SHOW AND TELL
Bring a bandana
Topic: Rodeo
Let’s have fun with a tradition of the Old West
The value is courage. Frontier people needed courage, and today we need courage to try new things, stand up for what is right, and to do our best every day.
For safety we’ll learn about safety around animals.
Outside, we’ll have a rodeo with barrel racing, shooting peanuts, and a tug of war.
The songs we’ll be singing are Red River Valley, She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain, Home on the Range, Whoopee Ti Yo, and Deep in the Heart of Texas.
For creative dramatics, we’ll practice singing and clapping patterns.
Our art activities are chuck wagon, bucking bronco, bandanas, and lunch bag puppets.
For motor development, we’ll work on flexibility with yoga poses. For proprioception, we’ll carry heavy jugs, point to body parts with our eyes closed, and do turtle walks.
AVOIDING THE TRAIN WRECK
Every day the children come to us with all their physicality, personality, and background. We teachers study what’s happening in our society, what the future seems to hold, and every tidbit of early childhood research we can get our hands on. And we practice. We test a myriad of tools, tricks, and techniques to arrive at the values we deeply treasure for our little ones. We study issues that develop in adolescence, issues of lack of motivation or drive, lack of self-confidence going along with the crowd, or despair from bullying. Young adults founder with inability to control their finances, lack of satisfying relationships, or abandonment from support systems.
We know from research that parental reactions to a preschooler will be very similar to their reactions to their children as adolescents. A child’s behavior at 2 and the parents’ control at that time will be very similar to the child’s behavior at twelve and the parents’ control at that time. Today is when we have to take charge of what our future is going to look like, and you have about 10 years to practice our tools, tricks, and techniques.
Even as this new century has had career and life challenges for you, because things are changing so fast, the future may have more and certainly different challenges for our children. A basic precept of Montessori is to prepare our children with life skills. Our society’s educational system is waking up to the stark reality that we’re seriously lacking in STEM skills (science, technology, engineering, and math). Companies currently operating in these fields are acknowledging the deficits, but they’re saying that as important as these basic skills are, “soft” skills supersede them. Employers can teach skills. They can’t teach values and character. Those soft skills are:
- relationship
- self-management
- self-awareness
- social awareness
- responsible decision making
It’s a new world, even a fourth turning. Our faculty is wrestling with these issues and imagining where we want to go. We’re considering the culture we want to create, applying our values as we plan routines, language, celebration, and rituals. We’re creating a physical environment to support a thinking place for our children. We provoke thinking by offering materials, questions, and challenges.
We would like to have you partner with us in a series of seminars as we share our perspectives from the classroom with your perspective of your home and the outside world you live in. As like-minded parents join in crafting an intentional future for ourselves we can take positive steps forward in meeting the challenges, adjusting as a path becomes more clear. We’re calling these seminars “coffee klatches”. There will be four sessions. Plan to join us as we prepare to waylay the train wreck that might have happened if we had not been proactive.
On the Calendar
Coffee Klatches – As we strive to build community around our children, please join us every Thursday in March at 5 p.m. for about one and a half hours. Our school’s Montessori mentor Ms. Brenda will lead the informative discussion.
Mardi Gras - On Tuesday March 5, we will recognize the jubilant event with a parade, the students will play various musical instruments as they go from class to class getting colorful strands of beads along the way.
Picture Day - Monday April 15, we’ll be taking group class pictures as well as individual and sibling pictures. Look for more information as the date approaches.
Go-Texan Day – Friday, Feb. 22, will be a dress up day to celebrate our frontier heritage. Please plan to let your little cow poke come in boots, a cowboy hat, and the bandana that’s on our show-and-tell this week.
Postural Response – The perceptual movement segment of our enrichment curriculum is designed to perfect sensory integration in our children. When we do these exercises every week as a fun portion of our days, taking in information through the senses so that motor skills can be performed automatically seems to come naturally. Postural response enables all the sensory integration systems to work seamlessly together. Postural response enables us to maintain our balance while we move. It requires good trunk muscles and good balance between muscle groups. This next week we will be doing rocking horse, egg rolls, ball passes, and quick standing (think burpees). You just thought our kids were only “playing”.
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