Notes

Our Parkside Robin has arrived. One morning a couple of weeks ago on our way to the playground we saw him hopping near the entrance to the church looking for worms, or perhaps for some nest-making materials. Several of the children called out delightedly, “There’s the Robin!” Now, in the second week of April, robins appear to be everywhere, and so we should be finishing our books this month.

As we talk about the onset of spring we are focusing on the outdoor changes around us that we can clearly observe on our walks to the playground. These include the warmer temperatures, the budding and blossoming trees ands bushes, the greening of the grass, the emergence of our different flowers and the beautiful blue skies. We have talked about other changes that spring brings. These include the beginning of soccer and baseball seasons and other outdoor activities, as well as the transition from warm coats, hats and mittens to lighter jackets and sweaters. By the way, may we remind you again to clearly label spring coats, jackets and raincoats. Thanks so much.

Our March study of the solar system is ending, and the children were fascinated by the hanging planets in our classrooms and the characteristics of each of them. In April we will take a closer look at our own planet, Earth, the “perfect planet”. We are learning that Earth is made up of land, air and water. We will focus on the land forms (continents), and we will learn to identify each of the seven continents from our beautiful Montessori globes and maps as well as the baskets of the hand-sewn cloth continents in the classroom, all color-coded. We will also talk about the bodies of water, large and small, that make up most of our earth. We will discuss the fact that the Earth is the only planet whose land, air and water allow plants, animals and humans to live and thrive. This is a natural time to discuss the importance of keeping the land, air and water of our earth clean and healthy for all of us. There will be some discussion about the general characteristics off each of our world’s 7 land masses, but the most fun for the children is the addition in each classroom of our continent animals. We have small replicas of the animals that are indigenous to each continent. We have very large world maps made of cloth, and the children will be placing the animals on each of the appropriate continents, encouraging lots of conversations and creative ideas related to animal life around the world.

Two very popular Practical Life activities this month include coffee grinding and bread slicing. Silver polishing will continue, and we have already introduced more complicated color mixing. We will also be tweezing with colored beads onto the color-coded continent shapes. In Sensorial we have some beautiful new puzzle maps of the world and also of the United States. In Language, exercises include land, air and water objects and pictures to sort and match, and we will also be “punching” the continents, again using the colors that are on our Montessori maps. Already on our language shelves are flower object to object and object to picture matching as well as three part cards of the parts of a flower. Speaking of flowers, we have already created pussy willow, forsythia, daffodils and hyacinths at the art table. In April we will continue our flower study by making tulips, cherry blossoms and shy violets.

As we embrace this new season, we are gratified to see the growth of your little ones and to participate in their continuing skill development as well as their interest in and embracement of the new shelf activities which are being introduced over these next couple of months.

Happy Spring!

“There must be provisions for a

child to have contact with nature,

to understand and appreciate

the order, the harmony and the

beauty in nature.”

The Secret of Childhood

Maria Montessori