April 15-18 - Spring Break, extended day only

April 19 - Spring Break, all programs closed

April 22 - Spring Break, extended day only

April 23 - Annual Report and STEAM Night (see notes below)

April 23-25 - Stan-10 Testing, Grades 4-8

April 26 - Field Day

April 27 - Campus Work Day and Touch-A-Truck (see notes below)

Please join us for the annual meeting in the main office. As every year, the financial data will be available for review. The CPA will be present to answer any questions. Additionally, the slate of nominees for next year will be presented.

Thank you to all who attended our grade level meetings with parents. It was great to hear how pleased families are with the wonderful Montessori education their children are receiving at all levels. Many thanks to the amazing faculty and staff who work so hard each day to make MSA the best school in Anderson!

Update on our STEAM certification review:

Dr. Jordan, current SCISA Executive Director, and Mr. Watt, past SCISA Executive Director, conducted interviews with some faculty and students. Their focus was primarily on our Middle School program, but through the course of our faculty sharing the STEAM opportunities that our students have had, Dr. Jordan and Mr. Watt saw and heard clearly that we are taking steps in all levels and have plans to continue including STEAM campus-wide.

We are one of the few schools to be approved for STEAM certification. Our MS program was granted STEAM certification as of Monday, April 8 (Yay!) and STEAM certification for our other programs is pending until we submit documentation of our upcoming school-wide history/technology STEAM project. This is great news and will result in whole-school STEAM certification much sooner than we had expected.

Our FULL STEAM AHEAD night (April 23) will truly be a celebration of this achievement! This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase some of the exciting hands-on, real-world work that we do! You will be hearing more about STEAM as we continue to integrate this curriculum.

Time for a spring spruce up for our campus before the weather gets too warm. Current needs are general yard work, window washing, and pressure washing. Please bring your own tools, including pressure washer if that is your interest. Please let us know you are coming by emailing jemery@msasc.org. Thank you so much for volunteering your time!

Lower Elementary students did an amazing job putting on the student-led play combining the books The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home on Thursday. The students constructed the sets, costumes, and props for the play. They performed a dress-rehearsal show for their fellow MSA students and teachers in the morning and another show after the annual barbecue in the evening. Upper Elementary and High School students graciously provided their younger peers with technical and musical assistance during the play. See below for some images from the two performances, and click here to see many more photos from the day.

See this link for more photos from the play!

Each year, Middle and High School students participate in Ship It Day (formerly Fed Ex Day), during which they have one day to complete a project and present it to their peers. The students are allowed to choose nearly any task they would like to work on and may work alone or in small groups. The projects this year encompassed a wide range of activities, including knitting and tailoring, playing and constructing instruments, writing children's books, building an air cannon, putting together a Mostly Printed CNC, designing and building a Popsicle stick castle and a cardboard piggy bank, baking brownies for taste-testing and an MSA-themed cake, wood-working projects including a seven-foot-tall maple scale-model Eiffel Tower and a step stool, crafting a 9 Square board, waxing a car, painting abstract art, and deconstructing and repairing the peace garden fountain (which included relocating seven frogs that had settled in the bottom basin). The projects truly demonstrated the Montessori philosophy of following the child, and the children all worked hard and created amazing works.

The images below are just a few shots from the day. Click here to view a gallery containing many more photos of the design, creation, and presentation process. Thank you to Mrs. Miller and Middle School students Lizzie and Alessia for contributing their pictures to the gallery!

The annual barbecue was held Thursday night before the Lower Elementary play. Thank you to everyone who came out to support the school and to Creekside Barbecue for catering!

The Middle School went on a field trip this week to Nashville, Tennessee to learn about the history of the city and the region. Thank you to Carter Wolken for sharing photos from the field trip!

We recently posted videos of two our toddlers rolling up a nap mat and a work mat on the Montessori School of Anderson Facebook page. Click the links or the thumbnails below to watch our toddlers practicing their practical life skills.

During their MAPS (Mentors for Academic and Personal Success) meeting last Friday, the high school students took part in several team-building exercises, including playing human Scrabble and turning old junk from around the school into art.

These toddlers in the Toddler One classroom are practicing fine motor skills using a variety of works.

Upper Elementary students have been carefully treading by their classroom's front door and anxiously awaiting the past several weeks as a bird has built its nest and incubated its eggs in the wreath hanging on the door. On Friday afternoon, the first of the baby birds hatched from its egg and waited on mom to feed it.