We had a fantastic field trip to the Wolf Conservation Center! Our morning started with an educational segment inside. We learned about the differences between wolves and coyotes, foxes, and dogs and where current wolf populations live in the United States. We learned about the decline of wolf populations and how wolf conservation centers like the one we visited are helping to repopulate wolves. We also learned about the important and positive impact wolves have on nature and their role in keeping a healthy balance in the environment.

We then moved outside to the wolf enclosures to continue learning. We met the four ambassador wolves, Zephyr, Alawa, Nikai, and Atka. We learned about what they eat and watched as our guide fed them. We also learned why wolves roll in scents and got to see this behavior first hand.

This was a valuable field trip because it was incredible to get such a close look at wolves and it educated the children about the importance of conservation. Thank you to David Lam, Maria Fuller, Karen Widdows, Kianna Manns, and Elizabeth Sankey for helping out on this trip!

We have had a fun and busy week in Lower Elementary. This week the Third-year students gave a lesson to the class about The Months of the Year. We learned about the names of the months and their origins. The names are based on Roman gods, goddesses, and rulers and on Latin words.

Second-year students learned how to read and use common protractors. They also learned to construct angles with their protractors. They enjoyed transitioning from the Montessori protractor to the common protractor.

We are all excited about our upcoming musical! Each morning we gather together with Upper Elementary and practice songs and lines. It is such a lovely way to start our day! The children are doing a wonderful job learning their parts and they are very enthusiastic about practicing.

Grady and Rex returned last Tuesday to continue listening to their human friends in Lower Elementary read. All of the children have had turns reading and will continue to get the opportunity to read to Grady and Rex through the end of the year.

In our history lessons, we are learning about time. In addition to the children working on timelines of their own lives, we are learning about ways time is represented. These lessons will prepare the children for the use of timelines as well as help them to orient themselves in time. We will work with the concepts of dates, eras, and centuries. Last week we represented the year 2018 with the golden bead material. We stretched out two thousand chains, one ten bar, and eight unit beads in the hallway and counted them. The golden bead material is very familiar to the children from their beginning math work and using it to represent our year helps the children to understand the concept of how many years we have counted. These history lessons will continue over the next few weeks, ending with a study of Roman numerals.

We were all very excited to have Miss Linda, the director of our Elementary play, visit with us on Monday and Wednesday. On Monday she got to know the children and introduced the play and some of the characters. Linda returned on Wednesday and the children had the chance to audition for parts. I was fortunate to sit in on their auditions. They all did a fabulous job reading lines and singing solos in front of classmates. We are looking forward to making some casting decisions and sharing them with you as soon as possible.

Grady and Rex were back this week to listen as the children took turns reading to them. Each child anxiously awaits his or her turn and all are enjoying this special time with the dogs.

In Montessori, when introducing new lessons in biology, we start by observing live animals and plants before using classroom materials. Third year students are studying botany this year and they learned about moss this week. We took a walk and harvested some moss and looked closely at it with a magnifying glass. After working with the moss card material, the students were able to identify some of the external parts on the real plant. We will keep the moss on our biology shelf to give all of the children the chance to get a closer look.

March 1st was Baba Marta Day. Veronica and Oliver gave a short presentation about this Bulgarian holiday and gave everyone traditional red and white yarn bracelets, called martenitzas. The white symbolizes the melting snow and the red the strong spring/summer sun. The exchange of martenitzas is in hopes of spring coming soon and is also to wish the recipients health and happiness during the year. They are removed and hung on a tree when we see a sign of spring, such as a blossoming tree. Thank you to the Antov family for sharing this wonderful tradition with us!