SHOW AND TELL
Bring a feather.
Topic: Birds
How feathered creatures are adapted to their habitats.
The value is wisdom, which is to direct your actions based on knowledge, experience, and what’s best for the common good.
For science we’ll make rainbows and notice how to make a bird in a cage.
Outside we’ll play hot and cold and pretend to be feathers.
The songs we’ll be singing are Do-Re-Mi, Zippity-do-dah, Down by the Bay, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, Bluebird, and Where is Thumbkin?
Our art activities are nature collage, bird nest puppets, amate paper painting, and bird in a nest.
Creative dramatics will be to learn the Navaho story about the eagle’s nest.
For motor development we’ll build flexibility with yoga poses. For body development, we’ll work on motor planning with being a body crayon, musical beats, and make body shapes of numbers, shapes, or letters.
LESSONS IN GRACE AND COURTESY
“A child must carry out his work by himself and he must bring it to completion. No one can bear the child’s burden and grow up in his stead. Nor is it possible for the child to speed up the rate of his development.” This quote from Maria Montessori in The Secret of Childhood is hard for us to accept. We adults, who are so competent, want so much to do for our children that we handicap them by trying to do their learning for them. Then we are presented with an embarrassing social situation in which it’s painfully obvious that we as adults have not done our part in teaching our children during the teaching time, and now the child is incompetent in a life situation. Adults must understand that it is not effective to correct the child’s manners in everyday situations. Sometimes we can gently remind the child of lessons we have taught before, but for the most part, we must allow the child to reach her own point of social consciousness. In order to make lessons of grace and courtesy successful, the child must observe adults in the home or school being courteous to one another.
In the Montessori classroom, the basic teaching of grace and courtesy is in the exercises of practical life. The goals for the practical life curriculum are:
- To assist and support human development; that is, physical, emotional, social/cultural, and intellectual
- To care and to learn for themselves
- To refine skills and develop controlled, coordinated, and graceful movements
- To encourage repetition, perfection, and the proper attitude toward mistakes
- To link to the people that they love and the work that they see those people doing at home and at school
- To manage the care of the environment
- To manage themselves socially, to care for relationship, to know how to live and work with others in the community
- To integrate their minds and bodies as a preparation for meditation and contemplation (these are those lessons in painting, drawing, and polishing)
The lessons of grace and courtesy are presented to young children so that they will have their own tools to develop a sense of community. The lessons are presented by (1) introduction, in which we describe the situation, (2) demonstration, (3) teacher and one or two children practice, (4) conclusion, in which we discuss why we do what we do, and (5) application where we practice what we have learned all that day - and the next - and the next. At some point, the little child surprises us by applying these important lessons on his own.
On the Calendar
Easter Egg Hunt – All the eggs are shared equally with the children, but we want a good supply to go around. Please plan to pick up a few or more packs of plastic eggs, that you will find as you enter the school, to take home and fill with trinkets, which can be little party-favor type surprises that will fit in a plastic egg. Sea shells, pretty rocks, and feathers all work well, too. Please no food/candy. We’ll provide containers for the eggs, so Easter baskets are not necessary. Everything needs to be at the school by Tuesday, April 16, so we can be prepared by Thursday, April 18. The egg hunt will be in the morning. We have a huge abundance of plastic eggs if you know of a need please let us know, we’d love to share.
Good Friday Holiday – The school will be closed on Friday, April 19, in recognition of the Easter holiday.
Kindergarten Seminar – As we move into spring, those of you who have children who will be 5 by Sept. 1, will be facing the decision of whether to keep your child in Montessori for that critical third year. Weather your making that decision now or three years from now, it’s a big financial commitment, and one for which we want to get you as much information as possible to make the best decision for your family. On Thursday April 11, at 5:00 we’ll meet to talk about the benefits of our program at Montessori Morning Glory School. We’ll also be discussing what you can expect as your child transitions into public first grade. Let your child’s teacher know you will be attending and anyone can attend.
Picture Day - Monday April 15, class picture and individual and sibling pictures will be taken, look for forms in the foyer as the date approaches.
Parent’s Handbook – If you recently enrolled you may have not gotten a parent’s handbook, please find the handbook in the foyer as you enter the school.
Recent Comments