High Desert Montessori Monthly Newsletter

High Desert Montessori Monthly Newsletter January 2, 2017

News From The Classrooms

Gobi (Jolene & Kathy)

Space available for 1
Older infants moving up with Robin

Sonoran (Robin)

Robin is back

Patagonia (Toni)

French starting
New classroom

Arabian (CeCe & Drew)

New reading curriculum
French starting

Kalahari (Louise)

French starting
New reading/spelling curriculum

Atacama (Pascaline)

New classroom
Daily French
New science & history curriculum starting

A Note To Our Families From Bobbie

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! I hope that your holidays were spent with those you love and that you are excited for this new year.

My office has been taken over by the need for a new classroom. As such, the entrance to the building will always be the double front doors. The video doorbell has been moved to that entrance and ALLprimary-upper el drop offs and pickups will take place at the main building. With the lack of a real office, I will have office hours by appointment only. Please call or email me should you need to meet with me.

Iam working on many exciting new opportunities at this time. We are in the process of locating a 30-passenger bus so that ‘going out’ adventures are more readily available.

We are also finalizing negotiations with a music instructor to come in weekly, and are looking for several parent volunteers who would like to take on the task of planning and putting on a spring play/show with the children!

In this new year, I would like to encourage ALL parents to plan on arriving BEFORE 9am so that the children are in the building by 9 sharp! We have morning gathering as a school and your children miss out when they are not here. It is also a HUGE distraction to the children who have shown up when families walk in late. Think of it like work for you, if you showed up late daily-you would likely get fired! This is a great opportunity to instill punctuality early on. Please make it a priority this year.

Our weekly yoga classes will continue with Erin on Tuesdays.

As you can see in the column to the left, our guides have chosen classroom names based on deserts around the world in keeping with our school’s name. We will refer to the classes as such from now on so please note your child’s classroom name.

French Word of the Week

Jan 2 Nouvelle année
Jan 9 Saisons
Jan 16 Couleurs
Jan 23 Chiffres
Jan 30 Parties du corps

Upcoming Birthdays

Bria-Jan 2 (5)

Jameson-Jan 9 (6)

Ms. Drew-Jan 18

Braedn-Jan 21 (7)

Jackson-Jan 23 (7)

Dates to Note

Jan 16-MLK Day-No School

Jan 17-Pajama Day

Guide Spotlight

HDM Head Teacher

Kalahari Lead Guide

Louise earned her Bachelors in Education from Metropolitan State College of Denver. She is an AMS certified Primary guide, trained at the Montessori Education Center of the Rockies, and received her lower elementary training from NAMC. Louise has been a Montessori Guide for over 20 years having worked in Montessori schools all over the world while following her husband’s military career. She has resided in the central Oregon area since 2000 and lives happily with her husband and their two rambunctious golden retrievers. In her spare time, Louise is an avid runner and seamstress.

Updates From Your Guides

Gobi-Jolene & Kathy

The Gobi room is in the midst of change! Our older children are going to be moving up to the Sonoran room with Robin! This will open up spaces for younger children to join us! We have new walkers, talkers, and crawlers in the room! We’re working on shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and words daily. Pascaline stops by at least once a day to impart some French to the little ones! The Gobi’s will be moving into the house to try and minimize the germs they are exposed to!

Sonoran-Robin

Welcome to the new ‘Sonoran’ room! We will be working on encouraging the daily grace & courtesy lessons needed in the primary room in addition to our daily lessons of counting, alphabet, words, reading, signing, shapes, and anything else the children show an interest in learning. I am excited to be back and take on my own class again of this fun age group! We will be in the Casa like the Gobi class.

Patagonia-Toni

Welcome to the new Patagonia, formerly known as Primary Casa! The children will be working with Pascaline on French twice per week and we will start our new reading & spelling curriculum. We will join the rest of the school in one of our smaller rooms. Please make note that as we are now in the main building, all pick up and drop offs will be there!

Arabian-CeCe & Drew

Along with many of the other classrooms, the Arabian room will be working on learning French starting in January! We will also be incorporating our new spelling and reading curriculum to encourage our early readers. We are looking into some fun ‘going out’ opportunities for these younger ones this spring and are looking for one or two parent volunteers with interest and experience in drama to help put on a spring play!

Kalahari-Louise

Beginning in January, the newly named lower elementary class, ‘Kalahari’ will study Asia and continue our zoology and history curriculum. With the parent meeting on Thursday, January 5 at 6:00 pm, we will kick off our new spelling curriculum. My thought is that better spellers make better readers and writers. We will also be re-visiting the Montessori peace curriculum and we hope to have a school wide ‘Day of Service’ on MLK day. More details will follow on that. We welcome 3 girls to our very boy heavy classroom to balance us out.

Quote of the Month

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, the children are now working as if I did not exist” Maria Montessori

Color of the Month

Blue-Please look around your house for appropriate items for your children to share with their cohorts that are blue throughout the month! No toys please.

Country of the Month

Ireland-As our own Kathy hails from Ireland we thought it would be fun to learn about the customs of this beautiful country.

Atacama-Pascaline

As our first semester came to an end in December, it was time for the newly named Atacama class to wrap up a big piece of our curriculum. Astronomy, Scientific Methods, Ecology, and Geography materials left the shelves. 2017 will bring in new work, including World History and Culture, French, and Zoology. Finally, a new piece of Language Arts will be offered centered around literature classics. New opportunities for parent volunteers will become available. Please stay tuned…..

Montessori At Home, Monthly Tip

Create an ordered environment

Having a place for everything, on a child-friendly scale, encourages both independence and self-discipline. Children know where to find what they need, and where to put it when they’re done. An ordered environment also has fewer distractions, allowing children to focus on the task at hand.

To make things accessible to your young child:

Provide low shelves or drawers for clothing; lower the rod in their bedroom closet.
Keep a small step stool in the bathroom and kitchen so your child can reach the sink without asking for your assistance.
Arrange toys and games on low open shelves with a particular place for each. Sort smaller items into trays or baskets by category, such as puzzles, art supplies, and blocks.
Put healthy snacks and foods on a low pantry shelf so that your child can help themselves.
Pour drinks into small, manageable pitchers placed on a low refrigerator shelf. Keep cups within your child’s reach—along with a sponge to clean up spills.

Please ask your children about the assigned French word, how they say it and what it means during the week we are working on it!