Halloween at CGM

We will be having a “Halloween Parade” on the 31st visiting the area “approved” businesses. If weather permits, we will parade in their costumes. Otherwise we will have our parade inside.

When choosing a costume, please consider that some costumes may be frightening to other children, especially masks. We request that all scary masks be left at home as they are inappropriate (and sometimes too scary) for our environment.  Weapons are unacceptable.

If your child does not attend on Wednesdays they are most welcome to come in and join the fun! We would, however, prefer the parent to stay and help.

Please see below the instructions for costumes for each room:

Maple (1/2 day)
If your child wishes, s/he may wear a costume to school on Wednesday October 31st. Please make sure children have a change of clothes, as they may want to get out of their costume.

Oak (Full day)

Please have your child BRING their costume; we will assist in getting them dressed for the parade.

Tulip

On Wednesday, October 31st we will put on our costumes (please nothing scary or violent; including no scary masks or weapons). Please have your children pack their costumes in their backpacks for this event, as we will still have a full day of learning that day. The joys of the Elementary class are that these children are able to dress/un-dress themselves, if you feel like your child might struggle with the costumes, please practice with them before the big day.

Pumpkins, Stamp Games, Halloween… Oh My!

This week in the Tulip room we were crazy for pumpkins! Life cycle of a pumpkin, parts of the pumpkin as well as gourd research is going on! We cut open a pie pumpkin and looked at its parts, then roasted it for our pumpkin soup that we made Friday! Thank you Ms. Kristine for staying and making our pumpkin soup and homemade croutons with us, and great job Leo for reading a pumpkin story to the Oak room and to Gargi & Lilli for sharing a sampling of the pumpkin soup with them! We even saved the seeds because we have lots of different ideas of things we might do with these seeds, we might bake them, plant them or even do some art with them. In addition we have three different sizes of pumpkin in our classroom that we are estimating the seed count for and have voted for which one might have the most; could it be the small, medium or large pumpkin?? Who knows!!  Along with our pumpkin studies we are asking  each child to bring in a …… (You guessed it!) recipe to share! So we have had apple, broccoli & now pumpkin recipes assigned! Can’t wait to see them all!

With our calendar studies going on, we did some fun birthday studies and to wrap it all up the 3rd, 4th & 5th graders prepared a “Birthday Party” for the classroom! They did a marvelous job with invitations, decorations, food & games! We had quite the party Friday afternoon!

Things were stamp-mazing this week with the stamp games! The stamp game is a Montessori material that we use to do all the operations, from addition to squaring. We have two in our classroom and they were being used most all the time and even being waited on! New lessons abounded with the stamp game this week! Ask your child if they have used the stamp game!

 

Wow, those spelling tests are really improving! You can see the confidence in the children on their spelling tests if they had time to practice. Keep it up and be looking for their spelling words in their backpacks each Friday!

Just a reminder of things coming up; First it is fall break this week (please insert the sound of cheering here) which means we have a half day on Wednesday with pick-up at 11:45am (no lunch) and are off on Thursday and Friday. Second is that Halloween is around the corner! On Tuesday, October 31st we will put on our costumes (please nothing scary or violent; including no scary masks or weapons) and take a parade to surrounding business (by pre-approval).  Please have your children pack their costumes in their backpacks for this event, as we will still have a full day of learning that day.  The joys of the Elementary class are that these children are able to dress/un-dress themselves, if you feel like your child might struggle with the costumes, please practice with them before the big day. Thank you to everyone for signing up for a conference time! We can’t wait to speak to each one of you!

Thank you to our observers who have come to watch our classroom lately, and a special thank you to Brenda Mack who worked like a champion, copying, sorting, laminating and so on, making my life a dream, you are amazing!  I also want to send a “Thank you” shout out to whoever is picking up cutting works for us! It’s like magic! I simply hand something to Brenda and back it comes a day or two later! So thank you secret cutters!

A Huge Thank You

Thank you so much to all the parents!  We placed a Small Hands Order of $1200!!  There were lots of donations from that order to our classrooms as well, thank you!

Keep those box tops coming!  We got almost $100 in box tops!

Scholastic is a hit, with a number of new books going into our classrooms.

Look for T-shirt orders to arrive and Pizza fridays to start next month.

This Week in the Oak Room

Happy Birthday!  We had lots of treats this week with 4 birthdays.  What a great time! Our birthday binder is getting full.  Thanks to our parents for putting together those great photo pages, the children look at them daily.

The pumpkins are coming! The pumpkins are coming!  We have received our first family project pumpkins and they look great!  We are so excited to see more!

The cold and flu season is officially upon us.  We are noticing a lot of runny noses in the classroom.  This is an excellent time to reinforce good hand washing skills at home and in public places.  We actually have a “hand washing” song we will be practicing.  Ask your child and you can sing it together!

Halloween will be here before we know it, so be thinking about those costumes.  We will be having a “Halloween Parade” on the 31st visiting the area “approved” businesses.  We request that all pretend weapons and scary masks be left at home as they are inappropriate (and sometimes too scary) for our environment.

The children have been working on some Halloween decorations, so be sure to take a quick peek into the classroom at pickup time!

Child quote of the week:

Miss Darci (during circle):  “Yoga is something that the more you do it, the more you enjoy it.”

Luke: “I’ve been doing it for years and I still don’t like it.”

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.” – Maria Montessori

Photos

Today is the last day to order your photos!  Please log on to www.tonyahenderson.com and order yours today.  Check and money need to be to me tomorrow.

Support CGM and Order Your Shirt Today!

We are selling Center Grove Montessori T-shirts, Long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts, now thru the end of the month.  See the display on Brenda’s desk.  Download your Shirt Order Form, and start wearing your CGM gear next month!

Openings

We are taking enrollements to fill 2 full day primary spots starting November 1st.  We have current opening in the 1/2 day program as well as Elementary.  Please call Brenda at 883-0335 or email office@centergrovemontessori.com to enroll your child today.

This week in the Maple Room

Thank you to our volunteers that have come in and helped. We have enjoyed the home-made snacks sent by you, very yummy. The huge zucchini has been carried around the room a lot. It’s now being washed as an activity. When the children are ready we will cut it. The children enjoyed watching the loofah sponge come out from the loofah, which looked just like the zucchini. Apple crafts were quite popular this week. We used apples as stamps and made apples out of paper plates.

We have been singing the fall harvesting song—“oats peas beans and barley grow”. Ask your child to sing it for you. I brought in some pictures of the grains and the plants. We were talking about how the oat and barley ears looked similar and I offered the question-“I wonder how bread is made?”

Patrick –”It is made out of meat.”

Danny – “You mean wheat?”

Patrick – “No, I know it is made of meat.”

We have been learning about our bodies and soon will learn about the human skeleton. Just in time for Halloween!

Halloween at CGM

If your child wishes, s/he may wear a costume to school on Wednesday October 31st. When choosing a costume, please consider that some costumes may be frightening to other children, especially masks, so they are not welcome! Weapons are unacceptable. Please make sure children have a change of clothes, as they may want to get out of their costume. If weather permits, we will parade in the costumes to the library. Otherwise we will have our parade inside.

If your child does not attend on Wednesdays they are most welcome to come in and join the fun! We would, however, prefer the parent to stay and help.

This Week in the Oak Room

This week we continued our study of leaves and how they are changing with the season.  We have been enjoying talking and singing about fall.  Some of us even made neat “leaf” pictures with leaves we collected right outside our school!

Next week we will begin our North America studies. We will learn about animals, customs, food and climates of our continent.  If anyone has any interesting cultural items from travels through North America, please share!

Thanks to those parents that have signed up for fall conferences.  We hope to have an opportunity to meet with all of our parents!

Please remember to check your child’s Friday folder for the information on our pumpkin decorating family projects.  We can’t wait to see what everyone makes!

A Note: Cool weather is upon us.  Please be sure that your child is dressed appropriately for outside play as we try to go outside each day unless the temperature is below freezing.  You may also want to check your child’s change of clothes in their cubby to make sure it is seasonally accurate.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

“It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give a child the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.”

– Maria Montessori

This week in the Tulip Room

It was a map-tastic week in the Tulip room! The glory of Montessori is frequently when one child is working on something they found interesting another child will see and say “Hey, that looks fun can I do it next?” That occurred this week with our pin maps! Pin Maps are maps in our classroom that have flags, country names & capital names for the continents. Children work at their own level (flags only for the youngest child and all three for the older or more advanced learners) with the maps and follow ups (a follow up might be to research a flag or a country or a capital they find interesting or to make their own map by drawing flags & labeling countries/capitals).

During last month we focused on our continents and oceans and this month North America so all children have some sort of activity they are required to complete with these maps, however many have chosen to do other continents as well!

This week we talked about Broccoli, cutting & serving during the week, then making a dip and reading to the primary room on Friday. The children were invited to bring in a recipe idea to share (if your child hasn’t done this feel free to send it next week).  We heart broccoli!

In group lessons this week we enjoyed some BIG lessons/ideas! The birth and death of a star lesson this week has provided a launching pad to studies of atoms and elements. We also began the presentation of the time line of life this week and were excited to learn about the many animals and plants that we have today that were also alive 450 million years ago! WOW!

Thank you Ms. Dana for coming in on Friday to walk with us to the library, we hope for her face to become a regular Friday occurrence for us!

In the next few weeks lessons & activities will turn to fall! Watch for nocturnal animal lessons, creepy crawly insect lessons, and parts of a leaf, gourd lessons, continued recipe sharing & cooking.

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