January 2024 Newsletter May all our journey be as bright and beautiful as a child’s imagination, filled with great health and gratitude! Wishing you all a happy New Year! Feliz Ana Nuevo!
Dr. Maria Montessori Quote! “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ’The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
Welcome to the first edition of 2024!
We are excited to welcome you all back to start the new year with focus on health and new beginnings.
Important Dates for January 2024: School closed on Monday January 1 and January 15: In observance of New Years and Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday respectively.
Gratitude: Thank you to all the families for your warm wishes and beautiful and thoughtful gifts for MIA staff.
Birthdays: Warm Birthday wishes for Hazel on turning four, Asher, and Ariana on turning three this month!
New Staff Introductions: We would like to officially welcome Breonna Pattison to MIA. She is a fully Montessori trained teacher with over eight years of teaching experience. She is excited to join and become a solid part of MIA team. In Breonna’s words “ I have been teaching for over 8 years and working in Montessori classrooms for the past 4 years. I recently completed a 2-year internship program and graduated with my Montessori Certification, so Montessori philosophy and its materials are all extremely familiar to me. Some fun facts about myself are green is my favorite color, my hobbies are gardening and archery. I love to decompress with a light and funny show or a movie after a long day, reading is how I like to exercise my mind and imagination.”
Classroom and Curriculum Update:
Classroom and Curriculum Update: In the month of January: We will continue to focus on the winter season with learning about Parts of a Penguin and related curriculum in all areas of the classroom. We will introduce the “ Universe/ Solar system” by giving children the opportunity to make their own models of the solar system with foam balls. They will learn the names of the planets. Language: We will introduce the sound of “n” and “0” letters. It will be a great time to review and confirm what some of the older children already know and introduce the sound to the younger children. For the children who already know the sound we will help them put it together with a vowel sound to start to read 2 or 3 letter words. Practical Life: Children will work with snowflakes to strengthen their whole hand muscles and pour with them. Math: Count with snowflakes, a polar bears and, penguins, and one to one correspondence. Sciences: We will learn about the body parts of the Polar Bear and the Penguin. They will learn about their body parts and habitats. Art, they are using different mediums of art with Penguin, Polar Bear frame. They will be using watercolors, colored pencils, and feathers.
Spanish: Feliz Año Nuevo or Happy New Year! We will continue learning Spanish winter vocabulary such as copos de nieve (snowflakes), hombre de nieve (snowman), árbol de hoja perenne (evergreen tree) and so on. In addition to our winter theme we will be incorporating Spanish with the food unit.
