October 2014

NEWS

I often see confusion in our Montessori world about Maria Montessori’s insistence on “real” objects in the environment. When Dr. Montessori opened her first school for 3-6-year-olds she filled it with dolls and other traditional make-believe toys, but she soon found that when children were given the opportunity to do real work such as cooking, cleaning, caring for themselves, each other, and the environment, they completely lost interest in make-believe and preferred real work.

As time continued Dr. Montessori also noticed that young children had a hard time distinguishing between real and imaginary. They were constantly asking. “Is this real?” This is one of the main reasons we ask that children do not bring fantasy related things to school. It can also be very distracting to the classroom environment!

When my youngest was attending St. James Episcopal School, I found this rule really difficult to follow because of his older siblings and their obsession with Ninja Turtles. I had to come up with a compromise that worked for our family. My son could play Ninja Turtles at home with his brothers, but not at school! I also limited his television time to view these exciting creatures to the week-ends. I believe it’s also important to follow your child…a healthy mixture of outdoor play and nature with a little fantasy can work for some, but, depending on the type of fantasy, still can be too over-stimulating for others.

Fantasy vs. Real

A new study, led by University of Virginia psychologist Angeline Lillard, sought to find out whether the type of TV that children watch makes a difference. The researchers recruited 60 4-year-olds (via their parents) and assigned them to one of three conditions. In the first, the children simply colored for nine minutes. In the second, they watched nine minutes of “a very popular fantastical cartoon about an animated sponge that lives under the sea.” The third group of children watched nine minutes of “a realistic cartoon about a typical preschool-age boy.” Lillard was not available for an interview to confirm the shows used, but the descriptions match the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants” and the PBS show “Caillou.” The shows were chosen for their very different pacing. “SpongeBob” underwent a complete scene change every 11 seconds, with lots of frenetic movement in between, the researchers reported. The PBS show was slower, with a scene change every 34 seconds or so.

I was not too terribly shocked to see how different the children responded in correlation to the conditions. I’ve attached the link to the full write up from Christian Science Monitor if you’re interested: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0912/SpongeBob-study-Do-fast-paced-cartoons-impair-kids-thinking

As we head towards Halloween and lots of fantasy, be sure to balance your child’s life with slower paced “real” nature based activities.

Mrs. Loree

Jada was very happy during our visit to the pumpkin patch.

Jack is very focused on his favorite work “Scrubbing a Pumpkin”

Ford is enjoying carrying the pumpkins in the wagon.

On rainy days we play in the Parish Hall with The Imagination Playground. Carson is the conductor of the blue train that he built with Mrs. Eva and his friends.

MDO Parents:

Well, the month of October has flown by like a leaf in the wind. All the children have adjusted well to the school routine and we are well on our way to a productive school year.

The children are all excited about fall! We will be paint stamping and reading fall books. Our upcoming themes are pumpkins, acorns, leaves, etc. We are going to learn about the Life Cycle of the Pumpkin. The children in the class have enjoyed learning the Montessori works. They especially seem to enjoy our practical life and sensorial lessons. We continue to work on practicing letter sounds. The children have been introduced to new sign language vocabulary words. Our colors this month are orange and black and the shape is the square. We also are learning numbers and colors in English and Spanish.

Fall weather can be quite unpredictable and we try to go outside every day. Please be sure your child has a change of clothes that is appropriate for the fall temperatures. Please label all jackets, hats, gloves, scarves, etc. with your child’s name. Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Parent Checklist • Please remember, if your child has an accident please return dry clothes the next day your child comes to school.

Go over these ground rules with your child • We use soft voices in school • We return work to the shelf when we are finished • We never disturb another’s work • We walk in school

We really appreciate all your feedback. Working together, we can provide the best classroom experience for your child.

Thank you very much for all your support!Eva Soldevilla, Bianca Goolsby, and Mary Peterson

It’s almost Halloween and our toddlers are very excited to be working with Halloween works around the classroom. We have a transfer work looking for spiders and bats underneath the cotton balls!

We have also had a lesson about the pumpkin in our classroom. The chil-dren were able to touch the pump-kin and feel the seeds inside. They were so excited to be a part of that learning process! In class, we made a Jack-O- Lantern and later cooked the seeds, and the children are loving the taste of pumpkin butter.

We have had our visit to the pump-kin patch and worked really hard finding fall items in the field during our scavenger hunt.

Art this month has been very exciting - peeling stickers of bats, witches, hats, pumpkins, and black cats. Music time has also been fun, learning about the Fall season and singing about “5 Little Pumpkins.” The calendar has scare-crows, sunflowers, and pumpkins, and we are counting “1-31.”

Happy Pumpkin Carving! Ms. Anna and Ms. Annabel

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October brings us cooler temperatures and an autumn breeze. October has been a busy month starting with the Animal Dance Party, conferences, Tour the Classroom and the Halloween party. We are so blessed to be part of St. James and all the amazing families that allow us to teach their children everyday. We thank you!

In our classroom we have been counting, singing, signing, and learning all about pumpkins!

Cora is seen here dipping the pumpkin cookie cutter into the orange paint and making a beautiful art piece.

Davis is working on strengthening his pincer grasp by using tongs to transfer the orange pom poms.

2 April, Lilly, & Eliane

Pumpkin scrubbing is a class favorite..Vivienne scrubs the pumpkin with soapy water and a sponge. Next, she will dry it with a towel.

We then read about the life cycle of a pumpkin and took a closer look inside. The children had fun using their hands to scoop the pumpkin seeds out. It was a great touch and feel lesson! We even roasted the seeds and tasted them. Yummmy!

We took a walk over to the pumpkin patch and explored the different size pumpkins.

Ms. Coral’s class is starting to normalize and know the routine of things. You can often see second year children helping the first years with simple things like: changing shoes, turning the faucet off and on to wash hands, rolling their nap mats, and helping remember to roll their rugs and work mats! They are working well together as a community to help one another in need. It is a beautiful sight to see. :)

The children have been working vigorously on fall works in the classroom! We have introduced pumpkin scrubbing and identifying the parts of a pumpkin in circle time. We visited the pumpkin patch last week and the children loved see-ing all the different pumpkins and beautiful looking gourds. There were so many different kinds; the children had fun identifying bumpy and smooth. We even stopped to take some silly Halloween pictures!

In circle time we have been talking all about fall, pumpkins and Halloween. We have been reading our “Fall” book and talking about fresh green leaves, when they change and the difference between the textures of green leaves that are living and brown leaves that have fallen from the trees. We have also been talking about apple tress and how they relate to fall.

The weather is changing and the children are enjoying it not being so hot! They have been running the fields, kicking balls, and riding their trikes on the black top happily!

Happy Fall!Toddler 3

We had such a food time visiting the St. James pumpkin patch! Carter and Jetty enjoyed making funny faces.

Jetty glues fall leaf cut outs onto yellow paper.

The children have really enjoyed making Jack-O-Lanterns.

Eliza scrubbing our class pumpkin :)Ryan using her gross motor skills on the playground.

3“Autumn leaves are falling down, down to the ground”

Makingwith Ms. Hanna

The Kingergarteners and I worked on a very special project this month - we made apple butter! It took an entire week to make, but we had a lot of fun learning about different kinds of apples, how to cook the apples to make applesauce, and then how to turn the applesauce into apple butter. Ask your child what their favorite part of the process was - I bet it was the taste testing!

First we talked about the different kinds of apples we were going to use for our apple butter. We used Jonathan, McIntosh, Jonagold, Braeburn, and Cortland apples. I cut open each apple so the children could see what color they were inside. Then we tasted each apple to see if it was crisp or soft, sweet or tart. The children have amazing taste buds! Their discription of each apple was exactly right!

Next, we put the cut apples in a big stockpot. We added apple cider to give our apple butter even more flavor.

Then we put our pot on the stove to start to cook. Some of the apples broke down really quickly!

When the apples were all cooked down it was time to put them through the food mill and make applesauce.

After all the cooked apples were milled into applesauce, we added our spices and put it back on the stove to cook down.

The Kindergarteners loved tasting the

applesauce!

After two days of cooking, the apple butter was finally done! It was divided and put into jars.

The filled jars were put into a boiling water bath to seal the lids so the apple butter will stay good for a long time.

After the jars were cooled, they were labeled and passed out to each classroom at school. Now everyone will be able to enjoy the delicious apple butter the Kindergarteners made!

Here, Violet is stirring the apple butter! We had to stir it a lot so it wouldn’t stick to the bottom of the pot.

Dear families of Primary 1,

We are thrilled about the beautiful fall weather and are eager for cooler days. The children are learning about weather in our class this month. This turned out to be great timing since we have had some interesting and slightly scary weather this month. We talked about rain, wind and storms, what causes them, and even touched on the water cycle. One of the favorite weekly jobs on our job chart is the meteo-rologist. The meteorologist tells us what kind of weather we are having and what season we are in. The Kindergarten students take it one step further and place a tally for the day on the year long weather chart they keep in their folder.

As for the season, we have embraced autumn and the month of October by incorporating books, crafts, and pumpkin exploration. The children love finding colorful leaves on the play-ground and looking at the shapes. We have taken advantage of the pumpkin patch to look at the varying sizes, shapes, and colors of the pumpkins. As the month goes on we will em-bark on pumpkin scrubbing and the parts of the pumpkin.

Along with fall comes a period of time in the Montessori Classroom called normalization. This just means the children are working with focus and concentration, choosing works that chal-lenge and interest them and that their is a calm buzz throughout the community. Children know and respect the boundaries and have settled into a rhythm of purposeful activity. It is a pleasure to see this unfold. The children are really showing interest in math and language and their is a flurry of excitement as some of the children recognize their potential as emer-gent readers! Thank you again to those of you who have volunteered as reading parents! We are thrilled to have you. If you haven’t yet volunteered but have the training, shoot me an email with your availability and we will get you started! Even once a month helps.

As always, read, read, read with your children! Count leaves, pumpkins and ghosts. The world around us is rich in language and learning opportunities, no flash cards necessary :)

Happy Autumn,Ms. Charlotte and Ms. Kim

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October is such a wonderful month. We are beginning to sing and learn our Halloween chants and songs in circle time. During recess, the students get to see the pumpkins in the beautiful St. James Pumpkin Patch. Later in the month we will cut the top off of a pumpkin and dig the insides out; whichwill provide a perfect time to talk about the “parts of a pumpkin.” Wemight even plant a pumpkin seed and see if it sprouts. Then on October31st, our classroom Halloween Party! The anticipation is beginning tobuild.

And now for a glimpse into an important part of our classroom...

PRACTICAL LIFEPractical Life exercises are the foundation on which all of the variousexercises in all areas of the classroom are built upon. It is in theseexercises that the child begins to form control of movement, buildconcentration, hand and eye coordination, order, and physical as well asmental independence. These exercises may appear very simple or even like“play” to the child and the other adults in the environment. But as thechild repeats various exercises he is working on perfecting a specific skillor movement. It is through this movement that the child develops andactually builds his own abilities. The child watches a presentation on askill then is allowed to repeat the skill at his/her own rate. There comesa time when the child no longer feels the need to repeat the skill. Thisusually occurs when the child has gained confidence in the skill. The childno longer has to concentrate to bring about a certain movement, it graduallybecomes an unconscious action. Through practice, the child builds himself.Finally, the child learns Good Working Habits as he finishes each task andputs away all of his materials before beginning another activity.

Mrs. Barrineau and Ms. Marla

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Autumn is here! In the classroom, I can see beautiful friendships forming and strong periods of focused work time. The younger children are thrilled by each new lesson and the older ones have been such sweet helpers to them.

At circle time, we are singing about autumn and learning Halloween poems. We have discussed the Autumnal Equinox and learned that the earth’s tilt leans the Northern Hemisphere away from the sun and brings colder weather. We also talked about why the leaves change color in the fall. Did you know it is because they lose their chlorophyll? The children do!

Our cultural study for October is the continent of North America. So far, we have focused on the Caribbean Islands and Mexico. (Canada is next!) We have enjoyed listening to steel drum music from Trinidad, Jamaican reggae,1940s Cuban music, and Mexican mariachi. Dried coconut and plantain chips were big hits for a Caribbean group snack. Our birthday celebrations have rounded out the festivities: this month Eloise and David turned 5 and Emory turned 6.

3Laurel and Alex hard at work

Birthday Twins!

Autumn Leaves (a song to the tune of London Bridges)

Autumn leaves are falling downFalling down, falling down!

Autumn leaves are falling downRed and yellow, orange and brown

Amid the daily activities, our classroom is experiencing a transition. Ms. Julia is leaving to have her baby girl, MariaJosé, who is due in just a few weeks. The children and parents all pitched in to give her a beautiful baby shower. It was a sweet time to surround Ms. Julia (and her baby bump) with love.

As Ms. Julia leaves, we welcome Ms. Monica as a new teacher’s assistant in our classroom. She is a trained Mon-tessori teacher and will be a wonderful addition to our classroom community.

Happy autumn!Ms. Tamara

Ask your child to show you how we stretch up high and gently bring the leaves down to the ground…

Chloe and Riley matching nomenclature cards

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October has been a very exciting month in our classroom so far! It’s finally beginning to feel like Autumn is here!

The children have enjoyed the pumpkin patch, cooler weather, and studying the season of fall. Everyone has had fun working with our seasonal materi-als including pumpkin scooping, fall leaf stringing, gourd sorting, and the parts of a pumpkin. Many children have also been preparing for Halloween by punching out bat and pumpkin shapes, then gluing them down to make collages.

Older children have chosen to work with the leaf cabinet. They learn the names of various leaf shapes, and punch them out on red, orange, yellow, and brown paper. The result is a beautiful fall work! Punching is an excel-lent fine motor activity. Holding the puncher tool strengthens the hands for writing and helps develop the pincer grasp.

The children have also been using the metal insets to make pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. How creative! We have enjoyed the lovely weather lately by having story time in the garden. The children loved reading

The Bumpy Little Pumpkin by Margery Cuyler

Coordinating the works in the classroom with the seasons and holidays adds interest and allows the children gain a better understanding of the passage of time. In addition to our exciting fall activities, we have been singing The Continents Song during group time. The children like to jump to each differ-ent continent on our rug as we sing. Ask your children to sing the song for you at home!

Miss Elizabeth and Mrs. Ashley

October in the Children’s GardenIt’s Pumpkin Palooza! We will study the parts of the pumpkin, investigate whether a pumpkin sinks or floats, hammer pegs into a pumpkin and polish pumpkins. We will even try pumpkin seeds! We’ve spent a lot of time around the pumpkins this month!

We have many fall plants growing right now-Hansel and Gretel eggplants, bumpy and lacey kales, Swiss chard and a variety of cool weather lettuces. We will also be planting carrots!

Tips for October Gardening: • All your cool season flowers should be blooming nicely now, and your cool season vege tables should be giving you fresh produce for your dinner table. • You can plant some cool season vegetables this month including: beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, greens, onions, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips. As a matter of fact this is the perfect time to plant onions and garlic. These will grow all fall and winter and be larger and more productive in the spring. • Once it has cooled off completely you can plant cold season flowers such as pansies, snapdragons, sweet peas, and stock. Before planting sweet peas, soak them overnight to soften their coating. They will grow in the winter and bloom beautifully in the spring. • Prepare for the first freeze. Have fabric row cover ready to cover plants. • When you have not mowed for half a month you can fertilize your lawn. • http://www.centraltexasgardening.net/calendar.htm

in the

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It has been an exciting month in art! Fall is in the air and pumpkins are in season! We had lots of fun going out to the pumpkin patch to draw pumpkins. The children experimented with different kinds of pastels (chalk and oil) and how to blend them together to make new colors. We also talked about light and shadow and how to achieve the contrast in our drawings. The pictures turned out beautifully!

In technology, we have continued to work on controlling the mouse, and navigating around the screen. We have played games for math, reading, and art. We also started using ABC Mouse, which is an educational learning website that the children love. The children have also started using the Bamboo tablet to draw their own images on the computer. It is not an easy task, but the children are doing so well and having a great time! We will put the images together to make a special project in the coming months.

Happy Fall!Ms. Hanna

After school care continues to be a buzz of activity. Everyone has settled into a routine and I see lots of smiles and hear lots of happy chatter during the afternoon. The toddlers love their circle time routine. They sing songs that they are familiar with from their classroom and practice sign language. The primary children love crafts during ASC. Crayons, markers and glue sticks are always the favorites! The ASC staff certainly enjoys their time with your children. We like to keep their day similar to their classroom routines and that holds true for their snack time. We post the snack on the bulletin board outside the school lunch room area. If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Cooler weather is approaching! Please make sure your child has a jacket WITH THEIR NAME LABLED ON IT, thank you.

Happy October,Lisa Wilson

October was such a fun month for Chapel! All of the Kindergarten students are now well acquainted with their jobs and look forward each week to leading the younger children during our worship service. We were also able to celebrate St. Francis’ day at St. James! Father Gardner led us all in giving thanks and asking blessings for our wonderful pets. Many children brought their animals, pictures of animals, or even stuffed animals to join in the celebration! It was a wonderful time had by all and a great memory for the children.

Coming up in November we will be learning about the Thanksgiving story. This is a fantastic opportunity to ask your child about what makes them thankful! We have so many reasons to be thankful and we can always find the source of where those blessings come from. I’m thankful this year that God has given me the opportunity to share His love with all of the children at St. James. What are you thankful for?

We will be starting the Canned Food Drive Monday November 3rd to donate to the our local charities. As you sort through your pantry for donations with your child, talk to them about the significance of giving. It’s never too early to teach about meeting the needs of others and cultivating a giving spirit within your child.

Many Blessings,Ashley WoodruffChristian Education Director