Back to School Success
I so enjoy the first day of school. Seeing all the bright, shining faces of students eager to learn and grow is a blessing that I am thankful for each year. For students (and sometimes parents) who have gotten into the looser routines of summer, starting a new school year can be a difficult change […]
An Outdoor Summer
One thing I have promised to do this summer is to spend more time outdoors with my beautiful granddaughters. I have been blessed to witness their joy—an unbridled sense of awestruck wonder—many times this past year: I saw it the first time Lucy held a rose petal to her nose; I glimpsed it in Georgia’s […]
Alumni Par-tay!
On Friday, we welcomed many of of our former students home again to see old friends, make new ones, and visit the teachers and classrooms that had a formative effect on their futures. We are so proud of the many amazing things our alums are accomplishing and we asked them all to take a little […]
Building Attention Spans: Multi-Step Work for Toddlers
As a guide, we have to continue to challenge our students by presenting fun work with longer sequences of steps. For the older children who have mastered lots of the work and are prepared to transition to Primary, multi-step work is a good introduction to the tasks they will handle once they move up. Here, […]
The Child in Transition
As I observe classrooms at this time of year, I am always excited to see the transformation that has taken place in each child during the course of the year. This process has been going on quietly throughout the year, but it seems that in spring something in the child suddenly blooms forth. This transition […]
Around the World with Lower Elementary
Our Lower Elementary students have traveled the world this year. Each month they explored a new continent and learned about the countries, cultures, and people. Students were issued ‘Passports’ before the journey began to keep track of their travels. We explored as a group the location and major geographical features of each continent. Students chose […]
Visiting Camp Capers
Excitement was riding high as the upper elementary students arrived at Camp Capers. After meeting with our counselor the first job was to pick bunks. In the boys cabin the top bunk on the three tier bunks is always a favorite and has become a right of passage for the oldest boys. Girls took their […]
Helping Toddlers Make Good Choices
This weekend toddler teachers Ms. Renee and Ms. Mari attended an American Montessori Society seminar in Houston. This was a great opportunity to network with other toddler teachers, refresh, and gain new ideas for the classroom. Maria Montessori wrote that logical consequences generally do not work with toddlers because they don’t yet understand cause and […]
The Power of Choice
When learning about Montessori, one of the first and most important concepts that we come across is the idea of self- or child-directed learning/work. For many of us who grew up in a traditional classroom, this concept can be difficult to grasp. “But if my child decides what they want to work on all the […]
At the AMS Conference
What do iconic traveler Rick Steves; playwright , actor, and educator Anna Deavere Smith; and father of the Maker Movement Dale Dougherty, all have in common? They were all keynote speakers at the recent American Montessori Society conference in Denver this year! Jennifer Davey, our Head of School, and Blanca Bird, our Lower Elementary guide, both attended […]