March 2014 Newsletter - Hermosa Montessori School

HERMOSA MONTESSORI COMMUNITY TIMES
by Sheila
DATES TO REMEMBER
Tue-Thu Mar 4 – 6
3rd year to visit U.E.
Tue-Thu Mar 4 – 6
6th year to visit Middle School
Fri Mar 7
Spaghetti Dinner
5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
everyone invited
(On campus fundraising event for
Middle School trip)
Fri Mar 14
Pi Day
Sat-Sun Mar 15 - 16
Tucson Festival of Books
(look for the Hermosa booth!)
Wed- Fri March 19-21
Land Lab trip for Middle School
(overnight)
Thu March 20
Coffee, Tea and Parenting
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Free video presentation for parents
Thu March 20
Weather Bus
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Mon–Fri March 24 – 28
Spring Break NO SCHOOL
Mon March 31
School Resumes
Mon–Thu April 7-10
AIMS (grades 3 – 8)
State testing is mandatory. Do not schedule
vacations or other non emergency appointments during this time.
Thu April 10
Konaberi Fundraiser
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Fri & Mon April 11 & 14
Stanford 10 Testing (2nd grade)
State testing is mandatory. Do not schedule
vacations or other non emergency appointments during this time.
Fri April 11
8th year Research Presentations
Sat April 12
Hollywood Night Spring Dance
5:00 p.m.
(H.O.P.E. sponsored community event)
Please refer to our website
calendar; it is updated regularly.
MARCH 2014
Inside This Issue:
Learning to Question..........................2
Art News...............................................2
Pre/Kindergarten.............................3-4
L.E. Students Write..............................5
Upper Elementary................................6
Middle School News........................7-8
What does it mean to “Follow the Child”? by Sheila
One of the aspects I most enjoy while teaching in a
Montessori environment, as opposed to a traditional program,
is the opportunity to “follow the child.” This often-misunderstood Montessori tenet allows a teacher to present information to students in “lessons” and then observe the students and
interact on an individual basis to see what they have learned
and how to follow the lesson with further information. It also
allows the child to pursue more information on a particular
topic, or to suggest a follow up activity. A student in my lower
elementary class recently presented a perfect example of how
Montessori teachers “follow the child.” To encourage the interest
and excitement that the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show bring
to our city, I have been teaching basic earth science and geology
concepts. In addition to our classroom lessons, Marty Pepper,
a professor from the University of Arizona, also presented a
dynamic earth science lesson to the students, including an
“explosion” on the playground. We have learned about
Pangaea, plate tectonics, subduction, and the rock cycle.
Students have been sharing specimens from their own
collections in the classroom, along with seeing the school’s
collection of fossils, rocks, and minerals. One of my
students suggested that we take a trip to the wash on the school’s
property to excavate, and collect specimens for further
study. What a great idea, I had not considered! Last week
we trekked with our shovels, buckets, hammers, and picks.
Students saw first hand the concepts they had been learning
about the rock cycle. They could see evidence of the smallest
components of rocks deposited at either side of the wash by the
water, just as they had learned. They excitedly dug, discovered,
questioned, and shared. “Sheila, look! I think I found mica
muscovite!” “Look at what I found, a conglomerate!” “I think I
see a piece of bone!” “Is this quartzite?” Our next step is closer
examination and testing. My instruction alone could not
create the excitement and interest generated by the student
initiated trip, while I “followed the child.”
1
Learning To Question
by Maren Schmidt
Information is an avalanche. Technology experts tell us that every two
days we now create as much information as we did from the dawn of
civilization up until 2003. To be able to dig ourselves out of this morass of
words and images, in order to find our way and to live our lives, learning
to ask questions becomes an essential skill.
extrinsic rewards or punishments. When we can be curious and self-directed in the way we use our time, we create more powerful results than
those obtained through stick and carrot methods. In short, autonomy
means we have the freedom to question, to find those answers in our own
way, and in our own time.
First we have to ask big questions such as, “What is truly
important to know?” These answers will be as varied as there
are people on this planet. All of the answers will be right for
each and every person asking the questions and hunting for the
answers. Maybe not the right answer for me. Maybe not for you.
What is vital is asking the questions. And continuing to question.
It is possible to build a life based on erroneous information, so we need
to keep on questioning.
The by-product of asking the big questions and knowing our
sentence is that we have a sense of purpose that guides our
actions and provides a backdrop where we can consider plans and
decisions. Understanding our purpose creates a personal value system.
As we make our independent choices for activities central to our purpose,
we start on a lifetime path of mastery.
Daniel Pink in his book, DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us, suggests that to help us find our purpose in life, we need to
ask a big question: What’s my sentence?
Pink makes the point that our lives can be summed up in a
sentence: He was a wonderful father who gave his children wings. She
helped people regain their health. He helped everyone he met see his or
her potential.
Once we know our sentence-for our life at this very moment-then we
know what is important to know. Our questions become a search for vital
and true information upon which we will build our lives.
Pink explains three qualities are necessary for us to tap into our potential as individuals. We need to have autonomy. We need to
have a sense of purpose. We need to have a level of mastery of
essential skills related to our purpose.
Autonomy means we have a choice of the activity in which we
engage.
The choice is based on internal motivation and not
To keep us on-track, Pink offers a little question: Was I better
today than yesterday?
Learning to question begins with asking the big questions to
understand our purpose in life, to understand our sentence.
For once we understand our purpose, we focus on developing
essential skills and core knowledge that relates to our big
questions.
Asking everyday if we have improved acts as a
directional trim tab for reaching our objectives. Asking helps us maintain
altitude and attitude.
To help children learn to question, we have to allow them the
freedom and time to ask and answer the big questions in their
unique way. We have to allow children to have important choices in their learning and living activities. We have to give them
the gift of deep time-time with people, time with tools, time with
nature, time with ideas--to explore, make connections and
develop mastery of essential skills and knowledge.
Most importantly, and the most difficult--we
ourselves as adult models of fearless questioning.
[Visit MarenSchmidt.com.]
have
to
give
Art News by Carol
“Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I will understand.” Confucius
Pre/K, lower elementary and upper elementary celebrated
the Chinese New Year, Year of the Horse with a parade and
an art show. Lower elementary made large hugging dragon
puppets and noise makers. Pre/K made horse puppets and hobby
horses. Upper elementary exhibited ceramics, dragon collages
with poems, dyed handmade paper and heart paintings in the
style of Jim Dine, a well known contemporary New York artist.
For the heart paintings, the fourth year students were asked
to divide a large heart into 3 unequal spaces. In one space
they were asked to paint a radial design, in another space a
diagonal design, in the third space a vertical design.
They were then asked to paint a background of their own
choosing. The results were vibrant post modern paintings entirely
original. We wrote a letter to Jim Dine at his gallery in New York
and signed it. We included pictures of some of the paintings
and some of the artists at work. We are hoping for a response.
Thanks to everyone who helped to make the parade a success.
Special thanks to Taylor Roberts, the middle school intern who
assembled all of the lower elementary dragon puppets.
2
PreK/ Kindergarten
Mary, Katie & Leslie’s Class
The pre-school and kindergarten classrooms have
a multitude of learning activities that include
academic lessons in science, math, social studies, English
Language Arts, physical activity, music, movement,
art, health and safety skills, social communication, and
virtue development. Since our young students are still
developing their oral communication skills, they often
cannot tell you what they are learning. Here are some
the activities that students in Mary’s class most enjoy:
Xander – sand table
Kai – painting on porch
Santino – multiplication fact book
Gus – making ghosts
Ezra – sandbox
Azaan – drawing dinosaurs
Zaden – continent song
Noemi – big sandbox
Lucy – practical life
Megan – writing about kitties
Morgan – making dresses in art
Shelbie – working with mineral spheres in science
David – making paper T-rexes
Scarlett – reading in library
Rylee – I am interested in every book
Lyla – I like to draw cats
Sophie – continent map
Tyler – bead chains in math
Solomon – hanging chains (math)
Claire – making slides in art
Autumn – reading in the library
Abigail – calendar
Atticus – writing stories
Juliette – do pictures
Sally, Sherri & Daniel’s Class
The children have had a very busy month! Our
Middle School interns, Summer and James, spent a week
with us and immediately became beloved members of
our community. Summer spent many hours patiently
helping the children create their horse puppets for the
Chinese New Year parade and James created a “sand
castle building work” for the children to use at the
sand table in our outdoor environment. The kids have
enjoyed it immensely! We greatly appreciate the kindness,
patience and initiative shown by Summer and James,
and hope they will come back someday soon for a visit.
Jon’s mother, Mong (Tina), kicked off our New Year
festivities with a lovely presentation on the Vietnamese
Tet (New Year) holiday. She read and donated the book
Ten Mice for Tet, showed us some Vietnamese clothing and prepared a wonderful Tet-mouse craft project
for the children. She also taught us the Good Morning
Song in Vietnamese! Many thanks, Tina.
Following the Tet holiday, we started to prepare
for the Chinese New Year. The children practiced
pouring tea from a Chinese teapot and learned how to use
chopsticks with our serving work. They made Chinese
flags and prepared their horses for the parade in honor
of the Year of the Horse. We even had a visit from the
Horse himself! Daniel, good sport that he is, was the
perfect “exclamation mark” at the end of the parade.
Special thanks to Jay’s mom, Lilian, for making us a
beautiful Chinese motif tablecloth for our snack table.
And a special “arigatou” to Tommy’s grandma who,
right after arriving from Japan, visited our classroom
and read The Three Little Pigs to us in Japanese!
Lately we have been studying the continent of Asia and
becoming familiar with where continents are placed
on the globe. The virtues we’ve discussed recently are
patience, detachment, compassion, determination, perseverance, generosity, self-discipline, and
trustworthiness. You can ask your child how they use
these virtues at school.
3
PreK/ Kindergarten continued
Ruth, PJ & Yuki’s Class
Tommy loves the knob cylinders. Matthew loves addition. Cadence loves moveable alphabet. Trey loves the long
5 chain and I like to write. by Thor
4
Our Lower Elementary Students Write
Last Friday it was the Chinese New Year. Carol
helped us with our dragons. She helped us make
shakers so we could make noise. The parents were in the
parking lot. Each month we have a virtue and each
virtue means a different thing. Our virtue for this
month is Love. Don is our teacher and he lets us put it
up on the walls. Don put Love up because it is close to
Valentine’s Day. Also because we’re supposed to love
our family and our friends. Don told the third years
that they had to do cursive all the time. So in all of their
works they have to do it. If you don’t do it you have
to do it again in cursive. The third years also have to
do paragraphs. Don teaches them different paragraphs
like narratives. They also do stories in their paragraphs.
by Terah
Last week we had a lesson on quicksand. We got to
touch it. Last week was the Chinese New Year parade.
We made dragons and shakers. There was music and
the little kids made horses and Daniel was wearing
a horse costume. We are doing projects. Mine is on
Canada. by Leilani
On February 14th all the third years went to the gem
show on a bus, and spent the day there. We saw some
gold and silver and a very pretty gold elephant. We
learned that diamonds are the heaviest gems, and
saw a gold crown with 1,000 diamonds in it. First we
looked at the exhibits, then bought rocks and gems.
The gems were very good prices. We recently had
elections. President was Anna. Vice president is
Connor C. Treasurer is Joshua and Secretary is
Matthew. The lower elementary had their first class
meeting a few days ago. by Carmen and Katerina
A geologist came to talk with us about how the earth
was formed, and then at lunch time he exploded a Dr.
Pepper can and a bunch of white gas shot up about 15
feet in the air. I thought the explosion was cool because
it surprised me. by Jett
by Cambria
5
Upper Elementary
by Catie
by Ezra
by David
6
Middle School News
Internship Week by Jill
In January, our middle school students participated in the challenging endeavor of internships. 8th year students
researched and found local businesses which allowed a student worker to come and assist for one whole week, while 7th year
students also participated by helping in the preschool, lower elementary, and upper elementary assisting teachers and tutoring
students. The goal of internships is multifaceted; students hone interpersonal skills and learn professionalism while gaining
valuable insight into how a business runs, what is expected of employees, and how to best serve customers/students. This is
quite an adventure for students who are 12 and 13 years old!
The 8th year students had the opportunity to help in a variety of businesses, including bike shops, auto garages, realty
offices, and smoothie shops. Stephen assisted his uncle, who is a superior court judge in Maricopa County, and witnessed the
judicial process in action. “I learned a lot about the court system…I knew some about criminal court but not much about
family (civil) trials.” He also enjoyed rubbing elbows with other judges at their monthly luncheon. Jewel moved out of her
comfort zone to work in a garage called Talon’s Rod and Custom. She noted that she was the only girl in the garage, but she
didn’t mind. “It was a lot of fun. The guys were working on a Camaro, and at the end of the week it was exciting when they
fired up the engine they had rebuilt.” Jennifer enjoyed working at Robek’s, a local smoothie shop. One of her tasks was to
unload and organize frozen ingredients. “The freezer was so cold, we had to come out every few minutes to warm up again!”
She highlights the best part of the experience as getting to know the owners, who were so pleased with her work that they
invited her back for a part time position over the summer. Job offers after internships has often been the outcome as business
owners get to witness how our students work responsibly, respectfully, and independently.
The 7th year students also made quite an impression on the teachers and students they worked with. Summer and James
were assigned to work with Sally in the preschool, and the children were delighted. James helped students generate creative
ideas when working in the sand table, while Summer tutored students one on one. Sally was so pleased with their helpfulness
and poise, she felt “they could have taught the class themselves!” The students working in elementary were equally diligent,
helping to present lessons and tutor their younger peers.
Internship week was a great success, demonstrating the maturity and helpful nature of our wonderful middle school
students. Good job everyone!
7
More Middle School News
by Wendy
As part of middle school's recent study of the topic of power, students learned about various human rights
movements. At the end of the unit, students were asked to connect their learning together by writing a poem
(using their vocabulary words for the subject) about how they could be proactive in the struggle for human rights.
The following is one student's response.
We have a past, that we are not proud of
Hating people for their differences; why? Diversity should be treated with love
Blaming Jews for what’s gone wrong,
Scapegoating can kill, so let’s just get along
It shouldn’t matter what gender or culture or race,
Ethnocentrism and racism should not force a space (between us)
Thinking a race or culture is better than others,
Can push apart babies and mothers.
Which is why slavery is not allowed,
When Lincoln found an injustice and shouted aloud “emancipate the slaves.”
That is when civil rights began to gain speed,
But the government was still in the lead, with new segregation laws
Whites and blacks could not be the same,
But then guess who came? MLK Jr. to stop discrimination!
To help us be a more tolerant nation.
And isn’t that what helps today be today?
And wouldn’t you have acted the same way?
Even though these issues are now very small,
Let’s try to erase them once and for all!
by Anna
8