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Celebrating Veterans’ Day

TNSM’s assistant (6-9) teacher Sunshine Woodward shared some of her experiences as a veteran with the (6-9) class today. Sunshine enlisted in the National Guard in 2001 and was deployed to Iraq in 2004 where she remained for 14 months. She continued to serve in the National Guard for 8 years. Sunshine showed pictures of riding in a Veterans’ Day parade in her hometown. She described what it was like to wear a uniform every day and to face the 120 degree temperatures in Iraq. The children also learned that our Facilities Manager, Yance Pyle, served 8 years in the …

Fifth grade fables

Shawn Dougherty taught at The New School for 22 years before retiring. Her daughter Ceara Comstock attended TNSM as a student, became a Montessori teacher herself, and has been teaching in The New School Montessori’s (9-12) program for over a decade. For the past 8 years, Ceara has invited her mother back to lead the fifth graders in creating a collective book of fables. The fifth graders compose their own fables, illustrate them, and then work with Shawn to create the actual book! Here are some photos of this year’s project as well as several books from the past 8 years.       

Planting Seeds in Hopes of Chia Pet-like Results

Colleen Blumer and her kindergarten students planted grass seeds in small plastic bottles. Once the seeds have sprouted, the children will tape their photo to the container. Hopefully, in a week or so, each child will have grown a healthy head of green hair.  

Preprimary students learned about their skeletal system.

  Preprimary teacher Colleen Blumer placed a true-to-size foam human skeleton on the floor for her students to study. They measured their own bodies against the model’s and found their elbows and knees lined up nicely but that the skeleton had an over-sized big toe! When Colleen encouraged the children to draw a skeleton, they said it was too hard. Colleen replied, “Can you draw a circle? Can you draw a straight line? Then you can draw a skeleton.” Students were surprised to see how connecting lines and circles could result in a picture of a skeleton. And just in time for Halloween!

A spooky day of singing.

The Enrichment Center’s music and dance studio was visited today by some very scary skeletons walking down the street with their bony arms outstretched in song. They changed their tune and began stirring up some witches brew. All in all, it was a very spooky afternoon of singing led by accomplished music  teacher Andrea Rosenthal Warnken at the piano.

Mayuko Okano created origami works for the preprimary children.

  As an intern in The New School Montessori’s preprimary program, Mayuko Okano has been a wonderful addition to our teaching staff. This week she prepared some beautiful origami works for the children. The video below shows teachers and children singing about 5 little pumpkins- and if you look closely, you can see that the pumpkins are made from folded pieces of orange paper.

November Menu

The November menu is available on the school’s lunch page. Click here to read about our school’s lunch philosophy or to get a printable pdf of the menu.  

Appreciating difference the Montessori way: hands-on, with time for reflection

Third-grade students spent some time today wearing a blindfold to better understand the challenges sight-impaired people face. They practiced walking up and down the stairs and noticed feeling more vulnerable. They walked across a room and felt the changes in their balance and the loss of having a reference point to guide their way. They learned that their hearing could help them be more aware what was going on around them. Students recorded their reflection from the experiences into their journals. Third-level students listened to a guest speaker today who was invited to TNSM by Civics teacher, Johnnye White. The group discussed: Ways …

DIY home renovation – Halloween style.

TNSM’s art teacher, Robin Hartmann, challenges her students each year to create shoe-box houses decorated for the Halloween season. Whether sprucing up the dining room, the family room or the kitchen, “nails and spiders”  seem to work equally well in every room of the Halloween house.

“Who Am I?” is coming soon…

Each year at TNSM, elementary students celebrate Halloween in a special way. The slideshow above shows some of the famous characters we identified last year from their clever costumes and spoken clues about their lives. The 6th graders share their love of anatomy in a “D’em Bones” song that lists bones from (head) parietal bone to (toe) the distal phalange. We are looking forward to this year’s celebration on Friday, October 31. Our typical schedule is listed below: At 12:30 the elementary children celebrate Halloween by having a party outdoors at recess. Parents sign up to bring healthy snacks and to help with crafts and games. …