November 2014

NEWS

Monday Morning Montessori Talks About the Kitchen

Primary Wish List - Ages 3 to 6

• Table and chair- the child’s feet should be able to comfortably touch the floor and their arms should rest on top of the table.• For beginning toddlers, choose a chair with sides (weaning chair). • Independent snack shelf. • A stool for your child to safely reach sink and counters.

Toddlers Wish List - Able to sit up to age 3

• Adaptable table and chair• Small stool• Area on kitchen shelves and in refrigerator for independent food works• Step by step cooking cards

Both Age Groups• CHILD-SIZED mixing bowls• wooden and plastic mixing spoons • bamboo cutting board• miniature whisk and mesh strainer• miniature cheese grater• vegetable peeler• small bamboo tongs• spatula•apple corer• egg slicer

• orange juicer• pouring pitcher• small rolling pin• safe cutter• wavy chopper• bouncy whisk• apron (dry and wet)• cups • plates• silverware

• placemat• napkin• small cutting board• broom• dust pan• crumb broom• rags• mop• bucket• bin for dirty dishes

I talked about the importance of your child independently being able to drink and eat a small snack. Where does your child eat their snack? Develop a cycle of activity for snack work:

1. Designate your space with an underlay (placemat) 2. Set your place with a plate, cup, napkin and silverware. 3. Serve yourself snack.4. Pour yourself some water.5. Say your blessing. 6. Eat! 7. Place your dirty dishes in a bin. 8. Put the underlay away. 9. Wipe off the table. 10. Push in the chair!

A small flower arrangement and a piece of art hung on the wall at the child’s sitting eye level would complete the perfect snack table area!

As your child gets older, add more to the sequence. A child can make egg salad with you a few times; as you see the child has memorized the sequence, use step by step cards (see below) or pic-tures so that they can make it independently.

A few of our favorite healthy snack cook books that offer these step by step instructions are:

Kids in the Kitchen by Sara Cotner and Kylie D’Alton http://www.amazon.com/Kids-Kitchen-Independence-Confidence-Montessori/dp/1477542043

Any of the cookbooks for kids by Mollie Katzen!

Please share your pictures of how you’ve made your kitchen more Montessori! Loree@stjamesdallas.org

Furniture sites:Tables and Chairs

http://www.wayfair.com/Wood-Designs-Tot-Size-Multi-Use-Table-21800-WDN1456.html http://www.wayfair.com/ECR4kids-8-Hardwood-Classroom-Toddler-Chair-ELR-18002-NY1706.html http://www.wayfair.com/KidKraft-Kids-4-Piece-Table-and-Chair-Set-26161-KK1055.html http://www.landofnod.com/grey-everlasting-adjustable-play-table/s164526

Stools and towershttp://www.hayneedle.com Guidecraft High Rise Step Up Item # HN-ID283http://www.amazon.com/Little-Partners-LP00401-Learning-Natural/dp/B001ECHXVC/ref=s-r_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1415208551&sr=8-7&keywords=kitchen+helper+step+stool http://www.amazon.com/Guidecraft-Step-Up-Kitchen-Helper-White/dp/B00D5FH1V8/ref=s-r_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1415208551&sr=8-3&keywords=kitchen+helper+step+stool

Utensils: www.forsmallhands.com or small gadgets found in stores.

MariaJose was born on November 15th at 3:56 a.m. She weighed 8 pounds and was 20.5” long.

Mom and baby are both doing well!

Welcome to the world MariaJose!

Dear Families,

It’s the month of giving thanks! We are all so blessed. We still hold on to fall, the harvest, the turning of leaves, and changing of the weather. It’s time for families to come together, to share their time. It is the time of sweet smells of cookies and pumpkin pies, and listening to family stories.

Now that the weather is changing, please make sure that your child has extra clothes that are warm! Remember, two of our main focuses are potty training and independence. Having appropriate clothing helps that process be a success.

MDO children very much enjoy learning life skills. Activities, which up until now have been going on around them, they can now do themselves: preparing snack, setting the table, sweeping the floor, etc. We also have many food preparation works, which the children love. You can do this at home by setting up a tray with the materials to cut fruit and/or vegetables. We continue working with shapes, color matching, painting, counting, singing, etc.

We are learning a new prayer song for this month, sung to the melody of “Jesus loves me”

“Thank you for the world so sweet,Thank you for the food we eat,Thank you for the birds that sing,Thank you Lord for everything.”

For most of our children the story of Pilgrims may be difficult to comprehend so we focus on the feelings of being “thankful” and “grateful”.

Your child’s art work is very important to them and it’s a chance to see their development over the year. It’s why we repeat so many of our projects.

As always, it’s a true pleasure caring for your children.

Thank you,Mrs. Eva, Mrs. Bianca and Ms. Mary

The MDO room continues to add new works. Many help to develop our students’ fine motor skills and keep them interested in doing the works. This ultimately builds concentration. One of the things we keep in mind when adding new works is to make them seasonal - so sorting work and gluing work have been very popular the past two weeks. Another way to “freshen up” an existing work is to make a small change to it. That creates new interest in the way the children explore the new materials.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been doing a lot more music movement activities. The children enjoy moving their bodies and dancing around. One of the children’s favorite songs encourages them to march and move in slow motion, pretending to move like a dinosaur, and much more. We have also introduced a lot of classic nursery rhymes and songs.

Mother’s Day Out

Yummy! This month we have been having fun preparing and cooking our Fall Salad - rice, black beans, corn, bell pepper, and cream cheese. Our whole room has been a multi-sensory learning haven. From preparing a salad to matching and smelling fresh garden herbs, to tweezing corn right off the cob, to transferring an assortment of beans to a pumpkin candy mold holder using measuring spoons.

We have also been color mixing our primary colors and painting on the easel with two colors of paint. Painting “Turkeys” and “Indian Corn” have been a big hit this month. With any big hit that includes paint in a toddler class, the hand washing work has also been a very busy place. All toddlers love running water and a soap dispenser, and there are a lot of steps in learning how to wash hands correctly. Happy Turkey Day, Gobble - Gobble!Mrs. Anna and Ms. Annabel

Toddler 1

Hello Toddler 2 Parents! I can’t believe November is over and we are gearing up for Christmas. We have been discussing being thankful. The children are thankful for their families, warm clothes and food. During group time we learned the sign for turkey, thankful, pumpkin pie, feast and saying Happy Thanksgiving. A big thank you to all the parents that helped in someway to make our feast a success, we appreciate it!

All month long the children worked diligently gluing feathers making turkey’s, turkey stamping, and we made Indian corn by dipping a Lego into brown, orange and yellow paint.

Michelle is working on transferring pumpkins with tongs.

Sofia is serving the snack of the month - Fall Harvest salad; it includes brown rice, edamame, black beans, corn, and red bell peppers. Yummy!

The colder weather is here now, please be sure to check that all coats,gloves, and hats are labeled with names in them. We hope everyone gets to slow down a little and spend some family time together over this Thanksgiving break.

Mrs. April, Mrs. Lily, and Ms. Eliane

Luke is working on his fine motor skills by buttoning the color feathers to the matching button. Thank you Mrs. Mary in MDO for making this for us!

Toddler 2

November has been a busy month in the Toddler 3 classroom! We have been fueling on art projects! The children are really loving to paint right now. We have done painting with brushes, cookie cutter stamping, and cork stamping with paint to create a fall leaf picture. Many of the three year olds have asked if we would trace their hands to paint. Art is always a great way to get engrossed in work!

The wind is picking up and it’s getting colder! Your little ones have been practicing putting on their jackets all by themselves! In the classroom we put their jackets on the floor with the hood to their toes, we sing: “You put the tag to your toes, your arms through the holes, flip it over your head and you’re ready to go.” The children love this song and you can see the pride in their faces when they accomplish this task without teacher help. Mittens and hats have also been an accept-ed challenge for them! Fastening and buttoning their jackets has been good practice as well! Ms. Mary from Mother’s Day out kindly made all the classes “Button Turkeys” to work on their fine motor buttoning skills; thanks Ms. Mary!

Thank you to all of the parents that helped volunteer to prepare all the plates and serve the chil-dren at the Thanksgiving Feast! The children did very well singing the prayer in unison and enjoying a meal all together Thanksgiving style!

Happy Thanksgiving,Ms. Coral, Jaymie, Amy, & Hanna

Virginia and Ryan enjoying their pumpkin muffin at our classroom feast!

Toddler 3

Leisel and Allison celebrated their Birthdays together this week! Happy Birthday girls!

The children have had a blast playing outside lately. They are enjoying the chilly but sunny weather!

Allison works hard to button the feathers on the turkey.

Aidan loves to paint. He wanted to trace his hands and paint them.

HappyThanksgiving

HappyThanksgiving

from our family to yoursfrom our family to yours

Primary 1Dear Families of Primary One,

The year is flying by and the children are learning and growing by leaps and bounds. In recent weeks we have had a huge focus on maintaining good hygiene and staying well! Children love washing hands with warm soapy water and you can often hear the hum of the birthday song as they soap up. Children also enjoy washing up after lunch and cleaning their plates and glasses in the sink.

In terms of academic pursuits, the classroom has been focused on learning the history of our nation and the celebration of Thanksgiving. We learned about pilgrims and the challenges they faced starting a new life in America. We also discussed the role of Native Americans in helping the pilgrims adapt.

With the recent inclement weather the children also had a few opportunities to explore our Imagination Playground! What a wonderful tool for helping children learn to work as a team! They use large foam blocks to build forts, aqueducts and any number of other creative structures. They love it!!

We can hardly believe the holiday season is here! Enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving and we look forward to all the fun in store for December!!

All the best,Ms. Charlotte and Ms. Kim

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and each year, this provides some great opportunities for discussions during rug time. Topics include our individual, personal blessings, and the things we do for others, particularly the food collection basket we have at the school. We have had fun singing Thanksgiving songs. The students always enjoy singing. We have an active, energetic class this year, so the Thanksgiving discussions are limited to a few minutes each day. During this brief time, it becomes clear that children understand gratitude in a very natural way, unobstructed by life experiences that prompt the rest of us to overthink things. We would all do well to re-learn a bit of this naive approach to our blessings.

Hand-in-hand with this goes a change in the weather, and it has come on quickly this year. I, for one, love the newness of the colder temperatures, and am enjoying it immensely. Ask me in February if it still feels so fresh! :)

The classroom has been very busy with work and socializing. The many, varied works in the classroom have kept the students mostly occupied, but not so much that they miss out on interaction among themselves. The teachers’ challenge is maintaining a healthy balance between scholarship and fellowship.

Ms. Marla and I feel blessed to have your children in our classroom. We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving week. Have fun, and enjoy!

All the best!Mrs. Barrineau and Ms. Marla

Primary 2

Our continent study for the month of November has been Australia. The children have loved learning about the unique animal species of Australia. Ask your child to sing “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” or tell you about the dingo, kangaroo, wallaby, platypus, and opossum. We have studied the territories of Australia, the flag, and Aborigine line paintings as well.

Patrick is practicing how to put on gloves

Brr! The colder weather has inspired a flurry of wintery practical life works in our classroom. The children have been using the dressing frames to practice opening and closing zippers, Vel-cro, hook and eye closures, and buttons. (Getting in and out of a coat often involves more than one kind of closure!) We have been singing the “Mittens Song” and learning to fit all ten fingers into a set of gloves. The three year olds were so excited about this lesson that they clapped and cheered! The children have also learned how to apply lip balm (Vaseline) on chapped lips and broken skin.

Eloise and Astrid made line-illustrations of the sun

Primary 3

Graham matching animals of Australia nomenclature cards

Our circle times have also included great discussions about the Thanksgiving story. Ms. Monica has been reading to the children about the Pilgrims’ journey to the New World each morning. We’ve talked about the difficulties of the journey, the struggle to build a life in the New World, and the Pilgrims’ relationships with the Native Americans. We hope these discussions enrich your child’s understanding of Thanksgiving as you celebrate together.

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving week! May we all stay warm, healthy, and be ever mindful of our blessings!

Ms. Tamara and Ms. Monica

November brought birthday celebrations for Alex Chaump, who turned five, and Canyon Cabrera, who turned four.

Our November birthday boys, Alex and Canyon

The children of Primary 4 had so much fun studying the history of the first Thanksgiving. We learned that pilgrim is the name for someone who travels to a new place for religious purposes. The children also learned that the pilgrims traveled from England to America on the Mayflower. Our kindergarten students did research to find out that life in America was difficult for the pil-grims, but a group of Native Americans helped them grow crops and hunt. The Kindergarteners thought it was interesting that the first Thanksgiving lasted for three whole days! The children enjoyed reading A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting. The story is about celebrating friends and family during Thanksgiving. After reading the story, everyone had a turn to share what they were thankful for. The most popular answers were family, friends, tacos, and pizza! Some favorite works this month were parts of a turkey and a cornucopia matching work. Chil-dren also wrote fall stories with the moveable alphabet and made leaf collages using the botany cabinet. We wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving!Miss Elizabeth and Mrs. Ashley

Primary 4

It has been an exciting month in art - we have been studying fall leaves! The Kindergartners did leaf rubbings from leaves found outside. They did rubbings of all different kinds of leaves - oak, live oak, Bradford pear, elm, crepe myrtle, and gingko. They did the rubbing with crayon, choosing colors and mixing colors to re-create a fall leaf. Then they cut out their leaves, and pasted them onto another sheet of paper to create a “falling leaves” collage. They are beautiful!

and TechnologyArt

The four year old’s traced their leaves - oak, maple, elm and an acorn. Then they colored the leaves with oil pastel. We worked on combining colors to make real-looking leaves. Then we took a wooden skewer and scraped away some of the oil pastel to make the veins of the leaf. The children loved this part! Then they cut out their leaves and pasted them onto another sheet of paper to create a collage.

In Technology, we have been working on math and art. The children love coloring pictures on the computer, and this month we focused on coloring pictures by doing addition. There is a simple addition problem in each color-by-number picture. Once the child finds the answer to the addition problem, they know what color to fill in that section! It has been a big hit! We have also been working hard on our tablet drawings. Each child has drawn at least two different pictures and they are doing a wonderful job! We have a few more drawings to do, and then we will put together our special project.

Happy Thanksgiving!Ms. Hanna

The after school care area continues to be a burst of activity. I have been thankful for the wonderful weather this school year, the children enjoy the outside time in the afternoon. We will continue to play outside each day but may need to shorten the playtime according to how comfortable the children are with the weather.

Each year the program is a little different. Some years the primary will play a lot of games or really like puzzles. This year they are in love with arts and crafts and of course, the building blocks remain a constant favorite. Every afternoon, the more glue sticks and markers, the better! We don’t use color sheets, just plain pieces of paper. I love how creative the primary students are with a blank canvas. The toddlers love their circle time, it is fun to hear their little voices singing all of their favorite songs. Like the primary students, they enjoy crafts as well. They enjoy stickers and crayons and are very proud of their work.

Please remember to send a jacket with your child. We have baskets that we keep the coats in. If your child is in Toddler One, Two or Three, you will find the baskets on top of the blue cubbies in the hall. If your child is in Primary One or Two, you will find the baskets by the back glass door. Primary Three and Four will leave their jackets in their cubbies. Please make sure to label your child’s jackets. The ASC staff is not as familiar as your child’s classroom teacher is with their jackets and it is difficult for them to help with jackets and if they are not labeled. If you are missing a jacket, please check the basket.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Lisa Wilson

ASC

November in Chapel is filled with thanks! One of my very favorite lessons in November comes from the New Testament. It’s the story of the Good Samaritan. As a Jewish man lay wounded on the side of the road, several people walked by without stopping to help. This continued until finally a man from Samaria came by. The Jews and Samaritans were known for not getting along. But this Samaritan man did something completely counterculture. He stopped. He helped the man up, took him to an inn and cared for him. All bills paid, no expectation of payback. Just kindness. Jesus uses this example of the Good Samaritan to ask the Disciples, “Who is your neighbor?” The answer? Everyone! What we can take from this story is the constant presence of love and kindness. Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors and enemy’s. I encourage us not to be limited to helping only those we know and care for, but also to strangers and “the least of these.”

This month the children at St. James were able to be Good Samaritans by donating canned foods to the Austin Street Shelter. Thank you for making this donation so successful! I know that the people who receive these gifts will be eternally grateful.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful to be the Christian Education Director at St. James. Each week with each new lesson, the children teach me something new about God’s BIG love. I am forever indebted to the children of St. James for teaching me more about grace and The Fathers love then I could ever teach them.

What are you thankful for? :)

Blessings,Ashley WoodruffChristian Education Director

Chapel