Dear friends,
Happy May Day, and welcome back from school vacation week!
We decided to use this issue of our email newsletter to focus on many of the wonderful things going on in some of our classrooms. The Children's House tea was a fabulous success, and our sixth graders are just back from their trip to New York City and the Model UN program. Thanks to our faculty and everyone who made these two signature events such a success.
As always, if you have any suggestions for future topics for the newsletters, or if you have any comments, please click here.
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Children's House Tea
On March 26th through 28th, the Children's House classrooms held their annual spring tea. This celebration allows the children to demonstrate all the practical life skills and acts of grace and courtesy that they have been practicing since September. It requires them to prepare food, greet a visitor, make polite conversation, pull out a chair, walk with a heavy tray, take an order, and pour and serve tea and food. We are so very proud of the girls and boys of the Children's Houses - they practiced and worked for a month to make Spring Tea as beautiful and successful as it was! It is certainly a highlight of the year, and one that we hope they remember fondly for years to come.
 As you might imagine, we spent a great deal of time in preparation for our big day in the final days before the big event. We worked on cleaning the room and preparing food during parts of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The children got right to work: scrubbing floors, dusting shelves, and creating beautiful flower arrangements. They were also involved in all the food projects - slicing cheese, making cookie dough, dipping strawberries - and they loved it! The kindergarteners were asked to join the teachers in setting up the tables and chairs, and laying out the table cloths, cups, menus, etc. With their help, our simple classrooms were transformed into elegant cafes.
 One of the core principles of Montessori education is to provide children with opportunities to do purposeful, "real" work, because they know the difference their contribution makes. We feel that all of the children had a sense of their own contribution to this wonderful event!
Thank you to all those who attended for joining us and enjoying that very special time with your child!
-- Stephanie Fish, Robyn Merick, and all the Children's House Faculty
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Upper El Students Go to New York!
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Summit Montessori 6th grade students experience global connections with
Montessori Model United Nations
Summit's 6th grade students participated in the Montessori Model United Nations (MMUN) conference at the United Nations on April 15-19, in New York City. Each year, thousands of students all over the world engage in Model United Nations simulations, most of them high school and university students. This year's event included Montessori students, aged 9-15, from the US, Canada, Mexico, Haiti and the Caribbean.
The Montessori Model UN provides the students an experiential learning opportunity for greater understanding of world issues, global connections and peaceful resolution of conflict, while focusing on the United Nations, the world's largest peace keeping and humanitarian organization. Many Model UN graduates have gone on to important careers in government, world service, law and even the arts.
During the three-day session, Summit Montessori delegates, who represented Qatar, presented and debated the position papers that they had prepared following weeks of intense classroom and at home research. Delegates were assigned their nation and represented that nation during the lively simulation of actual UN procedures. Students were involved in conducting extensive research, writing resolutions, developing support for their resolutions, learning debate procedures and preparing to represent their nation in council sessions and in front of the MMUN General Assembly.
In addition to the MMUN simulation and global experience, students toured the United Nations as well as met Ambassadors and 500 other Montessori students from Canada, Mexico, Virgin Islands, Haiti and the US, including such western states as California, Alaska and Washington. Their concluding General Assembly was held at the United Nations where they used the UN voting board to determine final resolutions.
The 500 MMUN students collectively raised $4300 toward the building of a school in partnership with Free the Children, the largest children helping children organization in the world.
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Next Community Forum
Coming on Monday!
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As
part of the Summit Board of Trustees' continuing efforts to provide
open communication with the school community, the next Community Forum
will be held on Monday, May 5, at 5 pm. We will meet in the Community
Room at Summit.
Special guests at this evening will be Rich Eyster, New Head of School, and Lisa Giallonardo, Former Head of School.
If you would like to ask questions of the Board before the meeting, feel free to send email through the link below.
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