Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child. -Maria Montessori

Peace education is a basic tenet of the Montessori philosophy. In the 3-6 environment, studying the seven continents, including their people and cultures, provides a global view of our world. As Montessori teachers, practicing and teaching peace, kindness, and acceptance is a natural part of our day. Dr. Maria Montessori believed we should think of education as peace, not education for peace. She also believed that young children were our hope for eliminating conflict and instilling peace throughout the world. Dr. Montessori, as always, knew that lecturing children would accomplish very little and that to truly understand peace they would need to discover it for themselves.

Typically to celebrate Peace Day, we participate in “Sing Peace Around The World.”  Beginning in New Zealand and ending in Hawaii, Montessori schools around the world sing “Light A Candle For Peace” for five minutes.  Here at FWM, we gathered together and sang with the entire school, early Wednesday morning.  It was a powerful moment and reminder of the importance of teaching and modeling peace to everyone we interact with.  So for 24 hours, this special song was sung in a different part of the world by Montessori children.  Wishing everyone a peaceful week!

Kaoutar & Michelle

We know it takes time for the new rhythm of school days to become familiar. So, while we are taking one step at a time, we are slowly building the foundations for a smooth, exciting school year.

It just a few short days, we as a class are learning:

• how to navigate our way around the environment
• how to wait for a lesson
• the routines of our school day
• how to prepare for snack and lunch independently
• about being part of a large group meeting by listening and sharing
• care of self and care of the environment

Our returning friends have been role models for our new friends.  It’s a wonderful opportunity for them to be a leader. It wasn’t so very long ago that they were new to the classroom themselves and they accept this new responsibility with excitement and confidence.

A question we frequently hear from parents is, “What can I do at home to help my child be successful at school?” One way to do so is to guide your child to become as independent as possible. This independence is guided by your child’s age and ability. So there are no hard and fast rules to follow. A few important areas to focus on would be setting up and cleaning up their lunch, putting on and taking off coats and boots, toileting themselves, packing and unpacking their backpacks, and carefully putting their toys away when they are done.  This process is also one step at a time.

Here’s to new beginnings and a peaceful, fun school year for everyone!

Wishing you all a week filled with peace and love!

Kaoutar and Michelle

Saying goodbye to our children is always a difficult moment after spending a whole year growing up together, learning, and bonding. It is so precious to hear the children say “I love you.” or “I’m going to miss you in summer.” Some children express love with a warm hug and a sparkle of joy in their eyes. Others show love with big smiles that shine on their adorable and happy faces. It is a very satisfying and joyful feeling to watch our children share their passion and confidence with us. I also want to thank each child for all the warmth, beautiful memories, and learning we have shared throughout the year.

Thank you, parents, for allowing us to be your child’s teachers. It has been a wonderful and rewarding year for us.

Lots of love,

Kaoutar and Sara  

Summer is almost here. This is our favorite time of the year. One way to start the season off is to talk about the ocean theme and care for the environment. Soon we can start heading to the beach and the children always have been fascinated with sea creatures, shells, and of course, playing in the sand.

At our nature table, we include a natural large shell and a magnifier for the children to explore its details. This is also an important sensory experience for the children to hold, touch, and feel the shell in their hands. Our water sensory table looks like an open aquarium. It has manipulative fish, sea shells, blue beads, scooping cups, and blue water. The children take turns to cool down with the water sensory table and feel each piece in the ocean bin. We also have seashell sorting cards with labels. It includes a beautiful shell collection and matching cards. The cards have the name of the shell which introduces new terminology for the child. There is something very special about seashells and the children enjoy these activities.

We have our Field Day planned for Tuesday, June 7th. Just a reminder to have your child dressed in comfortable clothes and sneakers and not to forget their water bottles! We’re looking forward to a whole morning outside with lots of fun activities planned by Ms. Pam.

Wishing you a peaceful  weekend,

Kaoutar and Sara

One of the many gifts a Montessori education brings is a lifelong love for geography. There are two main purposes of presenting geography to our three to seven–year-old children. First, to help the children visualize the Earth and localize our country and state, and second, to learn about other countries and cultural differences.

Maria Montessori divides geography into physical geography, cultural geography, political geography, and cartography. We introduce physical geography to three year old children through the sandpaper globe and show the land and water. The political geography includes the globe of the continents, the painted globe, and the puzzle map of the world with the continent outline map that is known as control of errors.

Every day, the children visit the Geography area, either to explore the globes or to use the continent puzzle maps. Our classroom has just three year and four-year-old children. However, there is always a level at which even the youngest children can have a sensory experience that will prepare them for a deeper understanding in the future.

Wishing you a peaceful long weekend.
Kaoutar and Sara

Last week the children were so engaged in learning sounds around us and we continued into this week by learning about our birds theme and we came up with more listening games to add to our theme. Listening to birds’ sounds added to the children’s excitement and learning. This is a simple, yet effective activity of seeing photos of different birds and listening to the sounds they make. The children were so engaged and also enjoyed imitating the birds’ sounds. We also learned about the life cycle of a duck and a robin and their chicks. The children loved the book Have you Heard the Nesting Bird. This is an enjoyable book about unique bird songs with beautifully illustrated bird pictures. This week we also released our three beautiful butterflies on the playground. It was a very beautiful moment watching the children so keen on following butterflies and wishing them a happy life.

Have a great weekend,
Kaoutar and Sara

On Thursday, we had a visitor from the EverWonder Children’s Museum.  She facilitated with the class some scientific experiments to help the children “see” sounds. We hear all different types of sounds every day, however, have you ever explored sound at a visual level? How is a sound created? Through some scientific activities presented to the class, we learned that sound is a type of wave and the children had a chance to visualize sound waves by exploring a variety of sound experiments.

First, our guest explained the significance of being a scientist by listening, observing, and asking questions about things around us. Then, she asked each child about their favorite sound?

• Soren likes lion sounds
• Jonathan loves dog woofs 
• Levi likes cat sounds
• Carter prefers dog sounds
• Ella V. likes elephant and cheetah sounds
• Rusher prefers to hear a dinosaur roar
• David loves birds’ tweets
• Joey likes the piano sounds
• Christopher loves dogs and banjo sounds
• Lucia loves unicorn sounds
• Remington likes cricket sounds

It was very sweet to hear the preferences of each child and observe their engagement. Our visitor and sound expert also read a book about different sounds around us. Then, using different recycled tools to demonstrate the relationship between sound and wave, we explored sound vibration levels and learned how the vibration size determines the volume. A larger vibration yields a louder sound and a smaller wave results in a softer sound. Our visitor also talked about rain sticks and how people in the past who lived in rainforests used them to send messages to one another. The cool visual experiments helped us see the passage of sound through matter and learn how sound travels through solids, liquids, and gases. The children enjoyed being little scientists, experimenting with different sounds around us. They also had lots of fun creating their rainstick and bringing it home.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Kaoutar and Sara