Parent Orientation Recap

This Week in the Maple Room

Every year about this time, we start to feel that we need more time. We start to reflect on how much we have grown together, and will miss each other !

Just a few days are left before summer break!

On Wednesday the 22^nd , we will be celebrating summer birthdays. We will have ice cream with toppings brought by our summer birthday friends, Kira, Braden, Patrick and Jasraj. In the past berries, granola and seeds have been popular with children.

Thursday the 23^rd is our last day at the park.

The last day of school will be at WESTSIDE park, off of Main Street.(and Howard)

 8:30 – Noon. Don’t forget to pack a lunch!  Parents are encouraged to stay.  We will be doing Relay for Life games and activities.   Bathrooms WILL be open!

With mixed emotions I have to say this will be my last blog for the CGM families for this school year.

William Arthur Ward said–

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

Your children are the great teachers that have inspired me every day this year. Thank you for letting me spend time with your children. Together we have learned, grown and had tons of fun.

I am ready for some hot sunny days to smell the grass, enjoy the flowers, and hear the sounds of insects, bull frogs and some rain of course!

Enjoy your summer!

Indu Agnihotri

P.S. from Ms. Jama

I wanted to take a moment and let you all know how much I have enjoyed being with your children. They have inspired me as well. I come to school every day looking forward to spending time with them. You should be very proud of your little people! They are on their way to being wonderful citizens of our world. I wish you days of sun and evenings filled with lightening bugs. Have a wonderful summer! Ms. Jama

This Week in the Maple Room

It is hard to believe how quickly the school year end will be here. We have enjoyed learning about birds and frogs. A visit from the Indyparks brought us a frog and a turtle to pet and feel. The snake skeleton was very interesting. We will be studying about insects and flowers in the weeks to come.

A lot is happening in May. Here are some important dates to remember:

May 10th – Hat Day! For a minimum .50 cent donation your child can wear a hat to school!

May 11^th – CGM Community showcase 1-4 pm. We will be selling organic plants, some planted by our children. We will have over 20 vendors throughout the school. Come by and see us!

Penny Race!! Going on now until May 17th. The Tulip, Oak and Maple Room are in a race. Who will collect the most pennies to be given to the American Cancer Society?

May 22^{nd –} We will be celebrating our summer birthdays on May 22^nd.We will have icecream for A special Birth day snack.The children whose birthday falls during summer can bring in a topping of their choice, for the icecream.They can bring in their pictures to share with the classmates and to be added to the class album.

May 23^rd  – You are invited to join us at the West side Park from 8:30-12:00. It will include Mini-Relay for Life activities and a 24 minute walk. Please remember to pack a lunch for a picnic too!

This Week in the Maple Room

Our first week after the spring break was very busy and exciting. The weather was spring like for the most of the week and children enjoyed being outside.

Our Spring Program , honoring the Earth day will be on the 28^th of April at the Smith Valley United Methodist church. 5293 Old Smith valley road, from 2-4 pm. Our children will be singing songs and the elementary will also present a skit. We will be busy learning songs and making crafts for the celebration. I will put the words to the songs for the parents on the blog soon. Please send in a white T-Shirt for your child to paint and wear it on this day. We will appreciate it if you could write their name with a permanent marker on the tag. T-shirts can be sent in next week starting Monday. We are asking that each family bring one or more non-perishable food item when attending the Spring Program to donate to a local food pantry.

We had a wonderful presentation for Turkey by Suzie. Suzie is an exchange student  from Turkey at Center Grove High school  and is hosted by the Plunketts. She taught us a few words in Turkish, shared pictures of some beautiful places. Children were amazed to know that most children in Turkey play in the streets. She showed us how to play a game in Turkish, which was similar to London bridge. The school buses were not yellow, but blue and square shaped in Turkey. It was a  lot of fun! Thank you Suzie and The Plunketts. We would also like to thank the wonderful moms Pavitra, Felena, and Aileen, who made the world map for us. Thank you to Maryia Linnehan for getting us a beautiful authentic Matryoshka doll set from Russia. (Yeah, this one is not made in China.)

We are looking forward to a presentation from Poland and Scandinavia soon. These days we are also learning about lifecycles of frogs and birds, butterflies, flowers and plants. Learning about bird calls is enjoyed by them as well.

Summer will be soon approaching. Summer spaces are filling in quickly; if you are thinking of letting your child have some fun in the summer, please sign-up by May 10^th.

We are happy to let you know that in the fall, Maple room will also offer a full day option. The Maple room schedule may be as follows:

9:00-11:30 Morning work period

11:45-12:00 Dismissal for half day students

12:00 -12:30 Lunch for full day

12:45-3:15 Afternoon work period, for older children who do not nap. It is a great time for the older four,  five and six year olds to accomplish advance work in math, language, and geography and science, which is much more enriched than public school kindergarten. AND above all have fun together. For more information about kindergarten, look for “Importance of Kindergarten” and “Why Should I Consider Montessori Kindergarten” on the Parents Page under Resources. click here

12:45 – 2:00-2:15 Napping children go to rest then join in for afternoon work period

3:15-3:30 Dismissal

Please feel free to talk to Brenda or Indu if you have any questions regarding the full day/Kindergarten in the Maple or Oak rooms.

We have a request for all our parents at pick-up time. Please be prompt to pick-up your child, so other parents who are waiting to pick-up can park and pick-up as well. As the weather gets warm, we will make sure that your children have at least 20 minutes to play before pick-up. You are most welcome to park in the library parking, (public parking) if you think you need to stay and watch your child play. If it is easier for you and you prefer to park and stay in your car, we can bring your child to the car. Just let Brenda know.

Thank you !

This Week in the Maple Room

The children in the maple room have enjoyed exploring the continent Asia in the past weeks. We will be learning about Europe next. Parent Teacher conferences will be held later in the month of March. Please feel free to bring your questions to the conferences. We would like to share these two articles with you at this time.

To know more about the importance of Kindergarten year in the Montessori classroom.click here.

Registration for fall to the public is in progress now! Please let Brenda know as early as you can what days your child will be attending in the fall. This helps us to know what to start offering to the new families. Few openings are available, please let your friends and family know, if interested. We will be offering half day summer as well as full day. If you are thinking about having your child come for a few weeks for some summer fun, please let us know.

Please help your child to check their cubby box at pickup time. Children have folders in the classroom to save their unfinished work, so items in the cubby boxes are ready to home. If a bag of wet clothes are found in their cubby, it is a good time to please check to make sure your child has at least one set of clean dry clothes at school. Children may decide to change after a spill from a water activity. Most water works are quite popular with our youngest ones and help them with fine motor and concentration/focusing skills.

Hope to see some spring like weather soon!

This Week in the Maple Room

The children in the Maple room have been busy in the past weeks.

We have enjoyed learning about the Asian continent. Thank you to all of you that sent in souvenirs from Asia for show and tell. We had a wonderful presentation on Russia with Maryla (Sasha’s Mom). The children enjoyed the dolls, beautiful painted decorative trays and teapot , and other items from Russia. Story telling by Pratyush and his brother Arhan was much fun. Ms. Jama and Sarah presented Japan. We got to see real pictures of homes, Mt. Fuji and money from Japan. Sarah taught us how to use chopsticks to taste the sticky rice. The children are enjoying making flags of countries from Asia.

The children have also been introduced to clocks and money. Hopefully you will be hearing about the bank game and telling time.

They built a bird feeder and painted it with Ms. Jama. Danny brought in some bird seed for the birds. We hope to see birds soon as we look out our windows!

We look forward to celebrating Chinese new year after Valentine’s day.

Children are welcome to bring in Valentines for their classmates for Valentine’s Day. Please help your child to write his/her name on the valentine cards. The children who can read their peer’s name may write their classmates’ name. The class list can be found here. There are 25 children in the Maple room.

Our newest addition to the Maple room is Aanya Srivastava. She is four and has moved from Minneapolis Minnesota where she was attending a Montessori school.

This Week in the Maple Room

We were all very excited to be back together after the holidays. The children have enjoyed the few changes in the layout of our room and some new works on the shelves.

In the practical life area we have introduced polishing, sewing and some food prep activities such as orange juicing, cutting veggies and fruits. Children build fine motor skills, concentration, self confidence and independence through these activities.

Please feel free to send in a bag of small size oranges/tangerines, lemons, carrots, celery, radishes, beets, turnips etc. for them to squeeze and cut.

We have started our study of the largest contintent  Asia. We will be learning about people, animals, plants, food and famous places in Asia. You are welcome to send in any souvenirs from your travels as a show and tell for us.

We hope that you have marked your calendars for the exciting math walk through the Montessori way ! It is on January 24^th from 6:30 to 8:00. Bring any questions or queries you may have about math for that day.

Welcome to Joseph Rhynearson and Jackson Deaton to the Maple room. Joseph is four and Jackson is three years old and they both attend three days in our classroom.

This Week in the Maple Room

Thank you to all of you for being such a supportive bunch of parents. For taking the time to be so thoughtful about bringing in snacks for our children. The small sized fruits, pears, apples and tangerines have been a great hit! The special Christmas snacks were just adorable.

Welcome to Jasraj Oberoi. He is three and very happy to be part of our Maple room. The experienced children have guided him to navigate his mornings very smoothly. Once again, Jama and I are honored to witness the joy of these powerful children building their sense of community.

We have been celebrating some holidays around the world. Clara, (Luke and Kate Plunkett’s exchange student) who is from Belgium, came to our class room to share the celebration of St. Nicholas. She brought some pictures, sang a song in French about St. Nicholas and brought Belgian waffles for us to taste, made by her. Then at the end of the day, we lined up our shoes for St. Nicholas, pretended to be asleep and found tangerines in our shoes!

Anna, was our St. Lucia this year. She worked hard to make a crown for her to wear just for this day. The children were busy making star headbands and candle crowns. Ms. Kristen came and talked to us about how this holiday is celebrated in Sweden. She helped us make Swedish buns. Then at the end of the day, Moriah (Tulip room) and Anna (Maple room), dressed as St.Lucia brought us the buns to taste. It was lots of fun.

For Chanukkah, children have been making star candle holders from clay. We lighted a menorah and some older children visited the elementary class to help make latkes. We all liked the latkes.

The children had been making a piñata, collectively for Christmas and Posada celebration. It was so much fun to break the piñata and find some presents for us.

Thank you to all the families for all the useful presents to the classroom. The children were excited to see the things that they can use and some items were used immediately. Thank you for the paper, glue, markers, pencils, fractiles, trays, puzzles and gift certificates to Montessori services.

Happy holidays to all our families. We wish you peace in the new year !

Maple Room Wish List

Copy paper

Colored pencils

Thin markers

Masking tape

Card stock different colors

Gift certificates to Montessori services

From Montessori services-http://www.montessoriservices.com/geography-culture/geography-culture-books

continent books

land form books

fractiles -7 large