Welcome to Lower Elementary Birch - The Children's House

Another year is upon us, full of exploring your interests, gaining new skills and diving deeper into old concepts. I look forward to welcoming all of you into our awesome learning community. I hope you're as ready for a great year as I am!

Carey Wendell
About Carey

carey@traversechildrenshouse.org

“The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core” ~Maria Montessori (To Educate the Human Potential 11)

Back to School Parent Letter 2025-26

Classroom Highlights

October 28, 2025

Happy October!

We hope your family is enjoying the crisp fall air, golden leaves, and all the joy this season brings. October is full of unique celebrations—from World Smile Day to National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day—and we hope you found a moment to enjoy one of these fun, unusual holidays together. Here’s to a month filled with laughter, learning, and a touch of autumn magic!

Parent-Teacher Conferences
Conference time is coming soon! If you haven’t yet signed up for a conference slot, please visit the link on the SignUpGenius email to reserve a time that works best for your family.

Fall Festival Fun & Outdoor Gear Reminder

It was such a treat to see so many of you at the Fall Festival! The weather was perfect, and the day was full of smiles, laughter, and community spirit. As the temperatures drop, please take note of our outdoor clothing guidelines to help students stay safe and comfortable:

40°F and above: No coat required but must be brought outside; long sleeves and long pants encouraged.
39°F and below: Coat required.
Rain, snow, or muddy conditions: Snowpants or rain pants and boots required.
Below 0°F: All gear required (coat, snowpants, boots, gloves).

If students forget gear, we will adjust to make sure they are covered before going out. Thank you for helping everyone stay warm and ready for outdoor adventures!

Exploring Geography

Our classroom has been buzzing with geographic curiosity! Students are working with pin maps, identifying countries, capitals, and landforms by placing labeled flags into maps. This hands-on work often leads to independent research projects and presentations. Others have explored landforms and the lines of latitude and longitude, connecting our geography lessons to real-world understanding.

Language & Writing

This month, students were introduced to the Article—the small but mighty part of speech represented by a light-blue pyramid. We discovered that English has only three articles (a, an, and the) and practiced the rules for their use through grammar games and sentence-building.

In writing, students continue to build their skills through Four Square Writing:

Younger students are adding sentences for each picture on their quilts (Step 2).
Older students are moving into Step 4, using bullet points to develop subtopics and gather research.

We’ve also begun exploring the classroom’s “13 ________ Students Should Know” book collection, which includes topics such as artists, sculptures, bridges, and buildings. These resources inspire curiosity and support research-based writing.

History & Cultural Studies

All students have been exploring the Coming of Humans timelines, connecting our earlier universe studies to the story of humankind.

3rd Level students continue their Timeline of Life research and will begin a related art project next month.
2nd Level students started work on the Fundamental Needs of Humans, each choosing a time period for ongoing projects they’ll present in the spring.
1st Level students are exploring concepts of time, including reading clocks, days of the week, months of the year, and calendar structure.

Each level is connecting their learning to real-world observations and developing strong foundational understanding of human progress and time.

Math in Motion

Students are now balancing work between their math cards and math books, following individualized work plans. Each math book focuses on one or more operations—addition, addition with multiple addends, multiplication, subtraction, review, and division. Following the Montessori sequence, we approach multiplication after addition, helping students see it as “addition faster.” Hands-on materials continue to support each child’s journey toward abstraction and mathematical confidence.

Science & Discovery

Our science lessons have been full of energy and exploration! We’ve been studying the rotation and revolution of the Earth, lines of latitude and longitude, and how the angle of sunlight creates our seasons. Students also reviewed the states of matter, focusing on solids before moving on to liquids next week.

We enjoyed examining water samples under the microscope to look for protists—an exciting glimpse into the microscopic world! Now, our focus turns to plants and their parts. Students are also designing their own experiments, learning to use the scientific method and document findings like real scientists. With examples from my own research days at UC Davis and my husband’s work at Oakland University, students are gaining an appreciation for how scientists write and record discoveries.

Mystery Reader Magic

A big thank-you to Arielle Castine, our most recent mystery reader, for sharing Jumper by Jessica Lanan. Everyone was fascinated by jumping spiders and their incredible abilities! We look forward to welcoming more mystery readers in the coming months.

In Closing

As autumn settles in, we’re grateful for your partnership and support. Thank you for helping your children come prepared for outdoor play and for sharing in our classroom adventures. If you ever have questions, please reach out by phone or email—we’ll do our best to respond within 24 hours.

Wishing you warm drinks, cozy evenings, and colorful leaves!

Peace,
Carey and Jodie

Art Room Highlights

With placemats just finishing up, we have moved into our next project: Dia de los Muertos. The students watched two short videos on the history and meaning of the celebration and learned about some of the traditional costumes, baked goods, flowers and art that can be seen during the two-day festival. We then turned our focus on the Calaveras or highly decorated skulls made of both sugar and clay. The students just learned how to draw a large calavera and added decorations of their choosing. We talked about and implemented symmetry in our drawing and worked on using the whole paper to draw. These colorful projects should find their way home soon!

Music Highlights

The students are well on their way with their ukulele work. They have learned 4 chords and have begun learning the words to their new song, Under the Banyun Tree. This song will require the students to sing and play at the same time. As they are learning, playing a song is one thing, singing a song is another, but to do both at the same time requires a higher level of mastery that they are working toward achieving. They also have worked over several weeks on learning how to read note names through individual and group work. We are now moving on to working on basic rhythms using paper plates to illustrate a physical representation of different divisions of the beat.

September 24, 2025

I look up.
All around, children hum with happiness.
They are birds, bright with their own colors,
feathering nests with knowledge,
tending the soft furrows of friendship.
They check for seedlings—
find them, and smile.
The air fills with joy.

-Carey

Welcome Autumn!
As the leaves begin to change and the air turns crisp, our classroom has been buzzing with fresh energy. We’re thrilled to welcome both new and returning families into our community—this year already promises to be full of curiosity, creativity, and growth.

To set the tone, the children kicked off the school year with activities that built teamwork and trust. Through games, role-playing, and problem-solving exercises, they not only practiced conflict resolution but also worked together to create a classroom agreement—our shared promise for a healthy and happy learning environment.

Adventures at Leelanau Outdoor Center
Our day at Leelanau Outdoor Center was nothing short of marvelous! Students worked together on team-building activities, then set off on adventures at the beach—exploring sand, rocks, shells, and clay. The playground was a favorite, with its ropes, slides, balancing challenges, and even a bit of parkour! We also explored our senses by “meeting” a tree without using sight, and the “unnature walk” had everyone scanning the trail for hidden surprises. The big blue bus was a thrill in itself, and the counselors kept spirits high with new songs that quickly became favorites. By the end of the day, one thing was clear: everyone is already excited for our spring return to LOC!

Celebrating Peace
On September 22nd, our class joined the world in honoring the International Day of Peace. One highlight was teaching peace songs to younger students. Watching our class step into leadership roles, guiding and encouraging their peers, was a joy to witness.

Math & Language Adventures
With assessments complete, each child is now diving into math at their own pace, supported by individualized practice and problem-solving. In Language, students are exploring word study through compound words, alphabetizing, and dictionary skills. Writing has taken a creative turn with “Four Square” pre-writing work—students draw, brainstorm, and, for older ones, add facts that will grow into paragraphs and stories later on. Grammar, too, has a hands-on twist: we’ve begun with the Noun, symbolized in Montessori by a black pyramid, representing permanence. Families can extend the fun at home with a noun alphabet game—see if you can name a noun for every letter!

Big Stories in History & Science
We opened the year with “The Story of the Universe,” followed by “The Black Strip” and “The Clock of Eras,” to spark wonder about time and our planet’s origins. Students even felted wool to model Earth’s layers! Next, we’ll begin the “Second Great Story” and dive into the Timeline of Life.

Science has been just as lively. From states of matter to exploring the classification of living things, our studies span from Functional Geography (wind, water, the sun) to microbiology experiments—students swabbed their mouths, plated samples, and are now watching bacterial colonies form! Future months will bring chemistry, ecology, botany, zoology, and more.

Geography & World Awareness
This year, we’re also encouraging students to see themselves as world citizens. Beyond map work in class, families can make travel more fun by using maps together—or explore geography games on the Seterra website.

Mystery Reader Magic
A huge thank-you to Andrew Castine, our first mystery reader of the year, who shared The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm by LaVar Burton. The story sparked meaningful conversation, and we can’t wait to welcome more readers soon! If you’d like to join the lineup, please let us know—we’d love to have you.

Looking Ahead
We’re so grateful to share this journey with you and your children. Looking forward to seeing you at the class picnic this Friday. If questions come up, don’t hesitate to reach out by phone or email—we’ll always do our best to reply within 24 hours. Here’s to a joyful, curious, and inspiring year ahead!

Peace,
Carey and Jodie

Music Highlights
This year the students have started with working on the foundations of reading music, note reading. They have also started their work on ukuleles, from learning the parts of the instrument, learning beginning chords, and combining singing and playing. The ability to simultaneously sing and play requires another level of mastery beyond playing and singing separately. We are working toward being able to play several songs using 5 chords.

News from the Art Room!
The beginning of the year always starts with one of the student’s favorite projects of the year – placemat making. Each student creates their own personal placemat out of a cut piece of canvas that they design and paint with acrylic. These are very personal and unique to each student. I start by asking them the question, “What would you like to look at each day at lunch?” and they begin their brainstorming and designs first on paper and then transfer them to canvas. This year I’ve seen everything from robots to pets; army helicopters to sports team logos. The students are able to practice their drawing skills before diving into adding color with paint. We work on brush technique by first choosing the right size and shape for the area and then how best to hold it for smooth stroke application. The art room has been a gallery of creativity these past few weeks! I have to admit; it is one of my favorite projects of the year as well.