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It was obvious from the first day back after the March break that the third term had begun. We had discussed that we would just get the children back into a routine coming off the two week break and then Easter weekend would be upon us. Much to our surprise, this was not the case at all. The children came back refreshed, excited to see their peers, and BUSY in the classroom!! One afternoon this week, I looked up from my lesson and every single child was engaged in work.
The third-year children are visibly morphing into elementary children, the second-years are taking on more and more responsibility, and the first years are displaying their comfort level in their environment.
We are looking forward to the warmer weather ahead when we can work more in our outdoor environment. Our fall bulbs should be poking their heads out of the soil soon so the children will be able to enjoy the fruits for their labor. Before long we will be able to plant our vegetable gard
Holly and Catherine
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I sat down in the Casa North classroom for my observation and tried to be inconspicuous. However, I clearly arrived while some children were between jobs and I was eagerly greeted by a number of them. This sense of belonging and community is one of the main reasons I love working at DVMS, and in Casa North the children are evidently part of a warm community. Back after two weeks of March Break, all of the children seemed as though they had never been away, and all were content to be back at work in this wonderful learning haven. Suddenly, I was approached and informed that one of the children was now writing on "Red Paper," which from the excitement of the informant was clearly a great advancement in the Montessori world of writing. I searched out the child with his "Red Paper," but did not locate him for some time, sitting quietly in a comfortable chair, writing away. I realised that the "Red Paper" is actually white paper with red lines, and it made me giggle to think that no matter what other people may call this paper, for these children it will always be "Red Paper." I observed another little boy reading, engrossed in his book for almost the whole half-an-hour I was there. When he got up to go get some paper, the book closed on the table, and I saw that it was the Children's Illustrated Dictionary. Ah, a child after my own heart. Dictionaries make for a fascinating read! He proceeded to make notes! Just then another child sat down on the rug opposite me and read Who Invented Basketball. In five minutes he had clearly obtained all the information he needed and was off to do something else. If only we could all use our time as efficiently. We could probably get through that pile of books beside the bed begging to be read. Think of the sense of accomplishment at the end of every day if we were able to satisfy our curiosity about things that genuinely interest us. The children in Casa North go to sleep each night with that sense of achievement, and they wake up every morning curious about so many other things. There was a hum in their classroom as they all stayed busy and engaged. We as grown ups often need our day planners to organise our time, and even then we count ourselves lucky if we get to do half of what we planned to get done. These children work efficiently using all of the Montessori materials available to them; they stop to read when the urge takes them, they go to the snack table to eat when they are hungry, they tidy and clean the classroom on the go. In short, they follow a rhythm of life and learning in a place where both flourish. Wonderful!
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Now that winter is officially over, we are all looking forward to the new life and warm weather that spring brings. During the long winter months, the earth has been preparing itself for all the new growth that happens every spring. As we begin the final term of the school year, we can see how all of the work that the children have been doing in the first two terms has prepared them for more advanced work, helping each child transition to his or her next phase of development. In the final term, the first-years will be getting ready to become second-years, the second-years are learning to transition to the important role of becoming the new leaders in the class, and the third-years are preparing themselves for the exciting change of becoming elementary students where the three-year cycle begins all over again.
Second and third-years are counting chains, and thus learning their multiplication tables (without even realizing it). There is advanced math going on everywhere with the third-years - finger charts that help them learn their math facts, which will serve them well once they get to elementary, all of the operations with the Stamp Game, helping them make the leap from concrete math work to being able to work abstractly.
The work that the children have done in the language area in the last two terms is also beginning to bear fruit. All the Sandpaper Letter practice that our first-years have been working on this year has brought them to the point where they will be ready to begin work on the Movable Alphabet, creating words with their own heads.
This is an exciting time when we, and the children, begin to really see the fruits of all their and (and our) labour. Like the mystery of winter, we cannot always see the work that is going on, and then suddenly, as if by magic, the seeds that we have sown begin to sprout and there seems to be new life everywhere.
Pat and Serena
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It was my pleasure to observe in Lower Elementary East this week. Rob was giving the year-one children a lesson on vertebrates and invertebrates. When I came in, the children were looking at the spine of another child. Rob then showed them a vertebra from a whale and explained the connection between the two. The children then played a game sorting animal cards into their proper categories. There were so many amazing things in this seemingly simple lesson. They began by examining the real thing, thus making the lesson both meaningful and relevant. They discussed the different systems in the body, placing the skeletal system in context. They learned the names of the five families of animals. They read the definitions of vertebrates and invertebrates, bringing reading into the lesson. They talked about what it would be like not to have a spine and how our bones help us move. And the vocabulary! Pices, reptilian, avis, nervous system, arthropoda, compound words! Even the way they were asked to explain their reasoning for their answers in the game they played was indicative of a higher learning process. It was clear from what I saw that the Elementary curriculum is incredibly interconnected. The children were all fully engaged in the lesson and it was fun to see some of my old students exposed to all this wonderful knowledge in such a supportive and non-judgemental environment.
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I love Third Term. Walking through the class the past couple of days, it is has been amazing to watch the students work confidently with materials and digging deeper in areas that they only scratched the surface of just a few months ago. Montessori refers to this as a normalized classroom - a teacher's dream. This month, we have started to explore poetry with students, listening to and writing poems as well as preparing presentations to share with their peers. We will continue our study of measurement focusing on mass, volume, and temperature. Projects remain an important component of the class with animals, famous people, and dinosaurs being hot topics as of late. So much happening, and it's all humming along like a well-oiled third term machine.
Noeleen
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Welcome Back! The students enjoyed their March Break and much needed vacation time. With the end of March Break comes the beginning of third term. It is hard to believe, really, that we are in April already. April promises to be a fantastic month. We have started our science unit and the students are already creating, hypothesizing, testing, and observing many different kinds of experiments. We are of course working towards our science fair that will take place in May.
The Upper Elementary students will be doing Karate on Fridays. Please ensure that your child is wearing comfortable clothing. The students will be traveling to Toronto on April 15th to see a play at the Lorraine Kingsma Young People's Theater. We will be leaving promptly at 8:45am and will return for 1:00.
Along with the warmer weather, comes mud. Please ensure that your child has a pair of indoor shoes here.
Kathleen
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The Students at MASH undertook their second Odyssey, to Quecbec City, this March. Putting their French to the test, they experienced what, for many, would be a trip to
remember:
"I had a great time and will remember this trip for the rest of my life!" -- Misha "What I particularly liked about the restaurant was that Misha (who can only eat lactose free food) found a cake that was not only lactose free, but tasted great as well." -- Giulian "I really liked the trip to Quebec because it really brought us together." -- Phebe "Overall I really loved Quebec and one day hope to come back." -- Leila "We all enjoyed the museums and monuments we visited and had fun exploring the city." -- Beatrice "Being in Quebec itself was a huge aid to the study process. Rather than learning the history of Canada on paper we got to go there and experience the history!" -- Venia Chris and Emily
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