Sweet Treat!
Dear GMA School Family,
It was such a sweet treat having all of the students back to school this week after fall break! I hope you had some great family time to gather and regenerate.
Creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration are really colliding at Geist Montessori Academy, and the joy of learning is so alive! All of the foundational skills that the children worked so diligently on during the first nine weeks are now bursting into new directions and learning adventures. Imaginations are really coming to life as students share their thinking through book reports, research, and presentations.
This week, a synthesis of learning rich and diverse vocabulary exploded throughout GMA with our fun, school-wide Dictionary Day celebration. Thank you all for your love and care and for providing such incredible support to our learners. We are so grateful for our strong GMA school family. Please stay safe this weekend and read about some health and safety tips below.
Warmly,
Cindy Schuler
Executive Director
Geist Montessori Academy
(317) 813-4626
Of all things, love is the most potent.
-Maria Montessori
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Words Came Alive on Dictionary Day
Dictionary Day
Dictionary Day encourages students to improve the way they speak and write by enhancing and expanding their vocabulary. Creativity, critical thinking, and communication collided as vocabulary words came alive when students dressed and performed their words!
Dates to remember
Upcoming Events
11/6 Dine to Donate
11/11 Veterans Day
11/17 PTO Meeting, 6:30 p.m.
11/25-27 Thanksgiving Break
12/14-17 Winter Concert
12/15 School Board Meeting, 5:30 p.m.
12/18 End of Quarter
12/21-1/6 Winter Break
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Meet Maria Montessori | Meet Neil Armstrong | Meet Charlie Chaplin and Frida Kahlo |
Meet Maria Montessori
Meet Neil Armstrong
Meet Charlie Chaplin and Frida Kahlo
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Meet Jane Goodall | Meet George Taliaferro | Meet Ruth Bader Ginsburg |
Meet Jane Goodall
Meet George Taliaferro
Meet Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Meet Serena Williams | Meet Steven Spielberg | Meet Milton Hershey and Dr. Seuss |
Meet Serena Williams
Meet Steven Spielberg
Meet Milton Hershey and Dr. Seuss
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Meet Michael Jordan | Meet Frida Kahlo | Meet Joan of Arc |
Meet Michael Jordan
Meet Frida Kahlo
Meet Joan of Arc
Veterans Day Celebration
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Illuminating Proactive Health and Safety Tips
With the rise in COVID cases in Indiana, we cannot thank you enough for helping to keep our school family healthy and safe! Thank you for following all screening verification procedures and being proactive in healthy habits!
As we head into cold and flu season, please be mindful that if we should ever need to close suddenly, children will bring all of their shoes and learning supplies home in case of an extended break. Please remember to have your back-up childcare plans in place. Also, below, is a letter form the YMCA requesting input for the upcoming eLearning days in January.
Enjoy these tips by Dr. Aspy:
Hancock County Health Department
Halloween Trick-or-Treating Guidelines for COVID-19
As our Hancock County communities prepare for trick-or-treating and other holiday celebrations, the Hancock County Health Department (HCHD) wants to remind our residents that this year’s events will, and should look quite different while we are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Sandra Aspy, Health Officer for HCHD, is encouraging those hosting holiday celebrations to modify our traditional activities by providing proper physical distancing, hand sanitizing, and maintaining smaller groups. “The Center for Disease Control (CDC) describes many lower or moderate-risk activities that should be considered this Fall. We want Hancock County residents to avoid the higher-risk activities and choose the safer, lower-risk activities designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19” says Dr. Aspy.
The CDC guidelines provide several recommendations for safer ways to participate in Halloween than the traditional door to door trick-or-treating. A much safer alternative is one-way trick-or-treating where individually wrapped goodie bags are lined up for families to grab and go while continuing to social distance (such as at the end of a driveway or at the edge of a yard). Those participating in trick-or-treating must remember there are still many ways in which this virus can be spread. Children putting their hands in bowls of candy, those passing out treats not sanitizing between guests, and large groups of people in close contact throughout neighborhoods are all counterintuitive to the guidelines we have been following for months. The important thing to remember is that COVID-19 is still as infectious as it was in the Spring and we are not reducing our risks of spreading this virus just because we are wearing costumes and costume masks. In fact, a costume mask is no substitute for a cloth mask, but do not double up with one over the other because that can make it hard to breathe. Instead, consider a Halloween-themed cloth mask.
A costume mask can protect against spreading the coronavirus if it is like a regular cloth mask: two or more layers of breathable fabric covering the nose and mouth, without gaps around the face.
While our communities are enjoying these holiday activities, we must remember that if you may have COVID-19 or you may have been exposed to someone with COVID-19, you should not participate in in-person Halloween festivities and should not give out candy to trick-or-treaters.
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ROBOT parts needed for the Buckeye class
The Kindergarten Buckeye class is doing their first project of the year. Based on the interests of the children and resources available the topic of our project is ROBOTS!! We are in full on research mode for our project and part of the research process is exploring the topic through recyclable materials. At this time we are reaching out and asking anyone for donations to our class to help us.
Ideas for items: boxes (big and small), water bottles, bottle caps, wheels (big and small), straws, dryer vents, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, construction paper, string, dowels, pipe cleaners, pvc pipe, pool noodles... just to name a few.
We appreciate your support,
Mrs. Victoria Kortz
Geist Montessori Academy
Kindergarten Teacher
Below are some visual examples as well:
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| Here’s a diagram from the Smithsonian showing how the sun is lower in the sky in winter. We’re in between the June and December now, so imagine the sun in between these two positions. With shorter days and longer shadows, it’s cooling off.Plant leaves in summer are green because of chlorophyll. It’s an amazing chemical that creates energy from sunlight! The rest of us have to eat plants to get that energy. We can’t make our own. But the shorter days mean that there is less sunlight, less energy production in a leaf. | The plant does a constant check to see if a leaf is producing enough energy. It “asks” a chemical question with auxin, a plant hormone that shows health. Are you doing OK? Do you have as much auxin as the rest of us?Plants and animals notice it, too, and know what to do. I have been watching the most obvious part of the plan, falling leaves. We could use the fancier name, leaf abscission, to show that it’s not as simple as dropping a leaf. If you have trouble with the word abscission, remember you use scissors to cut something off. | When the leaf isn’t producing much because there isn’t enough light (because of winter), not enough water (because of drought), disease or too much salt, it has less auxin that the rest of the plant. Then the process of leaf abscission begins. The first step in leaf abscission is to move all valuables things out of the leaf to other parts of the plant, a salvage operation. Chlorophyll is amazing, something to save, so the plant breaks it down, takes it out, and stores it. Have you seen leaves like this with some parts still green around the veins? This salvage job is only partly done. The plant also extracts (mines) sugars and store them. We store sugars in a sugar jar or cookie jar. Plants store them in the stem or roots. |
Here’s a diagram from the Smithsonian showing how the sun is lower in the sky in winter. We’re in between the June and December now, so imagine the sun in between these two positions. With shorter days and longer shadows, it’s cooling off.Plant leaves in summer are green because of chlorophyll. It’s an amazing chemical that creates energy from sunlight! The rest of us have to eat plants to get that energy. We can’t make our own. But the shorter days mean that there is less sunlight, less energy production in a leaf.
The plant does a constant check to see if a leaf is producing enough energy. It “asks” a chemical question with auxin, a plant hormone that shows health. Are you doing OK? Do you have as much auxin as the rest of us?Plants and animals notice it, too, and know what to do. I have been watching the most obvious part of the plan, falling leaves. We could use the fancier name, leaf abscission, to show that it’s not as simple as dropping a leaf. If you have trouble with the word abscission, remember you use scissors to cut something off.
When the leaf isn’t producing much because there isn’t enough light (because of winter), not enough water (because of drought), disease or too much salt, it has less auxin that the rest of the plant. Then the process of leaf abscission begins.
The first step in leaf abscission is to move all valuables things out of the leaf to other parts of the plant, a salvage operation. Chlorophyll is amazing, something to save, so the plant breaks it down, takes it out, and stores it. Have you seen leaves like this with some parts still green around the veins? This salvage job is only partly done. The plant also extracts (mines) sugars and store them. We store sugars in a sugar jar or cookie jar. Plants store them in the stem or roots.
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| Next, the plant makes a protective cap where the leaf will fall off. You don’t want an open wound where each leaf is falls off, so the plant makes a scab or scar that protects from insects, bacteria and fungus. It does this before the leaf falls off. The first picture has the leaf still attached, with the scar already built but still hidden. The second shows the scar after the leaf fell (kind of looking like eyes and a mouth). | Here’s the really cool part, how the plant finally pushes off the leaf. Between the leaf scar and the leaf is a layer of plant cells with nothing much in them. The plant fills them with starch. Then, when the time is right, it floods the starch with water which swells up. (Did you eat starch (cereal) for breakfast? Did it swell up when you put milk on it?) The wet, swollen starch cracks the cell walls. With cracks in the cell walls it just takes a breeze or raindrops to finish making the leaf fall. | For insects, leaves falling are often part of their life plan, too. The weather is cold and there are no green leaves to eat so life in the winter would be too hard. But insects have ways of surviving the winter. They often lay eggs on the leaves at the end of the summer. The leaf abscises (falls) and the egg or larva falls with it gently to the ground where it will stay in a soft, moist layer of leaves until Spring. Juncos, Swainson thrushes, towhees, and other birds will scratch through the leaves looking for those hidden insects. Isn’t life amazing? |
Next, the plant makes a protective cap where the leaf will fall off. You don’t want an open wound where each leaf is falls off, so the plant makes a scab or scar that protects from insects, bacteria and fungus. It does this before the leaf falls off.
The first picture has the leaf still attached, with the scar already built but still hidden. The second shows the scar after the leaf fell (kind of looking like eyes and a mouth).
Here’s the really cool part, how the plant finally pushes off the leaf. Between the leaf scar and the leaf is a layer of plant cells with nothing much in them. The plant fills them with starch. Then, when the time is right, it floods the starch with water which swells up. (Did you eat starch (cereal) for breakfast? Did it swell up when you put milk on it?) The wet, swollen starch cracks the cell walls. With cracks in the cell walls it just takes a breeze or raindrops to finish making the leaf fall.
For insects, leaves falling are often part of their life plan, too. The weather is cold and there are no green leaves to eat so life in the winter would be too hard. But insects have ways of surviving the winter. They often lay eggs on the leaves at the end of the summer. The leaf abscises (falls) and the egg or larva falls with it gently to the ground where it will stay in a soft, moist layer of leaves until Spring. Juncos, Swainson thrushes, towhees, and other birds will scratch through the leaves looking for those hidden insects. Isn’t life amazing?
WE hope to see you at the next PTO Meeting!
Time: Oct 20, 2020 06:30 PM Indiana (East)
Every month on the Third Tuesday, until Dec 15, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 06:30 PM
Dec 15, 2020 06:30 PM
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
Monthly: https://zoom.us/meeting/tJEpcOyqqTMjE9GXc85TFfOC08_I-ORU2A6M/ics?icsToken=98tyKuCtqjwvGNOduRCCRowMBo_CZ-rwtlxEj_p6pBy9VhR1ZCzVZrp9G_9QIu2C
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/95475278995?pwd=YkM3eXBjUW1yd3N3bkJCNmdvdC91dz09
Meeting ID: 954 7527 8995
Passcode: jXU4tX
We love our School board
Our sincere appreciation is extended to our amazing school board for their service to GMA!
President: Uriah Ellis
Secretary: Lacey Willard
Treasurer: Andrew Cavallaro
Members at Large: Karen Swan and Mark Clark
Meeting Dates: December 15, 2020, February 16, 2021, April 20, 2021, June 15, 2021
*All Meetings begin at 5:30 pm and are open to the public. Meetings will be held at the physical school location or virtually, as needed.
We look forward to our continued partnership, as we grow together for the better!
Meet Geist Montessori Academy's Executive Director: Cindy Schuler
GMA Contact iNformation
PHONE NUMBER:
(317) 813-4626
ADDRESS:
6058 W. 900 N.
McCordsville, IN 46055