A kind, gentle North Austin community school
“To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.” –Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence Children ask questions! As teachers, we seek to enable them to answer their own questions. What kinds of things are magnetic? What floats and what sinks? From pouring water between different containers […]
On weekdays our students come to school to work. On Saturday, their parents came to work–and great things happened: a bigger garden, a new playhouse, an outdoor water filter, cleaned and sealed decks, and new tree stumps. Good times!
Last weekend many of our parents attended a fun-filled workshop led by our wonderful art teacher, Dorte. Parents learned first-hand what it’s like to be in the Art section of our school. But, don’t take our word for it. Hear it in their own words, and pictures! “It’s like art therapy!” “I really enjoyed getting a […]
Kids move!
One of our awesome grandparents returned for an encore performance of last year’s geology lessons. This time he brought all-new rocks, except for one special request by the students. The meteorite made a return visit–we just had to see the “space rock” again!
Our classroom smells wonderful today, after a morning of assembling a home-and-body mister and bath salts. Many thanks to one of our moms for volunteering her time to help the children assemble misters and bath salts to take home! Mister, step 1: Add Water Mister Steps 2 & 3: Add essential oils, then shake […]
It’s true, holidays are exciting times. Valentine’s Day is not until next week, but we have already been seeing it for the past few weeks. The children are choosing to wear red and pink, and we’ve been seeing hearts everywhere. We are sewing hearts, drawing hearts, perforating hearts… even finding them in the shape of octopus […]
Much of the time our students spend at school is focused on developing their sense of order in the world, with the aim of improving their academic self and self-confidence, but we can’t help but also notice and enjoy the extent to which children enjoy and grow outside of the classroom–on the playground. The playground is intentionally […]
A Montessori classroom is ever-changing. Of course, the pink tower, counting beads, red rods and many more materials are always available to students. But in an effort to keep the kids’ interest and connect the classroom to the outside world there is an on-going rotation of works. Since children cannot help but to notice the […]
As we finish up our fall semester, we reflect on where we’ve come since August. This fall, like past years, we have enjoyed a new cohort of two-year-olds. It is lovely to watch them learn how our classroom operates while developing coordination and a sense of order. We have always incorporated two-year olds into our classroom, […]
As we approach Thanksgiving, our students are sharing their gratitude in many ways. Last week, we started a book of gratitude, in which the students can write (or a teacher may write for them) something for which they are thankful. This morning, we are grateful that the mom of one of our students came in […]
Our students have had several examples of the circle of life recently. Death can be a topic that adults hesitate to discuss with children, but in truth it is all around us. In October, we had several examples. Our students carefully planted a small garden of broccoli and kale. But one morning last week we […]