A kind and gentle North Austin community school
This morning everyone arrived in costume for some Halloween fun with witches & skeletons, turtles & sharks, Batman & Violet, and even a unicorn and an entomologist! We can’t lie, we missed our usual costume parade, Sing-a-Long and Parent Social and other fun from yesteryear, but kids love their pretend play and of course costumes […]
新年快樂 !! Back by popular demand… Many thanks to the Grandma of one of our students for her wonderful lesson on the Lunar New Year. We learned about dragons, dumplings, firecrackers, and how at this time of year it’s nice to get a haircut and visit friends and relatives! Best of all, everyone got a […]
At HMS, we regularly talk with children about death as part of the natural life cycle. After all, the children have seen dead bugs, some have had pets die or have even experienced death in the family. Death is a part of life so this is not a topic that we shy away from when […]
We routinely change out the materials on our shelves. With the turn of the calendar and the change in the weather, this weekend the teachers were busy making new works. The children were eager to try out the new materials, including a variety of counting works, coloring calaveras, basting water into pumpkin molds and the ever-popular […]
Like many Montessori Schools, we go out of our way to celebrate birthdays. We do so in a way that emphasizes the passage of time a child’s life. The children discuss how the Earth goes around the sun each year, getting an idea of their place in time. Essentially these are among the first History and Science lessons […]
Valentine’s Day is a popular one for children. We started a few weeks ago with various heart-shaped materials on our shelves (why do we rotate our shelves?) and discussions of what and who we love. This week, students brought in their homemade Valentines to the school, and, like past years, the holiday culminated with our […]
After a break from the classroom for the holidays, this morning the students were eager to get back to their Montessori works. As usual after breaks from school the children arrived to find the usual Montessori materials on the shelves (middle and bottom photos), mixed in with some new items to work with (top photo).
Since the first of the month, our older kids have been working collaboratively to make a wall calendar. Along with circle-time discussions, especially birthday celebrations, calendars are essential to children learning about the basic concepts of present and past, the beginnings of our history curriculum. Calendars also teach us about the days of the week and […]
See some of the love that’s been going around the last couple of weeks…
We love to represent holidays in our classroom. December is perhaps the most obvious example of this, so we thought this would be a good time to explain how these works fit into our Montessori curriculum.
First a physician and later a psychologist, social worker and pedagogue before these professions existed, or certainly before women were “allowed” to hold these jobs, Dr Maria Montessori was a brilliant mind working far before her time. Born on this day in 1870, Maria Montessori grew up the daughter of a civil servant and a well-educated mother. […]
We went and did it again–we had an awesome camping trip to wrap up the month of April. As always, it’s so nice to see everyone outside of the confines of school. It was so much fun, we’re gonna do it twice next year! Here are some of the highlights…