Notes from Ms. Alena (Head of School)
"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." ~ Henry Ford
In a Montessori classroom, collaboration is more than just working together; it's about building a community where everyone contributes to the learning process and supports one another's growth.
Collaboration in Montessori education is a fundamental aspect of the learning environment. Unlike traditional classrooms, where the focus is often on individual achievement and competition, Montessori classrooms encourage students to work together, share ideas, and help one another.
Key Aspects of Collaboration in Montessori:
Mixed-Age Groups: Montessori classrooms are typically grouped into three-year age spans (e.g., 3-6, 6-9, 9-12). This structure naturally fosters collaboration, as older children often mentor younger ones, helping them learn and grow while reinforcing their own understanding.
Shared Responsibility: Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their environment and each other. Tasks like setting up materials, caring for plants, or tidying up the classroom are often done in groups, promoting teamwork and a sense of community.
Peer Learning: Collaboration is integral to peer learning in Montessori education. Students are free to observe and learn from their peers, often asking for help or offering assistance when they see a need. This creates a supportive atmosphere where knowledge is shared freely.
Group Projects: While much of Montessori work is individual, group projects are also a significant part of the curriculum, especially in the elementary years. These projects encourage students to collaborate, combine their strengths, and learn how to navigate different roles within a team.
Problem-Solving: Collaboration in Montessori extends to problem-solving, where students are encouraged to work together to find solutions to challenges they encounter. This not only helps them develop critical thinking skills but also teaches them the value of collective effort.
Conflict Resolution: Montessori education emphasizes peaceful conflict resolution. Children are taught to communicate their needs, listen to others, and work together to resolve disagreements. This fosters a collaborative spirit and helps build strong, respectful relationships.
In a Montessori classroom, collaboration is more than just working together; it's about building a community where everyone contributes to the learning process and supports one another's growth.
Registration for the upcoming 2026-2027 school year is nearing its end!
Thank you to all our families who returned their Re-Enrollment Applications on time. Our Elementary Class is full. We have a few spots in our Primary program. So, if your family members or friends are looking for a great environment for a successful education, care, and development for their children, please let them know that they are welcome to visit our school for more information. They simply need to contact Alena at montpathways@hotmail.com and schedule a school tour or send a brief request for more information through our contact web page.
Reminder for returning families:
Ø The 10% annual tuition security deposit is due no later than April 15th.
Your child is only considered a registered student with a guaranteed spot when the re-enrollment fee and 10% of annual tuition security deposit is paid in full.
Ø If deposit is not paid by April 15th, your spot will be open for families from the wait list.
Ø The Summer Camp registration is coming to an end.
We still can accept few more families on a first-come, first-served basis. Simply return Summer Camp Application with $30.00 early registration fee by March 1st if you would like to enroll your child in our Summer Camp Program.
We are looking forward to having another great year! together!
School Events in February
March 1 – Summer Camp and Re-Enrollment Applications are Due
March 2 – March 6 – Dr. Seuss Week – Parents are welcome to come and read their favorite Dr. Seuss story to our students (by appt)
March 4 (W) at 9:00 – 11:30am – “Festival of the Sugar Maples!” Field Trip to Coral Woods Conservation Area in Marengo – Kindergarten and Elementary Students
March 19 (Th) at 2:00pm – Elementary Students Research Presentation
Parents are welcome to attend.
March 19 (Th) and March 20 (F) – Parent / Teacher Conferences for Primary Classes (East and South Room)
The link to schedule your P/T Conference will be sent to the families on Monday, March 2nd.
March 20 (F) - No School for All Primary Students due to P/T Conference Day.
Regular Schedule for Elementary Students
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March 23 – March 27 - Spring Break
The childcare will be provided for All Day Primary students during Spring break.
NEWS FROM THE ELEMENTARY CLASS
Ms. Bridget, Ms. Carole
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.” ― Maria Montessori
Happy Black History Month!
This month, we highlighted accomplishments of Black Americans. Each day, I played black musicians in the morning and shared a picture book each day of a notable black America.
Our Valentine’s gathering was filled with love. First, students were able to bring their favorite stuffie to share the day with them. The students wrote stories by themselves or with a friend with their stuffies as the main character. We are making a book out of their stories.
Second, we did graphing work with Sweet Tart conversation hearts. The students were grouped with their beginning of the year groups. They had to take turns, plan, graph and solve problems with their teams. They also got to eat a few.
Finally, they brought Valentines to share. Love is so integral into our day that this day was natural for all kids to show love and receive it.
Beyond Green came to our class to talk about Vitamins in our food. Ms Alexa always does a thorough and engaging job on presenting to the class. This time, they had a fruit salad to try as well as a new way to make squash, which everyone loved. Stella Kay had complied a list of foods our class likes and dislikes and we passed that on to Ms Alexa. I am so impressed how much they listen to us and change the menu when needed.
Academics continue to improve. More students are taking responsibility for the work to be accomplished. Many are asking for more math lessons. All continue to love the stories and facts about our Earth, History and Physical Science. All have chosen a topic to research, checked books out from the library and have begun to take notes. It is their favorite work!
NEWS FROM THE SOUTH ROOM
Ms. Kathy, Ms. Ellen
“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.” ― Maria Montessori
The best thing about February was the return of longer days. As the sunset begins around 5:30, the children were able to have outside recess after 3:30 a few days in a row! We look forward to daylight savings time March 8th with its added light and sunshine and return to outside dismissal at 4:15. The weather roller coaster we have experienced this February is a reminder to always send hats and gloves and make sure snowpants are at school. The children can always take them off. The temperature went from near 60 to freezing rain and snow. The children cannot go outside if they do not have the proper outdoor wear, it is better to be prepared than stuck inside watching the children with hats and gloves go outside.
Our month began with Groundhog Day, and all were overjoyed to hear Woodstock Willie predicted an early spring! The children studied parts of a groundhog and learned it is also known as a woodchuck. “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck? If a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
February was a month focused and friendships and kindness. The children enjoyed making Valentines and all the wonderful Holiday heart crafts. We sang “Skid a ma rink a dink”, “We are Friends”, and “A Ring is Round”. A huge Thank You to everyone for the donations of both time and items to make our Valentines celebration a huge success.
The children all have different interests in the classroom. It is interesting to see where they focus and work best. It is also a time when we see the most growth academically and socially.
The younger children are working with simple initial sounds, matching an object to the sandpaper letter associated with its beginning sound. This is an activity children repeat again without a product to bring home. They then progress to sorting objects by 2 or 3 different sounds to isolate.
February also brought an interest in word building for many children for the first time. For many it is just building simple CVC words with the moveable alphabet and others are creating whole stories with the printed alphabet and recording them.
Many of you have probably noticed the “incorrect” spelling of many words recently, the focus with word building with the movable alphabet is on isolating and identifying each of the single sounds of a word. The children are then able to bring each individual sound from the alphabet and build a word without writing it. This builds confidence in writing and sounding out words. The spelling rules will be introduced later. Many sounds in English are not phonetic, rather various combinations of letters which make completely different sounds.
We also introduce phonograms and blends where two sounds combine to make a single sound such as “sl, bl, cl” these are the blends which form when two sounds make a new sound for example “sh, ch, wh, wr, th, wh, bossy “r” ar, er,ir, ur,or, and true phonograms ou, ow, aw oo has two sounds”, etc. Each Montessori classroom also has sandpaper letters, and other works to help teach the phonograms.
Many children enjoy the math area. The room is always bustling with some type of math materials used daily. Everything from simple correspondence of numerals and counters to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can be observed in many various ways.
The children enjoy learning about penguins with parts of a penguin and types of penguins. The Macaroni penguin is by far the favorite. It also has spiky feathers on its head for bonus giggles.
Our upcoming event is Dr. Seuss Week, the first week of March, I don’t need to remind anyone to sign up, I see it is full. We look forward to sharing stories with you. Children are also encouraged to bring in a “labeled” Dr Seuss favorite to share with others during the week.
Thank you for your continued support. Together, we can make this a wonderful learning experience for everyone!
NEWS FROM THE EAST ROOM
Ms. Masha, Ms. Laxmi
“It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give to teach child the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.” ― Maria Montessori
The month of February seems to have gone by in a blink! The East Room had been busy working together to prepare decorations and the photo frame at the start of February, with lots of excitement for the Valentine’s Party. Thank you to all of the parents who contributed to making the party such a wonderful and exciting day for the kids!
We couldn’t let the winter season end without our annual citrus fruit tasting activity! Thank you to the Stinca family for finding all of the different citrus fruits for us. We split the tasting into a week-long activity not to overwhelm the young taste buds, but have discovered that we have quite a few lovers of sour fruits in our group. We kept track of how many children enjoyed each of the fruits and the older children used this information to later learn to graph and, in turn, read the results of the graphed information!
Despite the excitement of the Valentine’s Day Party, the Groundhog Day predictions, and the little peak in Spring weather, children have remained beautifully focused on continuously challenging themselves and finding new ways to explore familiar works.
What used to be a simple “Parts of a Human Body Book,” now becomes research into the function of each organ, sentence building and writing, with a whole research project on the human body at the end! The same has been happening with different animal and plant types, as children have exploded in their writing and curiosity in understanding how all of the different parts of plants and animals’ function.
A habit that we work to develop at this early age is researching with books. When a child asks, “What does the pistil and stamen of a flower do?” we do not simply tell them. Nor do we take out our phone to look it up with them. We talk about where we can find this information in our room – a book in our botany area! Then we look through and read the book together to find the answers to our question. In this way, children learn to research for answers to their questions independently, without relying on somebody else to tell them.
And, what is most important and lost in today’s “Google” driven world – we discover a lot of interesting facts and new questions to explore while reading through the book. The modern-day methodology of research has completely removed the whimsy and excitement of research – discovering the unexpected and asking questions you didn’t know you had until you opened a book with information you didn’t know existed! By helping children turn to books for heir answers each time they’re wondering about something, we are working to instill that habit of continuing to wonder and discover and want to learn more, not just finding a one phrase answer to their question.
Better yet, if it is a question that can be explored hands on, we do so. After exploring experiments with solids and liquids earlier in the year, our science area has moved into experiments with gas (air). Many of the children could easily predict that a glass turned upside down in a bowl of water will be filled with air, but they were surprised to see that air come out in the form of bubbles when the glass is tilted. They were more surprised still to see that the air can keep paper dry in a glass turned upside down in a bowl of water. But most surprising still was the discovery that a candle covered with glass will eventually extinguish! It has become the most beloved and repeated experiment of the month with a lot of discussion, research, and, of course, writing to follow.
As your little ones reach the “why?” and “how?” phrase at home, resist the urge to just tell them an answer, ask Siri, or Google it. Help them learn patience and research skills by looking through the index of a book, flipping through and encyclopedia, or driving to the library to find books on the subject and seeing what else catches their eye in the process.
Being curious and full of wonderment is an unfortunately difficult skill to keep alive these days and something that we have to put a conscious effort into.
