Director’s Message

Hola Familias,

Our spring Parent Teacher Conferences are complete and, on behalf of the staff here in Lafayette, I want to say thank you for making the time so we could check in about your child/ren. We know how precious your child is and we value your trust and welcome the opportunity to partner with you in facilitating your child’s development.

As the weather continues to get warmer, we will be spending more time outdoors, both in play and in educational activities. In keeping with Maria Montessori’s belief: “Modern observations and child-study have led us to realize that as soon as the child can go out of doors, we must take them with us.”
This time of year there are plenty of opportunities to teach children about nature, insects, birds, trees, seasons, botany, gardening, ecology, mindfulness, Spring cleaning, just to name a few!

Now is a great time to talk with your child/ren about your love and appreciation for nature, trees and the earth. One activity that children love is to take a “nature walk” and bring a plastic bag/gloves to pick up litter on the trail. You can talk about how this is a kindness for our planet.
“There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature, to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature… so that the child may better understand and participate in the marvelous things which civilization creates.”

A special “Thank You!” to Lindsay Tran for offering her time and energy to refresh the classroom planters, as well as partner with Ms. Pat to work on creating butterfly habitats for the children to observe and enjoy. I feel filled with gratitude to be part of this GLMS Lafayette community!

Mireya

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🐞 Ladybug Classroom

Dear Parents,

I hope you all had a relaxing spring break. After the break, our children are seeing a new classroom! We are studying the continent of South America. We have decorated our classroom using forest animals to represent the Amazon rainforest and are learning about the animals, plants and birds.

Math

In math, the students are counting flowers. Gradually, the children are learning numbers 1 to 20 using the different colors of the flowers. This job develops thinking levels and patterning, while engaging them on a sensory level as well due to the different textures of the flowers.

The Ladybugs have been sorting, matching, counting, and numbering colored eggs.

Language

The Amazon rainforest has many beautiful birds. We are using the Montessori three part cards to learn about different parts of a bird (e.g. beak, wing, eye, etc.)
We have introduced 13 flower cards with words, and the children are loving matching the right card with the correct flower. At the end of this job, they know the terms of the flowers and get more knowledge about flowers, building a strong vocabulary.

Writing

We continue to practice writing symbols, numbers, and letter tracing with the Ladybugs. They learned the letter A and number 0 last month, and they will practice letter B and the number 1 next week.

Cultural

Looking ahead, we will teach the children about South American food, historical places, and the map of South America. Also, they will learn about certain musical instruments and the colorful textiles of Peru. We will also be learning about animals and geography through various yoga poses.

Science

We are learning about botany (the life cycle of flowers) and zoology (the life cycle of chickens.) The Ladybugs are very curious to know how a flower blooms. Each day, our project is checking the buds around the school yard and observing the buds open. We have been having a great time with the new project.

Sensorial

The kids have been working with the color cube box, using different colored cubes to make patterns.
We presented the triangle box. Each child is learning the triangle shape and how different shaped triangles can combine to create new triangles. This helps develop a child’s memory, sense of order, and also improves concentration while promoting focus. This activity enforces fine motor skill development and hand-eye coordination.

Spanish

Miss Mari introduced flower shape matching and more Spanish vocabulary cards. She also is teaching the Ladybugs new spring songs and more fun art activities.

Thank you for your participation in parent teacher conferences, it was wonderful to meet with you all.

Rasika, Jackie, and Mari

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🐝 Bumblebee Classroom

Dearest Families,

How wonderful it is to see students refreshed and happy from their Spring Break! With renewed energy, they came back with lots of stories to share with the class and a readiness to be back into the classroom action. It is so interesting to observe their joyful interaction with one another- from big hugs to breathless catch-up stories!

Our classroom lessons are in full swing: fish animal classification, spring season, the rainforest and more Español. Social grace and courtesy is a regular classroom discussion. Australia is an upcoming topic and what perfect time that we have Mr. Dan to tell us more about the Land Down Under! The older TK level children have been doing their level-appropriate reading and writing skills: sounding out phonetic words/ introduction to phonograms. We are all exploring addition facts, with varying levels of presentation for the different age levels in the classroom.

We look forward to our upcoming Parent Teacher conferences… we cannot believe that it is already that time of the year! We are rolling up our sleeves and preparing for the Art Show, it’s going to be a creative extravaganza with a theme that is so important for our future generation. The Rainforest will be such a fun theme, engaging our imagination and senses!

Warmly,
Ms. Pat, Ms. Marisela, Ms. Jenny

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🐛 Caterpillar Classroom

Dear Caterpillar Families,

Parent Teacher Conferences were a great success. Thank you for your support and partnership. It has been a great year and both of us are excited for your Caterpillar to transform into a Butterfly while also feeling a bit nostalgic, remembering last August as your children came into our classroom as brand new students. What a year it’s been!

As of Saturday, April 22, all Cats are 5! We have two April birthday’s; Ella (4/4) and Holly (4/22.) Some of the Caterpillars have already been discussing their new schools. We will be discussing their transition into butterflies more seriously in the next 2 months. Alumni will come and answer questions and we will give children a chance to talk about their feelings – excitement as well as concerns. There are also great books we read to help them with the transition and we’ll share the titles with you.

Speaking of books, some of you may be hearing that we listen to Little Bear stories during rest time. These stories are very sweet and can be found on YouTube. We don’t watch them as episodes but listen to them as the children are resting on their mats. I know some Caterpillars have shared that parents are trying to find them.

We have jumped into spring and this warmer weather with our Botany unit. We are planting various seeds and will watch them germinate. The Caterpillars will get to take turns watering and observing the seedlings and eventually bring them home to plant in your gardens.

Last week, friends of our founder, Rachel LaField, brought a special surprise to the classroom – tulips from Amsterdam! We listened to Don and Dennis share about their travels and we looked at the map to see just where on earth the Netherlands is! The Caterpillars promised to take turns watering the bulbs and are currently working on sweet thank you cards. Shhhhh…a little bird told us that Don and Dennis are back in the Netherlands and might be bringing back some bulbs for the children!

As a class, we have been acting out the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. The kids take turns acting out different roles and are quite amazing actors! Thank you to Preston for bringing in the story on share day. The kids are doing an amazing job memorizing the different parts and are really looking forward to performing this story to the younger classes.

Speaking of Memorization, it’s a great idea to have your child memorize at least one parent’s phone number. We asked the children if they had a parent’s phone number memorized and several did. Some children thought they did but gave out a 4 digit number instead of a 10 digit number.

On Fridays, Ms. Nasrin (Nana) has been bringing in various crafts to do with the children. The kids love it and take so much pride in their work.

This week children will practice the art of Ikebana:

Ikebana flower arranging is the centuries-old Japanese art of arranging flowers. The practice, which roughly translates to “making flowers come alive,” uses carefully selected blossoms, greenery and other flora to convey a specific feeling or emotion to an observer – just as a painting or sculpture might.
This dovetails nicely with the Montessori values of creating art, celebrating beauty, flower arrangement as a practical life job that emphasizes grace and courtesy.

Next week we will send out an email asking you to please send your child with one or two flowers from your yard. This could be a blooming flower or blossoming tree branch. They will be bringing home their creation and can keep the metal “frog” used in Ikebana.

“Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and, when the grass of the meadows is damp with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath it’s shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning as it wakes every living creature that divides its day between waking and sleeping. When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.”

-Mireya & Roxanna

Directors Message

Hola Familias ,

We hope this finds you all well and enjoying the spring weather! Spring break is upon us.
I encourage you to treat it as a reward. You deserve a fun, relaxing escape from the daily routine . But, of course, here comes the serious part to my message: We need your smiling faces back on campus happy and healthy.

No matter how you spend next week – whether it be faraway in a sunny paradise with friends, at home with family, remember to have fun.

The Spring weather brings us outdoors and back into sunscreen and hat mode! Please apply sunscreen every morning and it is great to have your child bring or keep a hat at school (name on the hat please!).

We apply sunscreen before the afternoon play time outside.

Thank you for all you do and Happy Spring!

Mireya

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🐞 Ladybug Classroom

Dear Parents,

At the beginning of this month, rain made us spend more time in our classroom. But I am sure our children didn’t miss the outside activities because we planned energetic activities called “camp light yoga“ and used a unique lantern to practice by.

We jumped, crawled, danced, and sang. We did the “Dark Rainy Day” five minutes of meditation on rainy days to calm their minds and bodies. Also, we talked about how the rain happens during circle time. Along with those rain activities, we followed this month’s curriculum learning about stems, fish, St. Patrick’s Day, and the continent of Europe.

Math

We used the leprechaun’s gold pot for a math job. The teacher gives the child a number that corresponds with one of the pots that hangs on a holder. The child finds the correct number on the pot and hangs it on the hanger. The Ladybugs loved that job!
Fish counting cards: children learn the numbers by placing the correct amount of fish under the number.

Language

Shamrock color matching: children are learning the colors and matching shamrocks.Children are also learning the name of vegetables and their colors. We are learning about the animals of Europe using Montessori’s three part card method.

Writing

The Ladybugs started to practice their names by tracing the sand paper letters.

Cultural

We planned to teach the children about European food, historical places, and the European map. Also, my little travelers made their travel passports to visit European countries.

Science

We are learning about botany (the life cycle of plants) and zoology (the live cycle of fish as well as parts of the pig.) The ladybugs are naturally curious and interested in learning about everything and they have been having a great time.

Sensorial

Using Maria Montessori’s iconic Pink Tower, the children are learning patterns and matching the correct sized cube to pictures.

Practical Life

Children are learning to pour pasta from one container to another. The Ladybugs are also making spaghetti using playdough. This develops their fine motor skills while also learning about European food from Italy.

Spanish

Ms. Mari introduced the St. Patrick’s shamrock shape and also shared a story about five little frogs who are living on a farm.

As usual, our child had great fun dancing with Miss Kira and celebrating St. Patrick’s day. We were looking forward to celebrating our Ladybug Emiliano’s 3rd birthday at the end of the month.

Please enjoy this newsletter until we are back with new experiments.

Rasika, Jackie, and Mari

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🐝 Bumblebee Classroom

Dear Parents,

We cannot wait for spring! The Bumblebee class has been busy with botany themed lessons: parts of a plant, needs of a plant, parts of a flower and root systems. We are eagerly anticipating the warm sunshine for our future growing projects. We are thrilled to share that we will have a kids garden project, both indoors and outdoors. We would like to ask for your help with donating seed packets, as we would like to put together a gardening seed organizer binder for us to keep for future planting. We plan to grow a microgreen “chia pet”, veggies, herbs and flowers throughout the warm season and into fall. Growing our own plants will provide many benefits: a connection to nature, fostering patience and responsibility, hands-on healthy diet habits, activation of senses and appreciation for the natural environment, to name a few! There are many fun projects to extend at home like growing kitchen scraps and experimenting how seedlings grow towards the direction of a light source.

The next continent for spring will be Asia. We will learn the flags of our classmates’ cultural backgrounds like India, China and Philippines. We will tie-in the animal kingdom of amphibians, covering the frog life cycle.

The Spanish lessons with Ms. Marisela have been fun and lively. We are learning the colors as we correlate it to our environment. We play “I Spy” games in circle and integrate the Spanish words into our daily activities. We are busy bees and it is fun to see happy faces in the classroom!

Warm regards,

Ms. Pat and Ms. Marisela

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🐛 Caterpillar Classroom

Dear Caterpillar Families,

Just like the buds bursting forth into blossom at this time of year, the children have been filled with exuberance and excitement for school! Although they have had many many days indoors, the Caterpillars have navigated the extremes with their usual flexibility and exuberance.

March is a month of celebrations that the children love: St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of Spring. We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by hosting a little golden leprechaun in the classroom who brought gold coins on Friday! The children were amazed and pleased. They planned their green outfits for days in order not to get pinched. As teachers, we feel so lucky (pun intended) to work with preschool children and experience their natural joy.

We will celebrate Spring by planting flower seeds in peat pots and learning about the life cycle of the plant in real, first hand experiences. Look forward to those seedlings coming home sometime in April.
This dovetails nicely into our Botany unit; where the children study plants; roots, stems and leaves. We are also studying the Amazon Rain Forest and all its biodiversity as we focus on the continent of South America. We will focus on birds, animals, flowers and fruit as well as the many layers of the Amazon rainforest. If you are interested in learning more, ask your child about the 3-toed sloth and what lives and grows in its fur. You’ll be amazed!

The kids have been eager to challenge themselves in language; sounding out words, rhyming and recognizing “sight words” = simple words that don’t adhere to the rules of sounding out, like ‘the’ ‘she’ and ‘he’.

The children are enjoying sewing. Sewing, weaving and loom bands have many benefits for preschoolers, including strengthening hand- eye coordination, increasing fine motor coordination and attention span. Not only are these activities beneficial for the aforementioned reasons, they are also a lot of fun! The Caterpillar’s have graduated from blunt needles to real needles (with sharp tips) and they are currently sewing small pillows. It is such a treat to see the pride in their faces as they complete their projects.

Looking ahead, we will be studying the continent of Australia after Spring Break. We wish each of you a very enjoyable Spring Break and we look forward to seeing you all in April! As usual, thank you for sharing your children with us.

Mireya & Roxanna

In November and December, we continued our travel to North America and began our studies of Living and Non-Living things, Vertebrates and Invertebrates, Birds and Mammals. We studied the Parts of the Horse and Parts of the Bald Eagle and made books. We also talked about Feelings and have a “Feelings Chart” where children can place their photo on which feeling they are having (happy, sad, excited, angry, etc.) in both Spanish and English. We constructed a Gratitude Tree and children made leaves of what they are thankful for in their lives. We began our Word Study with word families -at, -an, -ap and had fun making up words with these endings. We worked on 1:1 correspondence of our “teens”: 11-20 and on counting and reading numbers from 1-100 (those tricky transitional numbers 29, 30…39, 40…49, 50, etc.).

We took walks to the Lafayette Community Center on Monday mornings and took lots of nature walks, bringing our clipboards, paper and pencils to draw and write what we saw. We finished our Skyhawks program with Coach Donut and started Yoga with Roxanna! We celebrated Kira’s birthday by making a card and singing Happy Birthday! She was so surprised! We practiced our Winter Welcome songs with the Ladybugs and Bumblebees every morning! We made wax votives by melting wax and dipping water balloons and putting flowers around them! They were beautiful as we walked into greet the families singing, “This Little Light of Mine” last Friday afternoon. We hope you enjoyed the program!

In January, we will be traveling to Antarctica and studying Penguins and learning about Arctic and Antarctic animals, Reptiles, Chinese New Year and the 100th Day of School and continuing our Botany studies by learning about roots.

Happy New Year Caterpillar Families!

The holiday months are here! The children have been enjoying themselves. The month of November was fun and full of Gratitude. The children were thankful for so many things. The Gratitude Tree was blooming with the childrens’ personal, “I am thankful” leaves. I hope you had a chance to check it out. This month we covered many subjects. We studied about the United States of America, Animals of the United States, and the Native Americans. In Zoology we learned about Vertebrates and Invertebrates, Parts of the Horse, and Parts of the Turkey. We are located in such an awesome spot. The children actually got to see horses trotting by on the trail and parking lot. We were so excited! In Botany we learned about The Leaf. In Math we continue to count with pine cones and pumpkin seeds. So fun. In language we have introduced grouped initial sounds with objects. Yay!

Our lovely Kayla celebrated a November birthday. Happy Birthday, Kayla!

Time flies when you’re having fun. December is here and so is the chill. The children are devoting themselves to the new material on the shelves. This month we are studying about the coldest place on earth: Antarctica! We are also learning about Penguins and their habitat, Snowflakes and Winter Plants. In Practical Life the children are transferring “ice” from one bowl to another and preparing hot cocoa. Mmmm, delicioso!

We have been practicing with the Ladybugs and Caterpillars everyday for our Winter Welcome!

Roxanna is back for Yoga on Tuesdays. Yay!! Welcome back, Roxanna.

A big Happy Birthday to all the December birthdays. Hunter, Luella, Brady, and Paige!
Thank you to the families for coming in and telling us all about your little ones.

Lastly, the Spanish Class is in full swing! Here is what we been covering. Sonidos Inicíales, Numeros, Colores, Dias de la Semana, Meses del Año, Saludos y Modales.
It is the holidays, and nothing says it’s the holidays more than tamales! The children will enjoy learning this hands on tradition this month. Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year Bumblebee families!

This month the Ladybugs learned about giving to the less fortunate through Nasrin’s donation jar which was a great success. We also learned about being thankful for what we have especially for our families. We celebrated a few birthdays in November and December and the Ladybugs are quickly maturing!

In December we learned about Penguins and our new Practical Life materials. A few of the Ladybugs are learning to put on their own shoes and a good exercise is learning how to string beads. We are always practicing our manners and using our words instead of our bodies to communicate with our friends. We are practicing our songs everyday with our Bumblebee and Caterpillar friends!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year Caterpillar families!

The biggest news events this month were that Jake joined Caterpillar Classroom full-time!  We welcome him and his family to our classroom.  The second news item is that our play-yard in the back of our school was inspected by our State Licensing Board on October 17th and has been approved!  We have been playing everyday since then on our new equipment.  The children LOVE the climbing structure and the see-saw!  We will be adding new play equipment over the next several weeks so stay tuned. 

Our studies have kept us in North America studying the Bald Eagle and learning all the parts of these amazing birds (talons, beak, body, etc.).  We will be working on a life-size eagle drawing and hanging it up to get an idea of how large of a bird they are in real-life.  We had a presentation on Seasons and introduced our Science curriculum with talking about Living and Non-Living things, a lively discussion which included a talk about cars (they move, need water, solar cars need light, etc.) and leaves on the ground, flowers in a vase, etc.

We are working on our Original Artworks masterpieces which will be a surprise to each family and going home this week.  In Language children are practicing their sound-letter correspondence and learning to blend these sounds and read words like cat, hat, cup, pin, pot, etc., in addition to practicing our reading and handwriting.  In Math, we have worked on our teen numbers (11-19) as well as Odd & Even numbers, looking for patterns!  

In November, we will study Vertebrates and Non-vertebrate animals, Classification of Vertebrates, Mammals, Trees and Leaves and Gratitude and Giving Thanks.

Fall is here! The children are enjoying the new season, the falling and collecting of leaves and our new play area!

There has been so much activity this month. Our conferences came and went. It was a pleasure seeing and speaking to you all about your little ones. Picture Day was all smiles. Also, we had a practice Earthquake Drill. The children practiced “Drop, Cover and Hold.” Skyhawks and Kinder Dance classes are a hit. The children love both. Lucas had a birthday this month. Happy Birthday, buddy.

Please don’t forget to join us on Sunday, October 28, 2018 @ 3-5:30 for the Halloween Carnival. Please come in your costumes. Fun for all.

This month we started our Spanish Classes.
¡Hola y Bienvenidos!

In Practical Life the children are loving working on their fine motor skills. Tweezing spiders from one bowl to another and pumpkin sorting are some of their favorite jobs.

In Sensorial we have moved on to mixing the primary colors of red and yellow to get….. yes, you are right! Orange!

In Art we continue working on fine motor skills and our creativity. We have introduced paper cutting, watercoloring, and jack o’lantern coloring.

In Botany we are covering Parts of the Tree and Parts of the Pumpkin.

In Zoology we are studying all different kinds of Mammals like whales, bats, and us!

In Geography we are studying North America. We are talking about these 3 countries: Canada, United States, and Mexíco. We are also studying the animals of North America.

We are continuing learning and practicing Initial Sounds in Language and numeral counting in Math.

Lastly, our song of the month is “5 little Pumpkins Sitting On A Gate.”

Next Month, we are continuing our study of the Parts of the Tree and Leaf, lots of leaf art and talking about Gratitude and giving Thanks.

This month we celebrated Georgie’s second birthday! Happy Birthday Georgie!!

Our studies this month included learning about different animals in each continent and this is leading us to learn about animals with backbones or vertebrate animals (birds and mammals). In our studies of North America, we are learning about the different landmarks, the Statue of Liberty, White House, Hoover Dam, Mount Rushmore, etc. The children love this work as there are miniatures of each landmark and a matching card for them to match.

We are practicing our new letter sound “J”. The children are learning to count 1-10 in different languages and our older Ladybugs are practicing their 1:1 counting (object to symbol) by using the Spindle Boxes (5 spindles have to go to the section with the number 5, for example). We are also learning the life cycle of a pumpkin, doing lots of painting and stamping and working on our Original Artworks masterpieces which will be a surprise to each family!

We had our first Earthquake Safety Practice and the children did great practicing Drop, Cover and Hold. We love the new play equipment in the Courtyard and our new Play-yard in the back of the school!

In November we will be working on Halloween and Leaf art work as well as studying Trees and Leaves, talking about being thankful and Thanksgiving works.

The Ladybugs have been busy getting to know one another, making new friendships and finding their way with the classroom routines and rules. Our returning Ladybugs have been very helpful with the new Ladybugs, showing them how we sit in circle time, where we line up, how the outside materials work and being wonderful role models!

We are learning about Grace and Courtesy, saying “please” and “thank-you” and playing with friends. We are having fun in KinderDance, learning how to use our words and sharing.

We will be learning about Fall and the Seasons and about the continents, including learning the Continents Song, as well as learning our alphabet, counting and doing lots of art projects!

The new school year has begun and the hive is a buzzz! The Bumblebees have started the year excitingly. Greeting old friends and new ones. Getting to know each other. Working and playing together. We are learning our routine and the classroom rules. #Safety first. It’s our number one rule. We also celebrated our first birthday of the year! Happy Birthday, Theo! Thank you for celebrating your special day with us.

We are learning so many things in all the areas of the classroom. In Practical Life we are practicing gross and fine motor skills, through, whole hand transferring, pouring, and, spooning. We are also practicing rolling a rug, pushing our chairs, and, sitting at circle. The children are doing so well.

In Art we are exploring different media: crayons, colored pencils, paper, scissors, glue, and play-do. We are making apple trees, the bee cycle and coloring apples.

In Sensorial we are working on discrimination of size. Biggest to smallest and thickest to thinnest using The Pink Cube and The Brown Prism. We also introduced The Primary Colors: blue, red, and, yellow.

In Botany we are studying plants and apples.

In Zoology we are studying animals and bees. We have covered Living and Non-Living, Plants and Animals, Parts of the Apple, and the Bee cycle.

In Geography we are covering the 7 Continents, Air/Land/ Water, Animals of the World and singing the Continents Song!

In Language we are learning our Initial Sounds, the alphabet, vocabulary and puzzles.

In Math we are learning 1:1 correspondence to 10. We are reviewing the Teens (11-19) and Hundred Board (1-100).

We will keep you posted on our upcoming studies.