The Richness of Life ~ Reflections on a Stellar Year

It is hard to believe that the school year has come to a close.  It has just raced by!  It has been a very productive, harmonious and joyful year!  As we look back on our year, we remember all the wonderful moments we shared.  Here are some of them.

~ the beautiful work we did ~ 

parts of the plant by a 3 1/2 year old

tonging work by a 3 year old

a story by a 5 year old using the story alphabet

~ the birthdays and parties ~

celebrating birthday circle

Valentine's Day Party

~ learning and working together ~

a 4 year old helping a 3 year old learn the name and label the continents on our continents map

two 3 1/2  year olds happily reading pink words such as sun, hut

~ baking ~

making muffins

~ our end of year concert ~

singing the songs we love best of all for the people we love best of all

~ savouring the natural world around us ~

harvesting potatoes in our garden last fall

the joy of raking leaves

going for a winter nature walk

~ other joyful moments ~

using the parachute during weekly Music class

riding our bikes

our trip to the apple orchard

a visit from Santa!

These are some of the drops of small, precious moments that made our hearts smile, filled our days with joy and reminded us that our lives are rich indeed.

A huge THANK YOU to our parent community.  Your support, assistance, positive spirit and precious children have made this a stellar year!   We hope you all have a fantastic and safe summer!  We look forward to welcoming you back in the fall.

Yard Sale ~ Saturday, July 16 ~ 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

We invite you to visit our Yard Sale taking place on Saturday, July 16.  The teachers and many families from our school will be selling items.  Some of the proceeds from the sale will go towards purchasing items for our school. We look forward to seeing you there!

Plant and Animal Life Cycles ~ Exploring the Wonder of Our Natural World

When children come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength.

~ Maria Montessori



Since the beginning of her work over one hundred years ago, a basic tenet of Montessori's psychology and curriculum for children is the universal need for attachment to nature and the subsequent personality integration that evolves from outdoor activity.   The Montessori casa (preschool) curriculum should be filled with real experiences in nature.  Our little yellow school ~ with two playgrounds, towering pine trees, separate flower and vegetable gardens on half an acre of land ~ provides our students with numerous opportunities to become intimate with nature daily and throughout the year.

Preschool children are natural scientists who enjoy exploring the natural world.  The study of life cycles is an exciting way to learn about the biology of plants and animals and is rich in new vocabulary.  This year was chock full of experiences from the life cycles of an apple tree and pumpkin in the fall, to frogs, butterflies, ladybugs and dragonflies in the Spring.  The following is just a little taste of our life cycles work this year:


Life Cycle of a Ladybug

Here is a child's life cycle work.

Life Cycle of a Dragonfly


Here are Dragonfly Pupas and a Dragonfly that the children explored with magnifying glasses.  We found these specimens in one of our playgrounds.

We are so fortunate at our little yellow school that our children are able to experience nature daily, yet very few Montessori schools and daycares are able to offer children this level of intimacy with nature.  In today's world, a child's intimacy with nature on a day-to-day basis is fading.   Richard Louv has coined a term, "nature-deficit disorder" to describe the human costs of alienation from nature.   Richard Louv has written a very interesting book about this subject, Last Child in the Woods:  Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.  It is a wonderful book that gives all of us much to think about.

A Fraction-a-licious Lesson! ~ The Fraction Insets

The lessons on fractions are highly anticipated at our little yellow school.  They are introduced to children in their third year of the Montessori casa (preschool) program.  All of the children in the classroom are drawn to and fascinated by the two trays of red circles divided into many parts.

Parents who visit our school often marvel at the fact that we are teaching the children fractions.  For the children, it is just a natural progression of the Arithmetic materials.  The aim of the Fraction Insets materials is to introduce the child to the idea of fractions as the division of a whole into equal parts.

The children are introduced to the Fraction Insets and are invited to freely handle and explore them.  This includes taking out the sections, counting them, comparing them, etc.

Explain to the children that each circle represents a fraction, which is taking a whole (the circle) and breaking it into equal parts that are all exactly the same.

The children are then introduced to the names for the parts of each circle - whole, halves, thirds, etc.

Children are then able to go further by exploring numerators and denominators.


So why is this lesson so anticipated and so memorable?  Well, the lesson is introduced with food!  This year it was blueberry muffins that we cut into halves and then quarters to illustrate that fractions are part of our daily lives.  After eating his piece of blueberry muffin a child declared 'Fractions are fraction-a-licious!"

Our Study of the Universe and the Planets

In April we began our study of the Universe and the planets.  As is the way in Montessori education, we began with the large (the universe) and moved to the small (the planets). 

The children were fascinated to learn that we are part of the Milky Way Galaxy.  All the stars that our eyes can see in the sky are part of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Our Earth and all the planets are also part of this galaxy.  The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. 

We each made a spiral galaxy using sequins for the many stars and planets.

Our galaxies were so beautiful and sparkly!  We were finding sequins in our classrooms for weeks!

We then moved on to our Solar System.  We had a model of the Solar System in the classroom, along with individual planets to be manipulated and individual books on each planet.  These materials provided the children with many different options to explore the planets.  We read the individual planet books to discover more about each planet. The children were very sad to hear that Pluto used to be a planet but is now considered a dwarf planet.  They felt that now poor Pluto couldn't have any fun with the rest of the planets.  We were quite sad for days about this.

Some of the four, five and six year olds decided to make Planet Books.  Here are a few pages from a book made by a child who recently turned six.

A three year old in the classroom wanted to make a book too.  The beauty of the Montessori classroom is that each child moves at their own pace.  Our little three year old joined the older group and here is part of his Planet Book.  This little three year old was so proud to have printed all of the names and drawn the planets all by himself!

More Blog Posts to Come

Thank you to the parents at our school who enjoy visiting this site and to those of you around the world who visit regularly.  New blog posts are on their way!  So much has happened at our little yellow school over the past few months but there has been no time to share our good times with you.  I am currently writing blog posts about fractions, life cycles and the universe among others.  I should have some up later today or tomorrow. 
Thank you all once again.  Happy reading to come!

What Can We Do On A Rainy Spring Day?

Rain, Rain Go Away

Come Again Another Day

It has been raining off and on for close to a week now with more rain in the forecast.  The rain isn't going away when we sing our little nursery rhyme.  If we can't beat it, we may as well join it.  Today we dug out our school umbrellas and went for a walk in the rain on our property.

We discovered that the world is a very different place when it rains - it is quieter.  We were able to hear the rain falling and dripping off our towering pine trees and we watched worms wiggling on the walkways and parking lot.  We noticed our green, green grass and the budding leaves on our trees.

So rain, if you don't want to go away, just know that you aren't spoiling our fun.