This Week in the Maple Room

The children had a great time with the costumes on October 31st.  Each one of them stood in the middle of the group to display their costume with pride! We had a group snack and had our own music band parade in the classroom. It was so much fun to create a lot of noise/music together!!

We learned about the human skeleton and parts of a spider in the spirit of the month of October. The painting of their hand to make a spider was a great hit.

We will continue to study about the earth and the continents. Next we will be exploring North America along with stories, crafts and songs about Thanksgiving.

As always at CGM, we strive to let our children experience the value of giving to those in need.  We will be accepting nonperishable food items to be donated to a local food pantry. The elementary children have set a goal for us. We would like to donate 180 food items. Each family is requested to  bring in three canned, boxed or packed items, if possible.

The items need to be collected by the 15th of November. The elementary class will take them to the donation center on the 16th.

This Week in the Tulip Room

….big anxiety! With the end of the month coming in the middle of the week we decided to put off our month long work plans until Monday and get out some B I G work! Students were very Montessori in their approach to this big work and it made us smile & tear a little at the wonderful humans we get to spend our day with! Some are making a map of the world (countries on continents) and some were re-creating the timeline of life or getting out our BIG timeline of human needs (it’s so interesting to see how our needs have always been the same across the B.C. /A.D. line but the way we meet them is a little different) and others chose to research things they have been hoping to research but didn’t have “time”. All of these ideas were their own and were so big and enjoyable and exhausting…..for them… But we are so happy, lucky and thankful to spend time with these amazing people each day who really do have a desire to learn and grow and be peaceful individuals. Thank you all for this amazing opportunity!

Calendar items: the elementary class is stressing about field trips!!! YIKES! We are currently accepting donations for non-perishable items that we will take to a food bank in Greenwood on November 16th. We figured that each student in our school needs to collect 3 items to meet a 180 item goal by the 15th! Can we do it? YES WE CAN! So please clean out your pantry, ask a neighbor, ask a friend, so we can help make this time thankful for all of us! We also plan to visit the statehouse this month as part of our government studies! Watch out for those dates soon!

No hablo espanol? Me too! But this week we will begin Spanish language studies! I can’t wait!

This Week in the Oak Room

Halloween was spook-tacular in our classroom this week!  Hopefully all of our families enjoyed the decorations, pumpkins and crafts that the children made. They were so creative!  We had a great time during our Halloween parade, playing games and decorating cookies! A special thanks to Arhan’s mom,Pavitra, for helping with the costume changing and parade.

We have begun our study of “stories” in the Oak room and have even begun to compose some of our own “books” at the new writing center.  Every story has a beginning, middle and end.  Parents, please consider this as a topic for a discussion you can have with your children when you are reading together.

As always as CGM, we are teaching our students the value of giving to those in need.  We will be accepting nonperishable food items to be donated to a local food pantry beginning next week.  The older children will have a goal for us to strive for, so look for more information at Miss Brenda’s desk!

A Note:  The Oak room open house time has been moved to 2 pm on Saturday, Nov. 10.

From the front desk:

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. Thank you!! Miss Brenda.

Child quote of the week:

“Miss Holly, a five-year-old just does what a five-year-old does.”

“There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of differing ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community.” – Maria Montessori

Food Drive

We are having a food drive November 5th – 15th to help support local families in need of food.  Please have your child bring in at least one can,jar,or boxed food item and talk with them about the importance of giving.

Photo Retakes

From our Photographer, Tonya Henderson: I’d like to extend an opportunity for people that missed photos or were unhappy, to have pictures retaken. I can be at Westside Park, 820 West Main Street Greenwood, on November 3rd from 2-4. Come by for a short session and get a few pictures taken. It will be 1st come 1st serve. Please contact me to let me know you will be coming to the park via email, call, or text. 317-502-2382 Thank you!

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.

Where is CGM Located?

© Copyright Center Grove Montessori School. All Rights Reserved. Photos are copyrighted by J Simpson Photography.