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V
olume 2, Issue 2 | November 2015
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Message from Matt Simberg, M.Ed.
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It is so gratifying to know you have a great team supporting the successful running of a school. Whether you are a teacher, head of school, business owner or parent there is one way to know things are being done right and trust has been established. From November 11th to November 14th I joined Alexander Chechetto and Sarah Esmail along with Donna Esmail in New York City for the first International Youth Earth Summit (IYES). Children and staff came together and had a successful two and a half days without me there. Dr. Maria Montessori said that you can tell that a classroom is normalized if the teacher can leave the room and the class acts as if he/she is still there.
Being normalized essentially means that you are engaged and there is little to no deviation from daily tasks that are to be achieved. You do not need an authority figure constantly present to ensure success. As a head of school, a teacher and a parent this was a rewarding experience to be able to witness from afar. So, I want to thank the MSOE staff, parents and children for their support, hard work, dedication and trust!
Additionally, a lot of good work has continued over the past month with the faculty and students. We had our very first fire drill which was successful, and we all visited the fire station. There has been great collaboration between adolescents, elementary and primary in the classrooms and on our walks to the park. It is a truly gratifying experience and privilege to join in these experiences with your children.
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Toddler/Primary Update
This month in the Toddler/Primary classroom we read about the Mayflower, painted ships and learned about the pilgrims.
We talked about how hard the winter was and about the Native Americans. In
practical life the children really enjoyed practicing how to sew and do more advanced practical life like silver polishing. The children also nailed golf pegs into clay. We are getting ready to do holiday projects.
As part of daily language activities the children concentrated on vowel sounds in their drawings. We continued reading and sounding out words. I told more of the vowel story, introducing the phonograms.
The children enjoyed matching geometric shapes like the pink tower to the base. We also did group partners up to ten to begin learning our math facts. Different types of triangles including isosceles, equilateral and scalene are becoming more and more familiar.
We started talking about the different countries in North and South America. We also learned the parts of a fire engine, visited the fire station and painted fire engines. The children started painting cursive letters with brushes and continued with pointillism painting. Matching colors to the different farm animals and naming the colors is a favorite activity. Students started bringing home Read With Me bags with phonograms so they can practice reading with parents. We have been singing the Going on a Bear Hunt song as well as My Aunt Came Back by Steve & Greg, which the children love.
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Elementary/Adolescent Update
On November 2nd, Shea Anderson and Sebastian Watts (Right, last names) joined the elementary class. They were very excited, ready, and welcomed with open arms. It has been a pretty seamless transition for them, and they are both a wonderful addition to our class. The elementary classroom has been buzzing with great work. Children are working on a variety of things. Some of those works include continuing with a timeline of uniforms from various wars, lessons on the history of life and human beings, cursive, telling time, spelling, verb conjugation, writing reports about the planets, making skits, suffixes, learning about the parts and functions of a plant, basic math computation and understanding that our number system is based on base ten and learning to count from different bases such as base 5 where 32 base ten is 3 tens and 2 units and that is equivalent to 112 base 5.
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A Fruitful Open House
Our first Open House was very fruitful. A special thank you to all our ambassadorial families who supported us. We have several observations scheduled for the coming weeks. Our students will have several opportunities to demonstrate the good work they have been doing in the classroom.
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Beyond the Laces
by Matthew Simberg
Back in October I met a really good person named Bob Salomon. He is the author of a children's book called "Beyond the Laces." After speaking with him and realizing that getting his message about kindness out was more important to him than making money, I asked him about using his book to help us with fundraising. So, I want to present this idea to you. Proceeds from the sale of the book would go towards the Montessori Model United Nations, class trips, going outs, materials, or even sending a child to school in Haiti. Please let me know your thoughts so we can see if this is worthwhile for us to do based on willingness to participate.
His website is
www.beyondthelaces.com for more information
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Give Thanks and Give Back!
We are so grateful to those parents who have written positive reviews on our social media pages like Facebook and Great Schools. Now through December 11th, when you write a gratitude review for MSOE, you and our school will be entered to win a prize at GreatSchools.org This is one of the best ways to express your appreciation for all we do here at MSOE.
Please visit www.greatschools.org/grateful and leave a positive review. Thank you!!!
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Photo Galleries
Our students have been participating in several exciting trips and activities and we will be adding photo galleries to our gallery page on the parent portal of our website. Please visit the gallery to see and download photos of your children enjoying, learning and experiencing so many exiting things.
Click here and log in to visit our Photo Gallery
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