This Week in the Maple Room

This week in the Maple room we have been busy learning, practicing and feeling comfortable in our room. It was a short week, but we have done some big work.

Our week started by celebrating Dr. Maria Montessori’s birthday. Dr. Montessori called her school the children’s house and our room has begun to feel like it. They are enjoying various activities from cutting and serving of fruits and veggies to building pink tower mobiles and easel painting.  Our children are enthusiastic to feed our fish and update our daily calendar.

They are familiar and comfortable with our processes and you can hear them happily hum the circle time songs. The continents song has become very popular. We will soon be introducing North America. If you have any post cards or unique items from your travels do send them in with your child.

Happy Birthday to Pratyush!

Please note we will have an open house September 29 from 2 to 4 p.m. It is a wonderful opportunity for your child to show his room to his relatives.

This Week in the Maple Room

Children have settled into the routine and have developed skills to navigate through the day very well. They have enjoyed our outdoor space for easel painting, mopping, shell washing, and chair washing. Rice and magnet has been very popular along with all the works that have water!

We have been learning about our planet earth, land and water forms and plants/trees. We will continue to learn more about these and begin exploring parts of plants, animals and study about North America, the continent we live in.

Children are welcome to bring in anything they find interesting about trees/plants/leaves to share with their classmates. We do not have an assigned day for show and tell. Any day is good to bring in items that are interesting to your child, although toys and jewelry are not appropriate items for show and tell.

Handmade item, cultural item, book, souvenir from travels, nature walk items found by them (rock, leaf, twig, insect, etc.) are all great things for show and tell.

Thank you to all the parents who have been sending great nutritious snacks. Children are  loving to cut carrots, cucumbers, cheese sticks. On your snack day, please feel free to send in a few of these fruits and vegetables that children can cut and serve to their friends.

Thank you to all those who attended the volunteer meeting. We are looking forward to great times with you  soon.

Overheard this week: “I know how you can tell if a “cicader” (cicada) is a boy or girl. You have to look real close and if she has long eyelashes and pink lips, it’s a girl” Sasha.

This Week in the Maple Room

The first few days of school went really well!

Jama, Pavitra and I have been delighted to greet such a lovely and lively group of children this year!

Our class includes some children who are new to a school setting. The returning and more experienced children are doing a wonderful and admirable job as role models for our new students. We see them consoling the ones who are still going through separation sadness, helping some who seem to be lost and just spreading the message of love, compassion and caring.

The beginning of the year is often busy as children learn new routines procedures and tasks.

As teachers, we have a goal in mind of how we would like the classroom to function so that each child’s needs are met in the classroom. But achieving this goal takes time and patience as children learn how to become industrious members of a thoughtful and caring community.

In the classroom we are learning grace and courtesy, practicing ground rules, snack and bathroom routines and learning everybody’s names! We will be introducing the globes soon and have lots of fun learning about land air and water.

We can use any glass baby food jars if you have some. We use them to make our own land, air and water jars. Also, we would like to have a couple stumps for hammering and nailing. Thank you in advance!

What did you do at school today?
Many parents because they are interested in education feel frustrated when they get little feedback from their child on what occurs at school. Or the query “What did you do at school?” is answered with a description of the snack or the friend they played with on the playground. This is frustrating for us (teachers) too, because we want students to share events and activities at school with the parents. However after talking to other teachers and doing some research, we discovered that lack of feedback is common among young children. There are several reasons for this phenomenon.

Morton Hunt in The universe within, states that although young children are pretty good at recognition, they are poor at recall. He elaborates that recalling events when asked is a skill learned during grade school years.

Preschool and kindergarten children will usually answer, “nothing,” when asked what they did at school; whereas later unbidden “the child will trot out various memories of the day, one by one.”

I have found this to be true — that memories can be triggered. For example, if a child sees a fire engine rushing down the street, s/he may go into great detail about a field trip to the fire station that occurred months earlier. However, the evening after the actual field trip the child may say nothing about it. It is the stimulus of seeing the fire truck that triggers the verbal account. Many times parents report to me that their child really enjoyed a particular event, but did not hear about it until months later.

I also suspect that while some children enjoy their ventures at school, they prefer to share details of it at their own pace. Montessori classrooms have much new nomenclature that children are internalizing. S/he may still be learning the vocabulary to describe materials s/he is mastering and not be able to produce it verbally upon demand.
-Article from Judy Weingartner

So lack of feedback from your child does not mean that you will be uninformed. A parent conference in October and February/March will keep you aware of your child’s progress. Informal conferences can also be scheduled at your discretion.

Website login information
To login at the parent’s page, the password is maple2013 for this year. The snack calendar for the primary class, blogs, photos, parent’s handbook, class roster and other events calendar is available for your convenience on this page.

Please join our CGMS Facebook Group. Here we can post classroom pictures of the children working and playing as frequently as possible.

We request that the pillow and blanket for your child’s rest time be small in size that would be easy for your child to fold and store on their cot. It would be great to have these left at school for rest time, as transporting these each day may cause discomfort to your child.