December Newsletter 2024
Dr. Maria Montessori Quote!
“Do not tell them how to do it. · The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”
Monthly newsletter will keep you updated with the classroom happenings, events and upcoming projects
Wishing everyone Happy Holidays!
Birthday Wishes in Sprouts classroom to Layla, Sienna and Siara on turning three years old!
Birthday Wishes in Blossoms classroom to Alia and Avir on turning four, Paxton and Alara on turning five years old in December!
Important Dates:
School Closed in observance of winter holidays:
Monday December 23- Wednesday January 1, 2025!
Monday January 20 in observance of Martin Luther King Jr day!
Feast in November was a great success in both classrooms!
The children participated with full gusto by bringing in ingredients, helping clean, wash and chop them to make the vegetable stew and the pumpkin oatmeal cookies.
They all tried and some comments “ this is the best stew and soup” “ I wish I can have it for lunch at home”!
Request: We are in need of Pine cones for a holiday art project, we are requesting children to collect pinecones to bring to school. Parents, please assist your child in doing so.
The MIA 2025 school Holiday calendar is uploaded to brightwheel.
Gratitude: Thank you to all the parents for sending beautiful picture posters and snacks
to celebrate their child’s birthday at school.
In Language, we will introduce the next letter family: “ d,w,e,n” in the month of December. The children are practicing matching pictures with objects and spelling the words.
Children will be creating many art works using the holiday colors: green, red, gold and silver.
Lot of fun holiday items will be introduced in all areas of the curriculum like practical life, art, language, math, sensorial and fun science experiments.
Sciences: We will introduce Physical science concepts: Montessori environment reaches out in all directions of physical science, astronomy, or meteorology. It raises their awareness of the universe and their place in the cosmos.
Children have been learning about Anatomy of the human body, children enjoyed being introduced to the basic Skeletal System, the names of some of the bones like, skull, clavicle, mandible, rib cage, radius, humerus, patella’s, femur, tibia and vertebrae. They cut and created their own skeletons.
They will be working on the internal organs and the “ the tooth”, starting with the brain. The resemblance of the brain to a walnut and how it is a good food to include in their morning breakfast.
We will introduce the “digestive, nervous, respiratory, and excretory systems”.
Spanish December curriculum:
December is an exciting month with lots of new Spanish vocabulary words. Children will be introduced to winter season words such as Invierno, (winter) abrigo, (coat) gorro, (beanie) nieve (snow) and a lot more words related to December. We will be playing guessing games such as describing hot chocolate, gingerbread house, candy canes, mittens, and having children guess by presenting pictures of objects. This is a great game to help children with comprehension and following a sequence of steps.
MUSIC Enrichment:
In December the younger children will listen to different bell sounds. They will learn to identify different bell sounds like jingle bells, hand bells, and steeple bells. We will learn new songs about bells, Bells are Ringing and Bell Horses. To improve listening skills, we will match quiet and loud music with our quiet and loud bell playing. We will continue to do movement and drumming activities to establish the body as a rhythmic instrument. The older children will also be exploring bells. Through the hands-on introduction the children will learn a number of important concepts about sounds. They will learn that some bells have to be shaken while others have to be struck and they will learn how these qualities affect the sounds. We will build a musical scale out of hand bells. Our new songs will also be about bells: Listen for Bells and Ring the Bells.
To work on pre- music-reading skills the children will learn the symbols of the quarter note and the eighth note. They will be using these rhythm notes in four beat patterns to clap and chant and play the drum.
Thank you for entrusting your beautiful children in our program.
Happy Holidays!!!