News From The Children's Tree Montessori School

We've had a busy, wet February which has made for a lot of fun, inside and out! The children, and teachers, have settled back into our routines lost from all of our snow days very nicely. Many of the children have recently become interested in making their own books and have been making Antarctic animal booklets as well as sandpaper letter books that spell their name.

The children loved making their own strawberry shortcake to celebrate Valentine's Day together. The Orange Room children showed great teamwork while taking turns adding and mixing the ingredients. Everyone enthusiastically helped measure, pour, and stir. Getting to eat their creation for snack was just as exciting and certainly made the whole process rewarding. We are looking forward to more cooking as the year continues.

A very promising addition to our classroom is a bird feeder. We have noticed only one bird stop by so far, but we're hoping to see more as the weather clears up and spring comes. The children have been preparing for this by learning about what makes a bird a bird and some of the local birds they may see stopping to feed at our window.

We wrapped up our study of Antarctica just in time for a very fitting February thawing of the snow. We are beginning our study of Africa with some work to introduce the children to the animal and plant life found in the Savanna as well as some local culture.

Love from Miss Ashley and Miss Pam!

Primary Yellow Room

The Yellow Room was full of red and pink crafts to celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day in February. Thank you to Valeria Nasir for helping the children serve themselves food at the Chinese new Year luncheon, and to all the mom's who helped to set up and break down the buffet! Thank you also to all of our families for sending in the ingredients for our special Valentine's Day snack and especially to Sylvia Guinan for volunteering to help the children make the biscuits for our strawberry shortcake. Everyone agreed that cooking and sharing snack together was a lovely way to celebrate the holiday. We hope to make making strawberry shortcake on Valentine's Day a Children's Tree tradition.

On our two makeup days during February break, we took some time to talk about primary colors, secondary colors and color mixing. We have some new art work out on the shelves along this theme. One of the works is set up for the children to mix primary colors in order to paint a rainbow. We also read a book about how rainbows are made. We will be on the lookout for sunny/rainy days to spot a rainbow this spring!

Beginning on Monday we will start our study of Africa. We plan to start with an overview of the continent and the biomes and then focus in on specific countries from each biome over the next few months. Please let us know if you would be interested in contributing to our Africa study in any way.

Red Room News

February was a short but exciting month in the Red Room. We celebrated three holidays this month.. Chinese New Years, Valentine's Day and President's Day!

We celebrated the year of the rabbit by making paper dragons, lanterns, origami rabbits and eating yummy chinese food. Thanks to all the parents who were able to celebrate with us.

Next the children were busy preparing beautiful valentines for the elderly residents of a local retirement home. We celebrated Valentine's Day by baking biscuits for delicious strawberry shortcake.

In February we finished our study of birds and the continent of Antarctica. We learned about local birds like the Red Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse and the Blue Jay and used binoculars to observe them at our new bird feeders. We learned about how birds use their beaks for defense, eating, making their nest and cleaning their feathers. We also learned that birds use their different kinds of beaks to eat fish, insects, small animals and even nectar from flowers.

We are excited to return from our break ready to begin our study of Africa and amphibians.

Marci Martindale
The Children's Tree Montessori School