Vol. 5, Issue 5: January 2019
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Message from Matt Simberg, M.Ed.
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January is commonly thought of as a time of new beginnings, planting seeds, and starting over or anew. February is filled with themes of Black History and Culture, Love, and Presidents. While it is a time for many things and reflections, I like to think of it also as a reminder of great people or people who did do great things, because they were being their best selves. How are we being our best selves today? How are we encouraging those around us to be their best selves, either by example or through conversation?
I asked the elementary children the other day, "why do you think you go to school?" Some answers were, “to learn, to be smart, to get a good job.” I told them that they were good answers, but that is not why I want them to be in school. I told them, it does not matter to me how fast or if you learn about nouns, or addition, and I named other things. They looked at me in awe, or confusion. I told them that all of the adults in this school and any adult who cares about them, like family members, want at least one thing for them. They waited for my answer.
“We want you to go to school so that you can be your best self! Your best self is going to be different everyday and that is okay. Each of you has a different best self and that is what is so wonderful. You are going to grow up and be different and do different so you can help the people around you, doing your different jobs and activities, and you can inspire others to be their best selves. It is such a good feeling to know that just by being your best you, you can help others right around you! Oh and by the way, there is no such thing as failing….if you learn from it! And one last thing, if you just keep doing and being your best, you are going to learn about those nouns and that addition and you won’t even think twice about it. So, now you know for sure, family members do not drop their children off at school so someone will watch them while they work. Your family wants for you what we want for you, TO BE YOUR BEST SELF!”
There was a lot of clapping involved, my heart was touched, one child yelled out, “INSPIRATIONAL!” LOL and before I knew it, literally all the children got up and started doing something different and productive for the remainder of the afternoon.
Please reflect and share your thoughts on this! How are you guiding or blocking your child from being his/her best self? Are you getting in their way? Can you remove an obstacle they can’t see to help them get out of their own way? What creative thing can you do differently to inspire and not motivate?
I believe you send your children here because you know, at least inherently, our goal is to help your child to help themselves be and do their best. We have an environment and an education system that allots for that at all levels. Let’s continue collaborating, let’s continue being and doing our best, so we can help your children be and do their best for their own sake and for the sake of those around them! The people that we are remembering this month are examples of what can happen, what can be changed, what can be accomplished when we are our best!
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We will be hosting the Seeds of Spring Gala and Silent Auction at our future location in Moorestown on Saturday, April 6, 2019 from 7-11pm. Please
click here to purchase tickets. Also, please feel free to invite friends, neighbors and anyone who might be interested in supporting our efforts.
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MSOE has partnered with Melaleuca to offer families healthier, safer products and value through an online shopping club. Parents have direct access to over 400 products through this US based manufacturer that has been delivering wellness for almost 35 years. Please
click here to email Ms. Patty and request to learn more about how you and your family can benefit from this amazing partnership.
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Dear Parents,
I hope that your New Year has gotten off to a great start! I know that ours has in the Toddler Classroom!
This month we have been learning about winter and doing many activities with snowflakes and snowmen!
We continue to learn about Antarctica in the Language Area. We are learning about Arctic Animals and the Arctic Climate.
We have added many new water works in the Practical Life Area, including truck washing, hand washing and bucket pouring. The toddlers love all of the new water work.
Thank you to all of you for coming into school for our Parent/Teacher Conferences. I enjoyed catching up and talking to you about the progress of your little ones!
February’s focus will be on President’s Day and Valentine’s Day. You may send in Valentine’s Cards on Thursday, February 14th for your child to exchange with his/her classmates on Valentine’s Day!
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Dear Primary Parents,
January was a wonderful time of reflection and learning in our classroom. I truly enjoyed touching base with each of you during conferences on the steps towards self-construction that each of your children are taking. It was additionally fantastic to get a chance to connect with some of you during our collaboration night this month! The experience of having conversations about ways we are striving to support your children in the Montessori prepared environment only deepens the partnership between you and I and helps to build momentum to empower your children through this incredibly important period of development.
We began the month illustrating the continent of Europe! The children learned about the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. Throughout the classroom we had pictures on the wall of his work, giving the children opportunities to expand oral language through conversations about each picture. We also had many wonderful art projects related to Van Gogh’s famous paintings such as The Starry Night and Sunflower series.
We told true stories about the renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The children heard many pieces composed by Mozart. One that stood out for the children was the variation “Ah,vous dirai-je, Maman” which we all know as the melody for Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. All the children really enjoyed an activity of playing the melody on the bells by following a series of color patterns that matched each bell. This was a great exercise of visual discrimination, as well as a wonderful exercise for preparation into reading.
The children additionally explored many writing activities centered around European geography. For example, they engaged in strengthening the hand by carefully shading in and writing down the names of European animals and flags of countries of Europe. Also, they wrote the names of the highlighted European painter and composer of the month. The children also observed many pictures of lakes and islands in Europe and wrote the names of these land and water forms as well.
Special Holidays
We celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a variety of ways. We told the children true stories about his life and why he was such an incredible leader in our country. We also talked about having a dream and the amazing things you can accomplish with persistence and a vision for kindness. The children sang many songs about Dr. Martin Luther King and we launched a special activity in his honor. The children named this activity themselves as the joy jar. In our classroom we have a jar partially filled with marbles and rocks, which represent acts of consideration for the classroom community. During gathering each child gets the opportunity to put a rock or marble into the jar and tell the group a good deed that they noticed that someone else did in the classroom that was helping the community of our casa dei bambini at large.
Things to look forward to in February
- Black history month (anticipate many awesome opportunities of discovery and stories)
- Valentine’s day tea party February 14th
Ways to support your children in the area of Functional Independence
- Work folders go out on Wednesdays and should ideally be returned on Thursday. (When leaving the house on Thursday morning try to put the onus on your children. A helpful activity might be to go through a checklist of items that they need to leave the house with after folder day. Reinforcing this procedure will be helpful in terms of encouraging development of executive functioning skills.)
- A friendly reminder to please make sure to bring in enough for snack for the entire week. Every week you will be bringing in items for a food prep activity with Mrs. Jamie. However, we will additionally need enough snack to cover the other four days as well.
- Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions or share any exciting observations on the progress your child has made thus far!
As always, Mrs. Mary and I look forward to an exciting month, and we thank you for all your continued consideration and support.
Best Regards,
Mr. Carl and Mrs. Mary
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Dear Parents,
Since January is over and we are in the beginning of February, I wanted to communicate in a way that bridges both months. Connect and challenge, rinse and repeat. This is the mantra or phrase I want to convey. Your children are at a stage of something called Hero Worship. They love their parents and the adults responsible for them at school. There is a desire to please that is innate in the 6 - 12 year old. Even though sometimes it might not seem like it and sometimes, as adults, it is easier for us to do it ourselves than to rinse and repeat. The part that we sometimes miss the boat on is connecting and challenging. Sometimes we have to remember as teachers and as parents to connect with ourselves and challenge ourselves before we initiate connecting and challenging with our children.
Give it a try. Ask yourself, how can I connect with my child differently today? Sometimes just connect with no challenging. Then, other times, connect and use that door to walk through together so you can communicate a need that you have from them. It is not a selfish need, whatever it is. It is or should be the intention for them to be or do better. Connect with yourself, appreciate yourself as a parent and alternate between just doing that and challenging yourself. With the month of new beginnings over and February here, it is a perfect time. We celebrate great things in February, as mentioned in the Head of School Section.
Speaking of that, I would like to formally invite you or someone you know to come and speak about someone great relating to the month of February. Maybe it is something relating to the celebration of Black History Month, maybe there is a going out we can do in honor of that. You might be a history buff, a fan of Presidents from the past or have historical items relating to that. Be that as it may, I really want to continue encouraging parent participation in your child’s education! I figure that this is a great time to do that. Especially, after a number of my most recent lessons. One of them was about caring and loving ourselves, our families, friends and even people we do not know. We talked about how humans use our hands to create. Our minds are used to think about the past, present and future. What can you do to contribute? I very much look forward to your responses and participation!
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January has come and gone in the blink of an eye. The adolescents have just finished their first student-led conferences to end the month. They should all be proud of the way they presented themselves and the work they have done. The students have already begun implementing organizational strategies to make it an even better presentation next time.
This month was the end of a thing and the beginning of another. For example, one of our students finished his mini-course on money. The students enjoyed playing a Jeopardy game to review what they had learned and then went on a trip to Philadelphia to the US Mint and the Federal Reserve Bank. The students planned the details of the trip including lunch and it was a very enjoyable experience. Another student started her mini-course on hygge. It is a perfect topic for the adolescents and they are very much looking forward to applying their hygge skills at the new property in Moorestown.
The students also finished reading a novel, started reading another one as a class and have also been inspired to create a play based on this new novel. The adolescents have great seminar discussions about what they have read. They review the facts, themes, ideas and vocabulary found in the novel. The students love to learn the word of the day every morning and read about what happened this day in history such as learning about Dr. Martin Luther King. January 30th was also the anniversary of the assassination of Gandhi, so the students learned about what he stood for as well as
his appreciation for and interactions with Dr. Maria Montessori
. Sometimes the students even come up with their own word of the day, including its use in literary context and its word origin. It is so incredible to see how much ownership the students take over their learning. Often in our adolescent program, what students choose to do goes way beyond what the adult is required to assign for them to do.
The adolescents enjoy acquiring the intellectual skills they need to function as adults through activity. For example, they are learning how to create spreadsheets and formulas in order to manage the school's pizza sales. They are learning how to use Photoshop in order to express themselves visually and aesthetically. They are writing position papers for their model UN conference to form draft resolutions on some of the world's most controversial issues. They are making connections with people in the community to reaffirm that human solidarity exists which strengthens their faith that humans can come together to accomplish a goal. They also spend quite a bit of time helping the upper elementary students in their learning process as well. These activities help them let go of their anxieties and allow them to focus on self-construction, developing self-awareness, self-identity and a sense of valorization. They will never ask, "when am I ever going to use this?"
Some of the top 5 soft skills of 2019, according to LinkedIn, are creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and time management. These skills are even more important than the top 5 hard skills which are cloud computing, artificial intelligence, analytical reasoning, people management and UX (user interface) design, some of which are arguably also soft skills. This is the language of the modern world, which is based on mathematics. Understanding mathematics provides a deep sense of satisfaction as students make order out of the chaos of numbers. Making things balance out offers the same sense of satisfaction in adult life when one is able to solve a problem. This reduces anxiety and allows students to engage in deeper work. Having order helps adolescents have a sense of clarity, orientation and stability at a time when things are unclear. The students love the freedom they have to think outside the box, and if you ask them, they may even say, "what box?"
Working with both ideas and materials arouses maximum interest and relevant independence. Since the adult is the most important material in the Adolescent space, every activity becomes part of the curriculum of life, from communications to interactions with one another to planning and organization to execution of a plan. They are always watching, listening, processing and assimilating. This requires a lot of self-consciousness as an adult and results in a certain refinement. Above all, the adolescents require patience and understanding as students navigate this most treacherous time in their lives.
Next month, we are looking forward to our read-a-thon and beginning preparations for our next project on the farm. Possible projects are beekeeping, building a greenhouse with raised beds and/or incubating and hatching baby chicks. The students are looking forward to begin giving tours at the property in Moorestown and are familiarizing themselves with the history of the Stokes estate as part of a pedagogy of place study.
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In Elementary STEM we have started a new module called Flying, Falling, and Fluid Dynamics. In the first lab, Blowing in the Wind, we found out how wind helps scatter seeds and how seeds are shaped effects that. This week's lab, Feeling Down and Gliding, we measured how far, or slow, things fall by building shapes and loading them up with paper clips. Then we threw them off the balcony! Our scouts timed the falls and we found out things with less 'frontal area' fall faster.
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