The Saplings Times
May 8-12, 2023
-Maria Montessori
The regatta last Saturday was so fun! It was great to see several Sapling families there racing and volunteering. They were all super excited to see each other and to have the opportunity to spend time together outside of school.
We took our work outside this week with an outdoor Writer's Workshop. The Saplings have been learning about narrative, opinion, and informational writing this year. This Writer's Workshop was a narrative piece based on the story starter, "This morning I woke up and realized that I had turned into..." with the guideline that they were to imagine that they had turned into an insect of their choosing. We had so much fun with this! We plan to edit these stories and write final drafts that will be available for you all to read on the last day of school.
Writer's Workshop
Setting up work spaces
Let the creativity flow!
Sharing our stories
Classroom Utensils
Here are some fun highlights from our week.
Playing Migration
Skip Counting with Bead Chains
Spring Scavenger Hunt
Missing gear!
Important note: Pick up and drop off
We are currently experiencing a large number of late arrivals and pick ups each day. This message is to share with you the impact that has on your child's learning and day as a whole in the hopes that this can be remedied.
Our program begins at 8:15. At that time, each lower el classroom meets for a morning meeting. During our meeting, we greet each other, hear about what the day entails, and often go over directions for our first activity of the day. When a student misses this part of the day, they are missing so many important pieces of our classroom! Community building is essential to the success of our classroom. Also, when a student has missed the directions to an activity, it creates an unfortunate circumstance in which that student feels confused and anxious as they try to catch up with what the class is doing. It may also mean that a teacher's attention, which should be focused on the whole class and the lesson at hand, is pulled away to help that student understand the directions that have just been given. It may also mean that a student isn't able to join an activity, in the case that they arrive when the activity is over, or they have to be left behind to wait for the class to return from a far away location. In both cases, they've missed a valuable learning experience.
Dismissal runs from 2:45-3:00 each day. Teachers have from 3:00-3:30 as prep time. It is a short window of time to wrap up the day and prepare for the next day's learning. Preparation outside of instruction time is essential to your child's learning. When teachers don't have adequate time to prepare, the richness of our lessons is impacted. With some our lower el students regularly being picked up later than 3:00, it eats away at that precious prep time and affects our ability to provide the depth of instruction that we so want to provide each day.
Please know that we understand that busy and hectic days happen to us all! We are addressing the recurring and frequent (some daily) instances that are impacting the learning of our students. Thank you for taking the time to read this important message and thank you, in advance, for helping us get a grip on this problem!