Emerson planting a bean seed

This week the teachers came back from the Montessori Conference recharged with some great new ideas to share with your children.

We have been exploring the seasons and what great weather we have to get into the fall spirit. We are learning about early Thanksgiving history and traditions, parts of the turkey, and making fall crafts.

We have also begun to explore the life cycle of a plant. The children have planted beans and they are starting to sprout. This is a great precursor to the Jack and the Beanstalk show next week when the Bits N Pieces puppet theater comes to us on Wednesday..

Meera's mom, Sheetal, read the book, "A Frog in the Bog" by Karma Wilse and Joan Rankin to Ms. Denise's class this morning. Thank you, Ms. Sheetal!  Ms. Amy, Dylan and Bea's mom, came in this week to help with a special project in Ms. Katrina's class.  Thank you, Ms. Amy!  

This week finds us starting our studies of the First Thanksgiving.  This includes the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower.  We talked about the Mayflower and how it was originally intended as a merchant ship.  It carried cargo such as wine and spices.  It had never carried people, until its voyage to North America.

The Mayflower was a typical 17th century, three-masted ship.  Surprisingly, the ship was painted in bright colors.  A hawthorn flower, which is also called the mayflower in England, was carved on her stern.  The children sketched the actual flower in their sketch pads.  They are quite lovely!

Please note:  The lower and upper elementary will be taking a trip to a nursing home in Clearwater on December 18th.  We will spend the morning singing holiday songs and spreading cheer.  We do need drivers and chaperones, please!

The wall behind our benches and our benches are repainted, thanks to Ms. April! On Friday, we divided the wall space into sections and each child chose a part of the Timeline of Earth and Life on Earth to illustrate. We'll be painting the mural over the next few weeks.

On Thursday, Aiden Wacksman, Doug Delaney and Michael Gonzalez went to the National Weather Service in Ruskin. This "Going Out" was arranged completely by Aiden as part of a research project on weather. He invited two friends to accompany him and Ben (Aiden's dad) took everyone. The trip was successful and Aiden will report what he learned to the class.

Other students are busy on a variety of research projects and as they are ready, they'll be able to plan their own "Going Out" to learn more. Traditionally, in Montessori, this opportunity is for the child to gather more information about a topic of interest to them and, at the same time, practice necessary skills for making arrangements and following through.

We have been very busy this week in Middle School. We started off the week with a morning work quiz. 

On Wednesday we had a yearbook meeting and also we started our book club. We began reading "The Book Thief "by Markus Zusak. It is very interesting so far. We also finished our Dynasty papers. 

Today was our last day of our bowling unit for P.E. at Pinarama.  (See right: Maya and Lura at Pinarama)

We hope everyone has a good weekend!

                                          by Lura Delaney

LOWER ELEMENTARY: We started our week with a review of numbers (1 to 40), followed by Spanish words with a beginning "R" sound. We then read a story titled "Lola With Wings" in Spanish. We all loved the colorful, whimsical drawings, and the context of the book. We acted some of the scenes and eagerly followed Lola's imaginary journey.  We also drew our own pictures related to Lola's adventure!  Taking advantage of the milder weather, we had some outside lessons as well.

UPPER ELEMENTARY: "Professions and Skills" was our main unit this week.  We used a 20-word vocabulary list to practice this theme. Male and female names in Spanish were used in complete sentences and as a topic for conversational Spanish.  Family members were reviewed and an A to Z food items list was completed.

MIDDLE SCHOOL: Individual reading was our goal for this week. Each student had the opportunity to read out loud in Spanish and participate in a question/answer exercise.  Prepositions were practiced in both written and oral class assignments and for homework. I am extremely proud of all the students' continuous and steady progress in the study of the Spanish language. 

TRIVIA FACT: For more than a century, people in the department of Yoro in Honduras have experienced a phenomenon called "Lluvia de Peces" (Rain of Fish). 

Despite the name, no fish actually fall from the sky, they swim below the Yoro in an underground river and somehow they get transported up during the storms. The mystery of "Lluvia de Peces" is great for the Honduran tourism industry!