SHOW AND TELL
Bring a feather
Topic: Birds
How feathered creatures are
adapted to their environments.
The value is wisdom, which is the ability to judge rightly.
For science, we’ll experiment with making rainbows and putting a bird in a cage.
Outside we’ll play hot and cold, make sand molds, and play Bluebird, Bluebird.
The songs we’ll be singing are Do/Re/Mi, Zippity-do-dah, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, Down by the Bay, Bluebird, and Where is Thumbkin?
For creative dramatics we’ll imagine The Eagle’s Nest.
Our art activities are nature collage, bird nest puppets, amate paper painting, bird in a nest, and clay figures.
For motor development, we’ll work on flexibility using yoga poses. For motor planning, we’ll do different swimming strokes, write on the floor with our bodies, move to musical beats, and make numbers, shapes, and letters with our bodies.
WHY MONTESSORI – A PARENT’S VIEW*
As a former high school and current college English teacher, Judy Bentley became increasingly dismayed by a sense of lethargy among students she meets in the classroom. In general, they lack enthusiasm, initiative, a questioning attitude, or a sense of responsibility for their work. The problem, she concludes, is that our current educational system, whether public or private, secular or religious, has made students teacher-dependent. They feel that education is not something that they undertake, but something that is done to them.
Such is not the case with students educated in the Montessori system. The teacher’s role is to monitor progress, give help when needed, and to present a method or process for mastery in a given field of study. Education, however, remains the student’s responsibility. As a result, a Montessori education fosters initiative, independence, enthusiasm, and self-esteem, while the structure of traditional classrooms encourages passivity and loss of a sense of accomplishment.
A common objection to this methodology is that Montessori students have “holes” in their backgrounds. However, the rapid expansion of knowledge in fields such as science makes teaching everything virtually impossible, so some material is selected while other material is omitted. Traditional schools tend to emphasize the past over the future and the known over the questions still to be answered. They emphasize the “What?” “Where?” and “When?” while Montessori allows for the “Why?” “How?” “How do you know?” and “What if….?” Traditional schools teach children how to deal with someone in authority, a necessary skill in a monarchy or the military. But if we want children to learn the role they must play in a democracy, then they must learn to accept responsibility, exercise leadership, negotiate, cooperate, and compromise, not just on the playground, but in the classroom as well.
In the final analysis, successful and happy people don’t have special knowledge or even exceptional gifts beyond the rest. What they have is self-esteem, initiative, creativity, and enthusiasm; they can figure out what they need to know and how to learn it; they take pleasure in hard work, they think critically, and they live and work well with others. When you select a school for your child, it is not enough to look at what is being taught; it is even more important to recognize how the character of the child is formed by the way that education is structured. Montessori education respects the child in a way no other system even attempts, and the effect is profound.
*Excerpted: Google this title to see the full article.
On the Calendar
Easter Egg Hunt – We’ll be hunting Easter eggs on Thursday, April 13. The children delight in this fun event. We’ll need you to bring a plastic eggs filled with age-appropriate trinkets (nothing edible please) by Wednesday, April 12. We won’t need baskets
On the Playground – Our Birds theme includes the game Hot and Cold as we hunt for a treasure. This is something of an obscure concept for preschoolers. You might want to practice the same game at home as your family searches for various items.
Good Friday Holiday – The school will be closed on Friday, April 14, in recognition of Good Friday.
Lunch Time – As a reminder, please label all the containers in your child’s lunch box so they don’t get mixed up with another student’s items. We also like to encourage parents to provide their little one with the nutritional food. Children require a variety of nutrient-dense foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, fish and adequate calories in order to grow and develop properly. It’s important that your child is consuming the essential nutrients she needs to grow. If food needs to be heated we’ll do it, home cooked meals work the best, try to avoid the unhealthy options like processed meats and crackers.
Update Your File – We are required to have parents update their records every year if you enrolled your child before August 1, 2016 please stop by and see Mr. Warren for the forms. In addition make sure we have an updated shot record for you child. We must have your updated forms by Wednesday April, 5.
Insect Repellant / Sunscreen - If your child requires insect repellant or sunscreen you’ll need to provide the school with the items labeled with your child’s name and you’ll need to fill out an authorization form for us to apply it. Parents should apply in the morning at drop off time and we will re-apply as necessary in the afternoon.
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