As we complete our second week of school, we happily report that we are experiencing a fairly smooth transition back to school. While there continues to be some hesitancy and tears at the door, the children who were crying and/or sad upon entry are really calming down quickly, and things are much better for them. We have worked hard to gain their trust, and they seem to understand that. Most of the students are happy to be part of a new school or to return to Parkside for another year, and they are all enjoying the Montessori shelf activities and projects that we have prepared for them. As always, we returned to school in July to set up the classrooms after Mrs. Valentine (our gifted resident painter) refreshed our classrooms and hallways and shampooed our carpets. Our new students have all visited as well, and so by the time September 8th arrived, we felt fully ready to begin our new school year.
As our returning families know, our Parkside parents will be receiving these Notes every month via e-mail during the course of the school year. Kristen Donohue will also be continuing her posts to Instagram which you can find by searching @parksidemontessorischool. These two communications will give you specific information regarding what the children will be working on in the classroom including our monthly Montessori and thematic materials and curriculum as well as upcoming events and reminders of ways in which you can help Parkside run in an orderly and organized way.
All of our staff members will be returning including of course Annie McMahon as well as Gingi Donohue, Rhonda Davis, Kristen Donohue, Kristy Ellison, Sadia Hasan, Mary Moore, Colleen Murphy, Patti Reilly, Meg Temkin, Sue Valentine and Susan Walia. All continue to be valued members of our team, and, as many of you know, we have been fortunate over the years to have had very little teacher turnover. This year we welcome two new members to our staff. Maureen McCormack is a former long time public school teacher and principal. After leaving public education, she spent time teaching pre-schoolers and grew to love working with this age group. Also joining our Parkside group is Jenny Donohue (another one!) who has subbed for us over the past two years, did a great job, and is excited about starting a regular schedule. At arrival time in the morning, there is usually Annie and one or two other teachers. The rest of us are back in the classrooms greeting the children and helping them settle into their day, but you will have the opportunity to chat with our teachers on our Back to School Night which will be on October 14 at 7:00 p.m.
Much of our time during these early weeks of school will be spent helping our students become comfortable with us, with their classmates and in their classrooms. We have been reviewing those traditional Montessori guidelines of coming to and sitting on circle, working on a mat, greeting teachers and friends, learning how to “make silence”, choosing activities with a teacher’s help or independently from each classroom area, handwashing, walking on circle and moving with a partner out to the playground.
In the Montessori classroom there are five different curriculum areas. The Practical Life area is composed of exercises by which the children learn to care for the environment and for themselves. The purpose of these is to enhance eye-hand coordination, fine and large motor control, concentration and a sense of order in a task. The children will be pouring, spooning, grasping, tweezing, buttoning, zipping, snapping, as well as working with tongs and funnels, and doing washing, scrubbing and polishing work.
The development, enhancement and refinement of the senses is the aim of the Sensorial area which include lots of building work with different kinds of blocks and cylinders as well as work with shapes and colors. Our extensive puzzle collection is also part of Sensorial.
The Math area includes many concrete counting and number identification exercises from 1-10 and then eventually far beyond that. There is simple addition and subtraction work available as well, and materials which introduce the decimal system.
There are many reading readiness activities in the Language area including matching objects and pictures, tracing and writing, and of course work with our sandpaper letters and movable alphabet. Each classroom has a library corner filled with both concept and fictional storybooks.
In the Art area there are lots of planned projects and there are also many different kinds of mediums for the children to work with in a more free-form way. They may paint every day at the easel and visit the art table every day as well.
The description of our Montessori areas is helpful for you to have in the beginning of the year because in these notes we will be referring to the new Montessori exercises being brought into each area on a monthly basis. We also focus on a different learning theme each month, and materials related to those themes will be placed in each curriculum area. Since September comes immediately after summer break, it seems natural that we begin our study of life at the beach as well as the sea animals that inhabit the ocean. We began where the land meets the water, examining and discussing what we find at the shoreline such as driftwood, sea glass, seaweed and also about the soft bodied creatures or mollusks the inhabit the beautiful shells that scatter the beaches. We are learning the names and shapes of many different kinds of shells such as the clam, worm, conch, whelk, slipper, cockle and scallop. We have trays in each classroom with the real samples of the shells for the children to look at, handle, match and sort.
Later this month, we will bring in baskets of museum quality sea animals. We will introduce each kind on circle and learn about the unique characteristics such as the playful, social and intelligent dolphin, the shy octopus, the jumping manta ray, the sleek and shiny seal, the noisy and hungry seagull, the ever-moving, ever-hunting shark and the giant squid. The children will be able to take the baskets of creatures off the shelf to work on with a friend or friends.
In keeping with September’s theme, Practical Life will contain spooning and tweezing shells and fish, shell scrubbing and digging and “fishing” using a large bowl of water with sea life objects.
Many sea life puzzles, large and small, will be in the Sensorial area and there will be fishing with magnetic rods. Our Language shelves will be full of sea life matching and sorting pictures as well the aforementioned real shells and sea animals to be used for identification and play. These collections promote cooperative and imaginative play. In the Math area, there are many counting exercises using both shells and sea creatures. We will also make sea animal stamping and counting books. At the Art table we have been creating beach and sea life projects.
So from the very beginning of the year the many and often changing activities help to keep our students busy and engaged with us and with each other. We are thankful for your support during these very important early weeks of school, and we want you to feel free to share with us any ideas, suggestions and concerns you may have and we will do that with you as well. Here at Parkside we have begun our 39th year of providing a peaceful and supportive learning environment and one that is child-centered and full of valuable hands-on exercises and opportunities for positive social interaction. Welcome to our new school year!
“The child gives us a beautiful lesson -
that in order to form and maintain our
intelligence, we must use our hands.”
Maria Montessori
London Lectures, 1946