It's April already?!

We're baaack! 

It's amazing how fast time flies and how busy one can get. Needless to say, a LOT has happened since the last post and I've got tons of pictures to show. Much of it may seem like ancient history now, but I hope you still enjoy them. Without further ado.....

Remember that Art Show we did?! ;) I wish we had some more pictures from the day of but unfortunately my brain was all over the place! Below are some shots of the children working on the pieces we had up for sale, as well as some of the Chalk Art.

L: Aidan and R: Josie working on our Chalk gradient piece.

L: Miss Elizabeth and Micaela working on the Hibiscus collage. R: Mark and Martha painting the Hibiscus.

The many stages of our piece called "Banana Snowman" - throughout the painting of this piece the children shared their opinions of what the shapes looked like. Banana and Snowman seemed to be the almost universal consensuses; there were many others though :)
L to R, T to B: Alyssa, Benedict V, Lucia, Lucy, Miss Melissa with group, Josie, Brendan, Candelaria, Mark, Maureen, Mia, and Micaela.

Some of the wonderful Chalk Art made by our awesome participants!

Our Chalk Art winners! L to R, T to B: Grace Doman (13-17y/o), Kaitlin Karbagh (18+), Alexandra McManus (6yo), Catherine Graham (7-12), Joyce Family (Group/Family)

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Birthdays!! In March we celebrated Lucy's 5th birthday, and Mikey's 3rd :) Thank you both for your book gifts to our class of: The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein and The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle; both on our wish list!

L to R, T to B: Lucy walking around the sun, sharing her pictures to the class, and showing off her book. Mikey sharing bis poster board with the class, and then walking around the sun.

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Hard at work!!
Aside from the works you see being used below, in our curriculum we have recently finished learning about the life of Maria Montessori, we have continued our Spanish curriculum on a daily basis through not only conversation, but music too! We have re-introduced Chess, introduced sewing, and been introducing new works to the children every day. As the year progresses, at each of their levels they are all eager to learn the next thing, and it's our pleasure to follow their path. Like Dr. Montessori said, "Follow the child, but follow the child as his leader."

L to R, T to B:
William working with the Colored Beads
Josie and Micaela teaching John Paul about primary and secondary colors
Mark sewing
Sophia washing dishes
Benedict practicing his number recognition
Alexandra, Ellie and Candelaria working with the Knobbed Cylinders

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We got new games for the playground! The kids love them :) They all promote movement, balance, hand/eye coordination, large and fine motor skill refinement, and they're a blast :) Check it out!

Everybody, having tons of fun :)

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Quick announcement: Mother's Day Tea this year will take place on Thursday, May 9th! The day before the Parent/Teacher Conferences. Moms, a schedule will be out in the next few weeks for you to choose a time slot to come in and have tea with your child :) The schedule for conferences will also be out soon. Please mark your calendars!
And that's all she wrote! (& photographed) ;)

Fantastic February :)

Happy February! Let's get to it...

Valentine's day is around the corner! The children are very excited.. we will do some fun projects with them that day, but do feel free to send Valentines if they want to; we have encouraged them making their own Valentines instead of store bought :) Fair warning!!

In other exciting things happening in February......

Happy 4th Birthday, Benedict!!! Many many thanks for your book gift of James and the Giant Peach to the class!! That's 2 chapter book gifts in the last few weeks; so much reading to do!!

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We have 2 new friends to welcome to our classroom; Jude has moved up from our Toddler classroom and joined us in the Primary room, and we have a new friend Mikey whose family is new to town :) Both are morning friends, we are so happy to have them and invite you to welcome them with us!

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At work!

Top L: Eva working with the knob cylinders, Top M: Josie doing The Solar System puzzle, Top R: Mikey using tongs to transfer pom-poms, Bottom L: Micaela practicing her sounds, Bottom R: Lucy writing words with the Movable Alphabet.

Outdoors!

We've been more consistent with our plant watering on the playground and have been making a habit of bringing our Show & Tells outside for some true Share & Tell.. More fun that way!

Top L: Miss Francina and Lucy playing Lucy's Show & Tell board game, Top M: Jude looking at the huge moth Miss Elizabeth caught outside for us to look at, Top R: Ellie, Josie and Cande playing house with a baby doll, Bottom L: Mark watering our plants, Bottom R: Will watering.

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I have gotten inquiries lately about when Mr. Gavin is coming in; from students and parents alike... There have been some scheduling conflicts due to the Orange Jeep Tours picking up like crazy; he hasn't had a day off in forever! He feels terrible though I've told him we understand and he promises to be back as soon as he possibly can. Silver lining though? We got a donation of an aquarium!!! This means we will have a pet turtle very soon :) So very excited. We haven't shared the news with the children as a group yet as we want to be sure of when Mr. Gavin is bringing the turtle; but it is looking like later this week or beginning of next week.

Also, stay tuned for some VERY exciting announcements coming very very soon in regards to a big school event!!!

Until then....... thanks for stopping by!

Jumping into January!

Hello hello! We have had an exciting couple of weeks back from break... Let's get right to it:

First of all, Happy 5th Birthday to Mark!!! We are very thankful for his book gift of Charlotte's Web :) which we will start reading after we finish with the biography of Dr. Maria Montessori.

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New lesson alert! Hot off the press... extending on our work with the map of the world, which the children absolutely adore, we have added a lesson to show them landmarks around the world; such as The Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal, Big Ben, The Empire State Building, and many more. It is always off of the shelf and few things make me smile more than hearing one child tell another, "let's go find The Eiffel Tower!" on our map of the world on the wall. :)

Left: Miss Francina presenting the new work to the class. Right: Alexandra working with the new lesson.

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What time is it??? Pretty soon, a good chunk of the class will be able to tell you because there has been an explosion in the interest of telling time! Another lesson that is off the shelf all of the time and that we hope you're hearing about.

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Miss Elizabeth is back - yay!!! As a Mrs now, of course :) Here is the card that we made for her:

Thanks to Josie for writing the card. We think it came out beautifully!

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Un elefante se balanceaba sobre la tela de una araña... como veia que resistia, fue a llamar a otro elefante...

An elephant balanced on a spiderweb... when he saw that it didn't break, he called over another elephant.

A new game we've been playing in the classroom, which promotes movement, balance and coordination (but ssshhhhh.. no need to tell the children all that; it's just FUN!)

forgive the blurriness - it's hard for an elephant in motion to snap a decent shot ;)

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And, our customary collage of work for the week:

Top L: John Paul working on his Combinations of 10 with the colored bead material
Top R: Josie helps Benedict with flower arranging
Bottom L: Alyssa proudly showing off her very own map of the world!
Bottom R: A group of children using the hand bells that Genevieve brought for show and tell, with Miss Francina

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More excitement to come next time!

I know that last post I had said Mr. Gavin would be in, but he has had conflicts with his work schedule and has yet to come by yet; thanks to those who have brought donations for him; he is pretty confident he should be able to make it in next Monday with a parrot! If you haven't had a chance to bring in a contribution, please feel free to do so this week up 'til next Monday.

Also, we are looking to set up an aquarium in class with a turtle as a classroom pet for the kids! Mr. Gavin will also be the one helping us with this. Does anybody have an aquarium lying around they are looking to get rid of? Please let us know, we would love to take it off of your hands!!

Thanks :)

Happy New Year!

Hello Families!! We hope everybody has had an incredible vacation... We've been hard at work these past few days getting the classroom spruced up and ready for Monday; can't wait for the kids to be back! 

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I had this grandiose idea for a Christmas post and then.... I lost all of the pictures in my phone :/ thus discouraging me from following through. Poor excuse, I know. Anyhow, I am back in action now and did at least want to post some info about upcoming curriculum, sum up the end of the year, and some reminders :)

Our Primary class ended this year with a bang! Our Catechesis curriculum brought us right up until the birth of Jesus. The kids loved working with the Nativity scene we had out for them to put together themselves, along with the Advent wreath and several other activities to support the season. We finished our work with Johann Sebastian Bach (my goodness, the kids love him!), have several children moving into working on addition into the thousands as well as multiplication, in Math. In Language, cursive is happening everywhere and readers are appearing left and right :) It's a beautiful thing!

Starting off in this new year, we have plenty of new lessons out for the children to familiarize themselves with, as well as new spins on old lessons. We will continue with chess, adding the King in to join the Queen and pawns. Mozart will be our next musician study. Our recycling curriculum will take us deeper into the importance of recycling paper, to add to Energy and Water. I, Miss Melissa, will be ramping up the lessons tying in with my year long project; the Four Seasons. Spanish vocabulary will be expanded, and much much more :)

We have Mr. Gavin making his visit next Monday, the 14th. We will be talking about birds this time around and I believe the visitor will be a parrot. Still need to get definite confirmation on that one. But please feel free to bring contributions for him during this week leading up to the 14th. Thank you, as always!

I wanted to give you all an updated Book Wish List. For those of you who are new with us, each child for their birthday has a little celebration in the classroom where we do a walk around the sun (symbolizing that every year you get older, the earth has gone around the sun), sing, and the child is asked to give a gift of a book to add to our small, but growing library! We have a Wish List that has had some updates. Plus I figured that the original paper has possibly been misplaced here and there ;) I've crossed out the ones that we have already received:

Book Wish List

All of the following books are available at Amazon.com. We have split some books into certain months because it would be helpful to have them then to support our curriculum.

Books are one of the most precious tools we have to stimulate your child’s brain, so remember that we allow every child to bring a book in to share with the class every day if they want to.

If you or your children have any suggestions for us as your Birthday gift other than the titles listed below, please let us know!

Thank you! J

August, September and October

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

If Peace is… by Jane Baskwill

The Earth Book by Todd Parr

Peace Begins With You by Katharine Scholes

De Colores and Other Latin American Folksongs for Children by Jose-Luis Orozco

A Kid’s Guide to Latino History: More than 50 Activities by Valerie Petrillo

Christopher Columbus by Steven Krensky

Old Bear by Kevin Henkes

My Garden by Kevin Henkes

October, November and December

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington

The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis

The Story of the Pilgrims by Katharine Ross

Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

The Littlest Christmas Tree: A Tale of Growing and Becoming by Janie Jasin

The Christmas Story by Jane Werner Watson

January, February and March

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold

Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Doreen Rappaport

Who Was Abraham Lincoln? By Janet Pascal

What Does the President Do? By Amanda Miller

The Easter Story by Patricia Pingry

Easter Bunnies Everywhere! By Renae Rae

Anytime!

The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

The Learning Station & Dr. Becky Bailey – Brain Boogie Boosters (cd)

Have you Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud & David Messing

The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler

Kindness Counts! By Debby Anderson

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle

The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein

A Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein

The Little Prince by Katherine Woods

A Good Day by Kevin Henkes

Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes

Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

Magic Tree House Books 1-4 by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca

Magic Tree House Books 5-8 by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca

Some more exciting news is that we are welcoming SIX new students into our Primary room! (As well as a few others in our toddler and infant rooms). In the morning we will have Blaise and Lucia moving up from the toddler room, as well as a new addition, Eva :) In the afternoon we have Marie's little sister Rory joining, as well as 2 brothers; Benedict and Clement fresh from Germany; how exciting! We would like to welcome them all - we're excited and blessed to have our family growing. New faces and new beginnings in this new year :D

Now, very last piece, Miss Elizabeth is getting married.... today! (Saturday, 1/5, I know sometimes the email gets to everyone 24 hours late), she will be back with us in a couple of weeks as a Mrs. We are so very happy for her and congratulate her from the bottom of our hearts!!

That is all for now. Back with pictures for sure next time; promise.

See everybody Monday!! :)

Tis the season!

Hello!! Have you missed me? :) Well, I'm back and with lots of pictures to share. Let's get to it.

Firstly, thanks SO much to all families for helping us with our food for the Thanksgiving Feast. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as we did not only having you all together with us, but preparing the food as well. From the mashed potatoes, to the cranberry sauce, to the place settings and flower arrangements; your children worked very hard to make the space and atmosphere perfect for you, our guests. Take a look!

And thank you to Miss Kristen for snapping some shots during the feast!

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Something new that I've learned this year - my first year as a teacher - is that getting new materials in the classroom is almost better than Christmas morning. And let me tell you... Christmas morning is a BIG deal to me! We received our brand new, shiny, beautiful Animal Continent Box. It consists of 4 animals native to each continent, informational cards about them, beautiful figurines; this is off of the shelf and being worked with all of the time now. 

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Right before Thanksgiving Break, Gabriel turned 5!!! Thank you for an addition of The Polar Express to our library and for sharing delicious Avengers cupcakes. Happy Birthday again!! 

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 And of course, the children hard at work collage :)

Top L: Micaela and Josie reading to John Paul about primary and secondary colors... (future teachers?)

Top Middle: William working on the Colored Bead material

Top Right: Candelaria completed her punching of all of the continents and glued her own map of the world together!

Bottom Left: Josie intently thinking on her next move in chess.

Bottom Middle: Miss Francina introducing The Hundred Board to a large group. (My favorite Montessori material from when I was in the Primary class)

Bottom Right: Sarah stringing Christmas themed beads

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• We are finishing up with the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, finally! New composer to come soon
• As we move along in the Old Testament, we are learning about Moses and Passover
• We just got an Advent calendar for the classroom! We'll be incorporating it in our daily routine - very exciting :)
• Please send in Christmas books all month and Christmas music!!! The best time of the year :D

Lastly, Mr. Gavin is visiting us tomorrow for his monthly visit :) We will be studying lizards with him. Please remember to donate a couple of dollars if you can -- the continued support truly helps us show him how much we appreciate him donating his time to us.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Pigs aren't always pink...

...but they are pretty cute! Meet Baby Huey:

Mr. Gavin brought Baby Huey in for us to spend some time with. Baby Huey was very well behaved - I  think because he was being kept very well fed - and because from what I was told, he loves kids!

Our Toddler friends even stopped by to say hello.....

Thank you all for donating your dollars to Mr. Gavin. We appreciate your continued support in making it possible for us to have such amazing hands on animal experiences for the kids; we couldn't ask for a better guy than Mr. Gavin. And he is so very thankful too!

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As we are in the height of the fall season, with this New England fall weather (that I'm learning is unusual but I am absolutely loving!!), it was time to switch up our chalkboard drawing. The kids have all lent a hand in coloring in different leaves with fall colors and it's looking great. It will be complete by Thanksgiving Feast! Some beautiful art to enjoy while eating :)

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This week included another exciting surprise: a visit to the Sacristy! A place where normally only priests, altar boys and girls and a choice other few get to enter. Miss Elizabeth was able to get us in; she's so great! The kids loved it - they were in awe; being able to see the same things they see in the Atrium, but life size. In the Atrium they set up a mini altar as if it were real, but the bigger the better, right?! They were so respectful and inquisitive - it was a wonderful experience. A big thanks to the Oratory for allowing us in.

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Some quick reminders:

1 - Picture Day tomorrow, Wednesday 11/14! I have been asked by a few parents what the background will be - we have such beautiful bushes and weather outside, they will be done there.

2 - Everybody should have received their assignment of what to bring to the Thanksgiving Feast - if you haven't, or if you have any questions about what we've asked of you, please let us know asap!

3 - If you still have not given a definitive number for an RSVP for the Thanksgiving Feast, please make sure you do by tomorrow as well so we can triple check we have the right amount of food :)

Thanks so much -- look forward to your faces in Thanksgiving Feast photos next blog post!

Good Bye October, Hello November!

In light of elections, check out the Presidents of the Primary classroom! If you were president, what would YOU do??

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At this point, everybody should have received their Thanksgiving Feast invitations. The kids worked hard with Miss Melissa cutting, gluing and punching to get these invitations looking just right. The long awaited opening of the Leaf Press holding their chosen leaves - that came aaaaall the way from Boston - was an exciting event, and you now have the final product. And we have Natalie to thank for the beautiful cursive you see in all of your invitations. We are looking forward to having you all at the school with us for our delicious feast!! Be on the lookout for your family's ingredient that we'll be assigning you to bring for the kid's to prepare themselves. Who's getting excited for turkey, potatoes, stuffing and.... PIES!? **raises hand**

:) Hope to see everyone there!

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The kids are doing so well with their individual projects/lessons, as well as with our group curriculum that we are teaching... below you can see:

Top Left: Aidan doing the addition strip board

Top Right: Miss Elizabeth reading a bible story to the class

Bottom Left: Miss Francina skip counting in 5's with Micaela

Middle: Mark strengthening his 3 finger grasp with our eyedropper lesson

Bottom Right: Miss Elizabeth and Aidan demonstrating to the class the proper use of the Queen

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 Now, my apologies for a very delayed HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! to Timothy :) (Miss Melissa getting stuck in Boston may have thrown the blogging off a bit - so sorry!) .. Timmy turned 4, had a super awesome and creative poster to share, and we thank him tremendously for The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as his gift to the class!! One of our favorites...

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Fire Safety day also feels like it was forever ago... but here are some pictures from that day. I'm sure you've heard endless amounts about Escape plans, etc, but the day was a blast. I definitely didn't envy the firefighter wearing roughly 50 pounds of equipment on that very hot day!

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Lastly, we want to thank you all for being so attentive and receptive to our feedback at Parent Teacher Conferences... the days went by very smoothly and it was great to meet with you all.

Please send your RSVP's back for the Thanksgiving Feast by next Monday, November 12th.

Also, School Portraits next Wednesday, November 14th!! This is the first year that the school is doing this, and our very own Miss Melissa will be taking the pictures, so rest assured that the kids will feel comfortable, and she should definitely be able to get that genuine smile out of them! :) Please ensure that you have your slip back by Wednesday, at the latest.

Hope everybody is having a great week!!