Newsletter

January Newsletter 2012

Dear Parents,

We wish you a happy and healthy new year and hope you had an enjoyable holiday season.

Thank you all again for all the beautiful presents you gave us. They are truly appreciated!

January is the cosy month. The Christmas/Channuka excitement is over, but there is lots of “telling” to do – everyone is anxious to share their holiday experiences – as well as show their Christmas presents. “Talk time” becomes extended and the children may bring in new presents they would like to show at circle time

Outside, it is cold, wet and often uninviting, but we still try to spend time outdoors daily and bundle up well for the play-ground.

The “Winter” theme normally dominates January. Although the weather is letting us down a little when it comes to “winter”, we shall still be cutting out paper snowflakes to decorate the windows as this exercise can give the children valuable cutting practice and it might make us all feel a little more ‘wintery’. Snowmen will also figure in art activities, as will white paint in all art work. A winter mural can be an enjoyable community effort.

Another larger theme we shall be starting this month is “Planets and our Universe”. We shall talk about the planets’ names, shapes and sizes and try to construct our solar system. Then of course we shall make rockets and spaceships and talk about the possibility of life on other planets.

By January the children should be so much at home in the classroom that they are well able to work independently for longer periods of time, giving the teachers the opportunity to work with individuals on a one to one basis. January is a good month for starting on individual longer term projects, such as sewing or special art projects, which require more individualised supervision.

Parent-teacher conferences will be held daily from January 18 th so please sign up should you be interested in a little chat.

On Monday, January 30 th we would like to visit the Planetarium to see the show “Ein Mal Pluto und zurück”. Details will follow.

During the Month of January we shall have two trainees, Anna and George. Anna’s little sister was with us a few years ago and George belonged to our first set of pupils. We are so pleased he has returned!

Happy January!

Your Montessori team

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December Newsletter 2011

Dear parents,

With great leaps and bounds the end of the year 2011 has arrived.

In November we celebrated St. Martin’s Day by making lanterns, talking about St. Martin and going for our traditional lantern walk. Luckily the weather was so nice that we were able to enjoy the walk, the sausages, cacao, ‘Glühwein’ and bonfire.

Thanks to Jodi Thanksgiving was celebrated at the preschool this year with a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving snack (Turkey, mashed potato, sweet corn , cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie). Thank you so much for sharing with us all!

We also talked about the Pilgrims and Indians, turkeys, harvest and giving thanks. Many visitors commented on the beautiful turkey and Indian artwork of the children hanging on the preschool bulletin boards.

December is the month that is not long enough. There is so much to do before the holidays start that it can be a month of stress as well as fun! The children become increasingly excited as the month progresses. We will be busy decorating our room for the festive season and making little surprises, so please don’t stay around too long when you bring your child as we can’t start when you are around and the mornings simply seem to be over before we can turn around twice.

Our Christmas party to which all parents and siblings are invited will take place on Friday, December 16 th.

The play will begin at 9:00a.m. After the play we will offer a small snack and then busy ourselves with baking Christmas cookies and artwork. At approximately 11:30a.m. we shall have snack. After snack there will be another play followed by joyful carol singing. Should the children then want to take a breath of fresh air we will go out to the playground.

The winter holidays start on December 23rd.

We look forward to greeting you again on January 4 th , parents well-rested and children happy and eager to start the new year working, playing and learning with us. Have a happy festive season!

Your Montessori team

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October Newsletter 2011

Dear Parents,

Autumn has finally arrived. Nature is showing itself from a most beautiful side. We often have fine weather in October and go on walks whenever we can. Finding chestnuts and acorns gives us the chance to do lots of sorting and counting activities and we look at the shapes of the leaves and learn their names. Leaves are everywhere. The time for collecting red, yellow and brown leaves and making autumn collages with interesting pieces of nature the nearby forest has to offer, has begun!

On Wednesday we had a wonderful forest day for the weather was absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately our fieldtrip to the theatre was rather disappointing. Luckily our children could not really relate to “Buddel” the mole or the other animals and plants in the forest. The actors’ language and behaviour was definitely not the best! I was really grateful that Jody and Haruka (the accompanying parents) are not native German speakers. The best time of the field trip was at the playground.

In keeping with the season we will be talking about hibernation of squirrels, hedgehogs and other animals and about the birds that prefer living in warmer climates during winter.

The colours that will dominate the artwork will be orange, brown and yellow but will change into orange and black, the closer we get to Halloween. Towards the middle of the month we shall be busy making ghosts, bats, spiders and jack-o-lanterns. We shall draw them, trace them, cut them out etc.

The cooking project this month will be pumpkin soup after we have carved a Jack-o-lantern out of a biggish pumpkin.

Our Halloween party will be on Monday October 28 th.

This year we will not have a certain topic. The children and you can come dressed up as you like. Preferably spooky – but not too spooky so as not to frighten the children.

A list for a special snack for the party will be hanging on the door a week before the party.

As the weather in autumn can also be quite nasty please remember that we will go out every day, may it be windy, cold or rainy, so please, please dress your children accordingly.

A warm welcome Asa who started preschool at the beginning of the month. We are also looking forward to welcoming Ajda and Rami, who will start in the middle of October.

During our ‚nature month‘ we look forward to beautiful walks in our neighbourhood and many projects with leaves, acorns, chestnuts, beechnuts and berries and a wonderful party.

Have a happy October!

Your Montessori team

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September Newsletter 2011

Dear Parents,

Well, I was a little disappointed, that nobody mentioned that there hadn’t been a parent letter since July but then finally Uwe (Hanna’s dad) wrote me an email ‘demanding’ one J. I am so pleased that at least one parent missed my letter!

August and September are the settling-in-months for our newcomers, the months in which the children get to know each other and routines are established. A lot of time is spent working individually with the children, showing them how the materials are used.

The themes this month are ‘apples’ and “sunflowers”.

The first theme involved the drawing of apples, tracing and cutting them out, apple printing and sewing. The wonderful products can be admired on the bulletin boards, walls and hanging from the branches in the entrance hall.

The second theme will also involve drawing, tracing and cutting, handprint sunflowers and sunflower collages.

We shall talk about what you can make out of sunflowers and taste some sunflower seeds and – bread at circle time.

Last year Elisabeth invited us all to her home to pick apples. Maybe someone else also has some heavily laden apple trees in their garden and would like to invite us all around to help?

Thank you Barbara for the big bucket of apples you donated to the pre-school. We all enjoyed the apples immensely!

As a cooking project we plan to make sunflower-seed-bread, which we shall enjoy with butter at snack-time. And maybe we can also make some apple sauce.

On Thursday September 22 nd we shall go to some gardens (Laubenpiper) to look at the beautiful sunflowers and to see whether my father-in-law still has a few apples on his tree, even though he says he hasn’t. We will then go to the neighbouring playground and will be back at the pre-school by 13:15.

Thank you for the new sand which has finally arrived. The children have had great fun digging out the old sand/soil and have already played happily in the new sand.

We look forward to a busy, warm September, during which we can spend lots of time out-doors in our atrium garden and to a happy new school term.

Your Montessori team

Montessori Preschool | Taylorstr. 16 | 14195 Berlin | Germany