April Newsletter 2023
Dear Parents,
We hope you had a wonderful Easter vacation and have returned well rested.
Easter was very early this year, which made March an extremely busy month. We continued the topic “Continents” (Australia and Europe) for the first two weeks. In the middle of the month Shaun the leprechaun put in an appearance. He played a few tricks on us, but we found his pot of gold hidden under the old oak tree.
Then we had to get prepared for Easter. The children made Easter wreaths, decorated the blown out eggs (thank you for sending in so many)and traced and cut out paper eggs.
The Easter-egg-hunt was the grand finale.
Now for April.
Flowers are beginning to bloom, buds are opening, leaves are appearing and fruit trees are coming into blossom. What better time can there be to talk about flowers? We shall talk about various kinds of plants, the different parts of a plant, what plants need for growth, etc.
In our little green house the children can sow seeds and hopefully we will be able to plant the seedlings in the garden a few weeks later. In keeping with this month’s theme we shall visit the botanical gardens on Thursday, April 27th.
As you may have noticed we still have one more continent we need to talk about. So apart from the topic “Spring flowers” we shall delve into the African continent and talk about the various countries there, the vegetation and animals.
On Tuesday, April 25th the dentist will be coming at 9:30 a.m.
A quick reminder that the preschool will be closed on Monday, May 1st.
We wish you all a wonderful April!
Your Montessori team
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March Newsletter 2023
Dear Preschool Friends ,
This newsletter is really, really late and I don’t even know why. I would love to come up with a good excuse, but I think it was simply laziness – sorry!
In the short month of February lots of children were missing due to illness and our group shrunk to twelve children. We are happy to see the absentees have all returned back, some still a little pale, but all eager and excited to be back at preschool again.
For Valentine’s Day the children had fun tracing and cutting out hearts, getting the preschool all hearty and making their Valentines.
Towards the end of the month we all had a most enjoyable carnival party. Early in the morning the children busied themselves with carnival related artwork, which was followed by lots of party games. The children all had wonderful costumes on and really looked super for the day.
We then introduced the new continent – Australia. We have talked about marsupial, the vegetation, the Great Barrier Reef, digeridoos, Aborigines and Captain Cook.
At the beginning of the week we started to get our pre-school green.
On March 17th each year, the Irish and Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by the “wearin’ of the green” and the Irish in New York City hold a huge parade. We have started make lots of shamrock art for the school and it would be nice if the children could wear green on Friday, March 17th (day after tomorrow).
The holiday commemorates St. Patrick who, legend tells us, went about Ireland as a missionary, preaching and using the shamrock as an illustration of the Trinity. St. Patrick was also credited with ridding Ireland of snakes.
During the week we shall listen to Irish music, dance to it and on the 17th we shall go in search of the pot of gold that Shaun the leprechaun will surely have hidden under an old oak tree.(The weather forecast predicts a cloudy, warm Spring day 15°C J )
On Saturday, March 18th our landlords are throwing a Pot luck- St Patrick’s Day- Party and have invited us all to join. It will start at 18:00 hours and you are asked to bring a small something delicious to share.
The cooking project at preschool this month will be the making of shamrock shaped waffles.
After St. Patrick’s Day we will continue with the continents (Europe) and slowly start with Easter preparations - rabbit-, rooster- and egg art.
This year I haven’t started blowing out eggs in time, so I would be very grateful if you would feel like sending in a few blown out eggs for the children to decorate.
And now last but definitely not least, THANK YOU!!! For the lovely birthday present. It was so beautifully presented. It makes all the difference receiving a present given with love J.
Your Montessori team
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February Newsletter 2023
Dear Friends,
In January the children spent a lot of time making, penguins and seals, whales and snow petrels and learning about life in Antarctica.
As expected we moved on to the next continent, Asia, fairly quickly as we celebrated Chinese New Year on January 23rd. The children cut out lanterns to decorate the entrance hall and we had a wonderful Dragon dance. Due to illness we unfortunately had to put off our visit to the zoo, but we shall do that at a later date and then spend all day there, as we shall then not only have the Penguins to look at, but also animals from Asia and South America.
Now to February:
In February we also have two major topics we need to fit in: Valentine’s Day and ‘Fasching’ (Carnival).
We shall soon start to trace out hearts, decorate hearts, make heart people, heart mobiles, make ‘window-colour’ hearts and talk about Valentine’s Day.
The ‘Faschings-party’ will take place on Monday, February 20th and we look forward to seeing wonderfully dressed up children. Maybe our continent topic could be inspiring for an exquisite costume?
The previous parties (Christmas and Halloween) in the large community hall have been with sibling and parent participation. The “Fasching party” is normally celebrated on a smaller scale and only in the Montessori rooms.
We wish you all a hearty and healthy February
Your Montessori team
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January Newsletter 2023
Dear Parents,
We wish you all a happy and healthy new year and hope you had an enjoyable holiday season. Thank you once again for all the wonderful Christmas presents you and the children gave us. They are greatly appreciated.
January is the relaxed month. The pressures of Christmas are over and everyone is free to do his or her own thing.
Our new big topic will be “continents” and we shall start with Antarctica.
Antarctica is the world’s fifth largest continent. It is also the highest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. It is a frozen, windswept continent, so hostile and remote that it has no permanent inhabitants. Never-the-less more than 100 million birds nest and breed there. Emperor penguins are the biggest of all the penguins. Penguins are the most common birds in the Antarctic and it is no wonder that penguins are seen as the emblem of that continent. They will figure largely in our art activities and our field trip this month will be to the zoo to see lots of them.
Towards the end of the month, depending on the children’s interest, we shall move on to “Asia” and also talk about “Chinese New Year”. Chinese New Year 2023 falls on Sunday, January 22nd, and celebrations culminate with the ‘Lantern Festival’ on February 5th, 2023.
As Celebrations last up to 16 days, it doesn’t really matter if we celebrate on Monday 23rd.
Towards the end of the year, the back room had turned into a rough and tumble room. Due to a lot of wild play in there, children had frequently been injuring themselves. In future that room will be closed until ~10:00 o’clock, leaving the children time to work and play in a more constructive way.
Most of the children have been with us for at least four months and we are now insisting a little more on speaking English Tuesdays – Fridays. We hope you will notice a difference in their language skills.
This month we shall have two 10th graders doing an internship.
Parent-teacher conferences will be held Wednesday-Fridays from 9.30- 11.00 so please sign up should you be interested in a little chat.
Happy January!
Your Montessori team
