful meeting all the new children and being in our new classroom.  Work time has been very busy with presenting lessons to our new students while the returning students are forming new friendships.  We have many advanced materials being used by our older students and lots of practical life works being done by our younger ones.

Ms. Ekstrom helped the children make seed eggs for our Easter egg hunt.  They took paper blended it in water then added wild flower seeds.  Hopefully they all went home and planted in the garden.

Before Spring Break we were able to get outside in our garden prepping the soil for the seeds that the children planted.  At circle we have been learning the life cycle of a plant, the layers of earth and how we can take care of our earth.    The children enjoy singing “Each of us is a flower”, “The Sun shines on everyone” and “Wheels on the Bus.”  We have been enjoying the warmer days outside and can’t wait till we can eat outside.

Thank you all who came in for conferences.  It is so nice to be able to share with you what your child is doing at school.

A warm welcome to the March edition. Spring is the season of new life. As spring started on March 20, our new building came to life on March 17th. In the past six and half months, we as teachers and children learned a lot. We learned to collaborate, cooperate and be kind to each other, especially to be patient. Thanks to Mrs. Leach who was patient and valiant enough to lead us through this tough predicament. Thanks to all the families, who were patient with us. It is sad for the teachers to from the children, but they are in the new building with a new adventure. Seeing them every day during afternoon recess is a great comfort. We wish them all the very best.

We begin March with Oceans as our unit study. We learned 2/3 of our earth is covered by water and each waterfront got its own name. We dived deep into oceans to find out its layers, animals who live in each layer, and how much sunlight each layer gets. We learned the adaptation methods the animals have in Ocean.

From Ocean, we took a big diversion towards Deserts. We learned the locations of Deserts on Earth, how they were formed, and temperature. We marveled at how animals and plants protect themselves from excess heat and manage to live with less water and adapt to their environments. We visited the burrows the animals dug and the Oasis where the palm trees grow. We wondered how much water a Camel can drink at a single time and where the water is stored in its body. We learned how people, who live in the desert protect themselves and turned some desert areas into amazing cities, an example is Las Vegas.

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and learned how it came into existence. On March 18th and 21st we welcomed in our new children.  They waited a long time with their parents for the building to be complete.  A huge thanks to them. As warmer days are about to start, please send water bottles with names and raincoats for rainy days.

“The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”                                  ———–Dr. Maria Montessori