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“…the child’s intelligence (is) a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination.” - Maria Montessori This year we look forward to developing a curious, kind, and inspired community together. We hope to ignite imagination in each other and help discover new passions and curiosities. Jamie SchaubJamie@traversechildrenshouse.org Room Parents _ |
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Classroom Highlights
April 15, 2025
Happy spring!
We are excited to have you visit with your children and see their work next week and I’ll be happy to sit down with you and discuss your child’s progress at the end of the month.
Last week we discussed our classroom agreement because we noticed that there were some unkind words and actions happening during PE, in group, and outside of school on devices. Since our conversation we have observed a more supportive community of students.
Your children have the opportunity to choose their work spaces on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and yet they seem to choose the exact same tables, chairs, and people to sit with. In an effort to break up this habit and comfort so that they may have more variety in their view of the room and the people around them I asked them to choose different tables and try to only repeat one person at the same table. How habitual they are!
On Mondays and Fridays I choose their seats and try to mix up who they are around. At lunch they have conversation cards on the table to inspire connection and getting to know each other better. This also helps with their abilities to have a meaningful conversation. You might enjoy this practice in your home at the dinner table as well.
Your children really dove into the poetic devices lessons, especially alliteration! I love seeing their written creativity and inspiring them to expand the way that they write. They’ve also reviewed metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole. Perhaps you can read some poetry together this month.
Upcoming dates:
- April 24th and 25th: Family visiting days in Cedar Visiting sign up
- April 28th and 29th: Conferences with Jamie Conference Sign Up
- May 2nd: Earth Day Outings (more details to follow)
- May 9th: 6th years help with Meals on Wheels bag preparation in the morning (email to follow)
- May 23rd: Grandparents and Special Friends’ Day (1/2 day ending at 11am)
- May 28th-30th: Camping Trip (details to follow)
- June 3rd: 6th year moving up ceremony 6:30pm
- June 6th: Dance of the Cosmos at 11am
March 18, 2025
It has been so sweet to be back with your children! They are so eager to learn and I’ve enjoyed seeing how they’ve grown over the last two months. It has been especially joyful to see how excited they are to see Lucian he comes to visit.
March is a time where we see your children learning with other adults from human growth and development and anti-bullying to theatre. We enjoy watching them show different parts of themselves and open up in new ways. Theatre especially gives us new insights into your children as they find their voices and take on new personalities. We look forward to watching their show this Thursday at 2pm!
The questions of an elementary child dive deeper into the why of things. They want to know how things work and more and more of the details. As I’ve been a guide I’ve noticed how google (and now AI) can so quickly squish the deeper dive by giving such a simple and easy answer (that may not be accurate) as opposed to the gift of a book that is filled with so many facts to sort through and lead us onto a new “why?” Adults can also end this wonder quickly by simply answering the question. In our training we learn to ask a question in response: “how could you find that answer?” “Who do you think might know more about that?” “Where could we go to explore that more?” These questions can lead children into a beautiful exploration of ideas and potentially lead them to a new passion! The next time your child asks you a question, try asking them one in return.
Spring definitely brings more energy and more time outside which all of us are craving. Your children just last week were looking forward to setting up our outdoor classroom again.
February 19, 2025
Cedar Families,
This past month has been filled with memorable experiences and fulfilling activities. The students had a blast ice skating, and many eagerly asked when we could go again. We also marked the 100th day of school with various engaging activities centered around the number 100, and a group of students even went around the school performing 100 acts of kindness! Our Valentine’s celebration extended beyond Secret Valentine’s, with a surprise visit from Jamie and Brenin, who introduced us to Lucien. The students were thrilled to personally present their handwritten Valentine’s letters to her. However, the highlight of the month was preparing our 6th-year students for Montessori Model United Nations (MMUN). They have been working diligently, from organizing how they’ll spend their time in New York City to perfecting their opening speeches. We look forward to hearing about their experiences upon their return!
“Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall” is a new picture book about the ecosystem of a blue whale after it dies. This book captured the attention and curiosity of many students. From the length of time it takes a whale to fall to the ocean floor, to all the different creatures who benefit from the whale’s body, there was much to think about.
Over the past month we have told stories and asked questions about rivers. Where do rivers start? Where do they usually end? Do all rivers flow all the time? Why not? What are the major rivers in the world, the United States of America, and Michigan? Can you name any? Can you find them on a map? Elementary is full of opportunities to tell stories and ask questions. Rivers are just one opportunity to practice this. It is such a joy to sit around a chart and map and listen to the experiences your children have and the wonders that they are thinking about.
Coming Up:
Wednesday-Friday, March 5-7, Human Growth & Development
Wednesday-Thursday, March 12-20, Theatre
Monday-Friday, March 24-28, Spring Break
January 15, 2025
With the new year came some big changes. Jamie is enjoying her time at home with Lucien, and we at school all love the photos we get to see of him!
We reviewed our classroom agreements that we made to one another in our class. We set a goal for ourselves based on these promises. We’ve discussed Ellis Island Day, Korean American Day, Mahayana New Year, National Religious Freedom Day, and World Braille Day. Students have enjoyed making their own Braille name tags; some have even written full letters in Braille!
Trisha has been joining us once a week to talk about emotions. We’ve named as many different types of emotions as we could, and then we played emotions charades and had to act them out. Some were much harder than others!
PE
The upper elementary group has been working on hand eye coordination recently playing badminton. We usually try to see how long they and a partner can keep a volley going and also have played a few competitive rounds. I have enjoyed watching how quickly they’ve been able to progress with limited practice.
Steve
KITCHEN
Upper elementary kitchen classroom students continue to plug away at so much important prep work for our kitchen. Since root veggies are all the rage this time of year, we have longer cook times and more elaborate prep than we do in the warmer months. Today, Second Spring Farm delivered carrots, beets and potatoes, which we will turn into a lovely roasted winter mélange with the help of the upper elementary students.
Andrea
ART
Before winter break, the upper elementary classes were creating 3-D shapes covered in optical illusion artwork. These beautiful creations are now hanging in the Art/Music wing for your viewing pleasure. We then did some drawing practice and learned how to draw and shade the impossible triangle. This took a lot of care, thought and ruler work. This project also included a refresher on shading pencils and how to use them properly. Upon returning from break, we have begun a clay unit. Students will be creating their very own bobble head out of clay! They began by working through their design and details with modeling clay and just started on earthenware clay this week.
Alison
Enjoy the long weekend!
Betsy
December 16, 2024
Recently we’ve been learning about different celebrations that happen between November and January. I’ve been reading from the book “Let’s Get Festive, Celebrations Around the World” by Joanna Konczak and Eva Poklewska-Kozietto. While of course you know how excited your children are for Christmas, I am trying to remind them of all of the other celebrations happening in our community and around the world. We talked about: Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas in other countries, the winter solstice, Kwanzaa, and different new year traditions.
Many of your children have finished their studies and presented them, or will soon! We have a special acknowledgement to give to the 6th years who finished their MMUN position papers last week, which is a huge accomplishment!!
This week I will share one of my favorite art forms with your children, printmaking. On Friday they will have some examples to share with you!
I wish you all a sweet winter break filled with cozy times together reading books, playing games, and hopefully getting out in the snow!
See you on Friday for the sing-along, if not before!
Jamie
November 21, 2024
It was so lovely to meet with all of you and discuss your children! I want to share what a joy it is to know each of them and to be part of their lives, their growth, their challenges and their celebrations.
Today I am thinking about Rue in the classroom and what she has offered your children. For some they enjoy just giving her a little pet now and then (which has been shown to lower one’s heart rate), others love taking her on a walk (or a run), they try out new tricks and play with her, and they also make sure she isn’t eating snack, the compost, or escaping the classroom. She has offered them comfort, responsibility, and most obviously, joy. Right now she only comes once a week, and on that day she comes home with me and sleeps all the way until morning! Most visits she gets about 7 walks with small groups of friends. The love for her is apparent!
I’ve been using the book “Life Skills” by Keilly Swift to talk with your children about social and emotional learning. This week we talked about how we can sometimes have negative feelings about ourselves which can be visible through: low confidence, avoiding things, no concentration, mood swings, sleep changes, and feeling sick. We wrote the phrase “It’s good to be me” in our journals and also wrote some ideas about ways to help when we feel down. Those ideas include: getting into a routine, choosing healthy foods, moving your body, turning off screens, changing what you can, taking your mind off things, being kind to yourself, finding ways to boost your mood, and spending time with loved ones.
We are looking forward to our electricity outing tomorrow 11/22 and Stone Soup on Tuesday 11/26! I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving together! See you at the Holiday Sing on 12/20 at 11am.
October 18, 2024
Happy autumn!
We have been busy learning about why leaves change color, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the difference between fair and equal, operations with fractions, writing complete paragraphs, and practicing red words!
Part of my Orton-Gillingham training introduced me to new ways of teaching red words, or words that you just have to memorize to spell correctly because we cannot sound them out. Your children were tested on which words they know and we have been adding words to red word booklets while also arm tapping and finger tapping the spelling. We have enjoyed adding our kinesthetic sense to learn our spelling words.
We’ve been using the book “Antiracist Kid” by Tiffany Jewell to discuss and define concepts in the Justice chapter. This week we talked about the following words and gave examples: fair, equitable, justice, equal, equity, bias, and stereotype.
Many of the children in this classroom LOVE learning about ecosystems and making drawings to include the abiotic (non-living) and biotic (living) parts of the ecosystem. We’ve learned about the consumers and the role of decomposition.
We added a list of reminders to each table to encourage better choices, balance, and time management. Part of practicing executive functioning skills requires some scaffolding and I noticed that some students are able to continually make balanced choices from work to work and some needed reminders. We are hoping that by having written reminders, we will give less verbal reminders and they will learn to remember and balance on their own.
Coming up:
Picture day: Monday 10/21
Family visiting sign up here if you haven’t yet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jl-QeI8QuJYdAG7C3UifzEAryu12AwLx_ZJJPk6ieBo/edit?usp=sharing
Halloween: your children may BRING their costumes to wear in the classroom in the afternoon after Spanish. Please have them come to school in another outfit so that they are able to participate in PE and recess.
Dia de los Muertos: your children are learning about the celebration of Dia de los Muertos in Spanish class and our room. Please have your child write a short paragraph about a non-living ancestor to bring in with a photo (if you have one) on October 30th.
September 16, 2024
Cedar Classroom Families!
What an exciting time it has been being together these last weeks! Your children finished our classroom agreement and made an art piece to share how they would like to feel and how they agree to be in our room. I have attached a photo so that you can see! I think that my favorite is “we agree to be ourselves!”
In my class about supporting neurodivergence in the Montessori classroom we talked about the importance for all students to learn executive functioning skills. I began thinking about the ways that we support this in our room already. Your children are learning time management by writing what they work on in their work logs with the times they begin and end. They have the support of the adults around them to encourage them to move on to something else or remember to work on a lesson or study if we don’t see that happening.
One aspect that was discussed in class was working memory and the importance of practicing this. The example I can think of is when I teach them suffixes and prefixes we have charts across the room and your children travel and “collect” in their minds a line of words with the same root and different suffixes (i.e. jump, jumpy, jumping) and bring them back to write on their papers. We also started a new way to practice visually last week by looking at a picture of 20 objects for 30 seconds and then recording what they remember. We have now done this three times in the hopes of remembering more each time, your children have improved! You might enjoy practicing at home by remembering someone’s phone number and dialing it, an address and then searching directions, remembering prices for items in a store, etc.
Flexibility is another skill to learn! Much of school is predictable and the same, but in changing the schedule or the rules of a game it actually supports flexibility in children. I have seen your children naturally do this with games in the gym when they make up new rules or even a whole new game. Perhaps you can try this with a favorite card game or board game at home.
Lastly, our 6th year students have been promoted to Canadian Delegates for Montessori Model United Nations!