Hilltop Montessori School's mission is for students to
practice responsible independence in a caring community
of curious, critical learners and thoughtful citizens.
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LE-MS students walked to Upland on Thursday as a part of Mountain Days activities.
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Next Week
Monday, February 3
- LE & UE Knitting, 3:15-4:30
- MS Basketball Game at Putney Central, 4pm
Tuesday, February 4
- MS Warren Rally, 10am
- UE Basketball, 3:15-4:30
Wednesday, February 5
- LE & UE Knitting, 3:15-4:30
- MS Basketball Game at Putney Central, 4pm
Thursday, February 6
Friday, February 7
- LE Theater Field Trip, 11am
- UE basketball, 3:15-4:30
Saturday, February 8
- Curriculum Morning, 9am-12pm. All parents please attend - sign up at the front desk!
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Upcoming
Monday, February 10
- LE & UE Knitting, 3:15-4:30
- MS Basketball Game at Twin Valley, 3:45pm
Tuesday, February 11
- Resilience Film Screening, 5:30-7:30pm
Wednesday, February 12
- Equity & Anti-Bias Workgroup Meeting, 9-10am
- UE Poetry Performance, 1:30pm
- LE & UE Knitting, 3:15-4:30
- MS Basketball Game at Twin Valley, 3:45pm
Thursday, February 13
- MS Montpellier Field Trip, 8:30-5pm
- Final Mountain Days of the Year, 12pm-3pm
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Notes from the Head of School
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This year the Middle School has been transforming their curriculum to have a focus on Climate Change, the challenging and critical topic of our times. There are many youth leaders across the globe and we are working to teach and learn information with an eye to action, while also supporting our students in developing all the competencies that have always been a part of our “skills based” program.
A recent project that focused on Climate Action was the students’ “Society Films”. This project is presented in the curriculum every two years of the cycle. Each student chooses a person in our local community, researches them, contacts them (an adult they don’t know!), interviews them, and plans a photo shoot (to capture the themes and information developed from the interview). With the final data in hand, they learn how to edit on “Final Cut Pro”, choose music, and put together a photo-montage that conveys this person and their role in our community. This year, the people selected all fit the theme of addressing Climate Change in some way. The films were screened at a wonderfully successful event earlier in January to a community audience that included many of the subjects themselves. A collection of these films can now also be viewed on our
website.
The project also involves creating a final montage in the form of a one dimensional collage. All 21 collages are on display at Amy’s Bakery during the month of February. Please stop in to Amy’s to see the collages and support this lovely local business, owned by a supportive Hilltop alum parent.
A current parent was moved to write to the teachers after the film showing. Her note is included here:
My heart is full with deep appreciation after last night’s viewing at 118 Elliot. I am so impressed by how you all rose up to change the curriculum and develop projects for the Middle School students to address the reality of climate change. You took the thing that is causing the students and most of us so much anxiety about the future and are addressing it head on! As a psychologist, I have learned that the best way to manage anxiety is to move TOWARD it. And here you are - providing the knowledge to understand what is truly going on scientifically, and then sending them out to find ideas about how people already are addressing this issue - through government, local business and art. AND you taught them the tools and skills to spread the word through filmmaking. Providing our students with this hands on knowledge base, skill, and inspiration is a true gift. This project was a demonstration of true teaching, for our students and the surrounding community. Plus, you made it fun! I am so grateful for the work that you are doing and so happy that my daughters get to be part of it. Thank you!
~Debra
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Important Information for All HMS Families
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This last week families should have received;
- 2020 Annual Report and Calendar
- MS and EL student assessments
- An email announcing our new online enrollment program, TADS.
If you did not receive a calendar, please feel free to stop by the front desk and grab one! If you have any questions about, or did not receive, the emails, please contact the
front desk.
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*Photo cred: Alachua County Library District
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The Toddler Room is jumping on the eco-brick making bandwagon! A great practical life activity to fill plastic containers with single-use plastic wraps and bags. When Hilltop has enough of these "bricks", we'll be able to build something from recycled materials!
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Very thorough table scrubbing.
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Enjoy the weekend!
-Ellie, Sarah, and Françoise
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Acquiring self discipline isn’t instantaneous. Children need many experiences and much practice for intrinsic motivation to occur...finding intrinsic motivation (not external rewards) results in a feeling of deep satisfaction and leads to becoming self disciplined.
There are several key elements that factor into the beginnings of establishing the path to self discipline. First, careful modeling from the people the child loves and connects with. The relationship between the parent and child, and teacher and child is imperative to building trust. “Everyone needs to know that you care, before they care about what you know.”
Observation is key. Watching the child’s movements, observing their choices,and engaging in conversations help guide the design and materials of the prepared environment to meet the needs of each child.
Dr. Maria Montessori designed materials for individual children so that each child can practice and master their particular need. Patience is practiced while waiting to have a turn at the work a friend is using. Length and difficulty of work increases (simple to complex) which supports delayed gratification that longer more involved work requires.
Consistent routine and expectations establish boundaries that, once internalized, reduce anxiety and minimize questions so that the child can focus on the task itself.
Our hope is that each child will then be on their way to responsible independence as curious critical learners and thoughtful citizens.
Please come to
Curriculum Morning on Saturday, February 8th, from 9 to 12 and partner with us to support developing your child's discipline.
See you there!
-The Children's
House Staff
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In Writer’s Workshop, we have been focusing on refining our writing. This means making sure end marks and capital letters are where they need to be, and sentences are complete and as interesting as we can make them. Older students are practicing paragraph writing with individual writing pieces. Our youngest writers are improving upon their sentence writing, in addition to composing group paragraphs. The topics reflect the many interests of the Lower El writers: game collections, dance, spending time with Mom, family pets, and much more. Below is a group paragraph the Youngers composed on Wednesday:
Morning Meeting
Every day in Lower El, we have morning meeting. During morning meeting, we discuss our day and what we are going to learn about. We also do energizers. These are exercises to get us all awake. We greet each other, too. For example, we sometimes do the beach ball greeting. We roll or throw the ball to someone while saying “good morning” to them. Our morning meetings are filled with fun and interesting activities. After our morning meeting, we go to work!
Enjoy your weekend!
Kerstin, Amelia, and Patrick
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Guest Teacher Tamara introduces
Infinity Street, a new math work,
at morning meeting.
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Dylan and Oliver layout the
Infinity Street work.
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Isaac enjoys some free time by building patterns with Unifix cubes.
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Dylan and Eleanor work together on a paragraph sort during Writers' Workshop.
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The class is galloping ahead with our variety of works, including: chemistry element studies, math works, and spelling. The class also took an initial look at the mid-1800s art accompanying early notions around Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny, something we will be returning to in coming weeks. Cara made an original crossword puzzle to test her word study group’s memory of recent vocabulary words. We finished our group read aloud book,
Bud Not Buddy
, and started
The Benefits of Being an Octopus
, by local author Ann Braden.
As Black Lives Matter Week at School kicks off the first week of February and opening Black History Month, Amber and Marco have been leading workshops about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement with the Upper El students and teachers. The intention behind these workshops is to have open and honest conversations and reflections about race, equity, discrimination, and empowerment. The workshops include discussions, art making, group activities, and a guest speaker, Shanta Lee Gander. As a poet and writer, she spoke about the significant role poetry and the arts have played in expression of the African American experience. The talks have brought up lots of questions, emotions, and ideas. Sometimes these conversations can be uncomfortable, but we believe that by exploring these hard topics in our safe environment, we are contributing to a more thoughtful and compassionate school and society. We are happy to share our resources with any parents who would like to continue these conversations at home. (You can take a look at the guiding principles of the BLM movement that we’ve been discussing here
BLM Principles and
BLM Kid Friendly Principles
. Another good resource for those interested in learning more is this great overview of the BLM movement. (
Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters
), which concludes with a helpful answer to the often heard, “But don’t all lives matter?” question. Another resource, (
A District Profile | Black Lives Matters At School
) recounts how the movement was integrated into a week of action by a school district in Rochester, New York.
The poetry connection is timely, as the class is moving towards our upcoming
Poetry Performance.
We look forward to seeing you there on
Wednesday, February 12, at 1:30 p.m.
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Jade and Finn use transparency paper to take a fraction of a fraction (multiplication!)
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Lucas and Talia taking in the BLM values.
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Kaiya and Esme write reflections
about the BLM material.
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Jade gives an art lesson in preparation
for the Poetry performance.
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Ayla and Sophia use transparencies
to multiply fractions.
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The group considers their impressions
of the 13 core principles.
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Matai, Sebastian, and Finn look
at two of the BLM core values.
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Jenn and Tom getting ready for serving
the rice and beans Monday lunch.
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This week, students in the middle school continued investigating how a warming climate affects our planetary systems. Last week, students used tinfoil, heat lamps, and a basin of water to model how sea ice reflects incoming solar radiation and keeps the oceans cool at the poles. When the tin foil was removed (as the sea ice is melting), the water warmed up much faster. This lead to a discussion of positive feedback loops, in which the effects of a phenomena cause that phenomena, such as sea ice melting, to increase over time. This week, students modeled the effects of a warming ocean on sea level and discovered that water expands when heated. They hypothesized that some of the sea level rise already being experienced around the world is due to this thermal expansion. These investigations, along with our fall study of carbon sequestration in forests, provide students with the scientific conceptual understanding to make a coherent argument for human action to reverse climate change. To that end, and inspired by a visit from Brattleboro state representative Mollie Burke, students are drafting letters to our governor and state treasurer to urge action on climate legislation and divestment. Taking action in this way provides a powerful antidote to the despair we often feel in the face of the climate emergency.
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Coffee Cart Crew setting up.
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Representative Molly Burke
speaks about transportation.
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Upcycling
We need your help!
The amount of clothing being thrown away in the world is scary. More than 15 million tons of used textile waste is generated each year in the United States. Only 2.6 million tons of that were recycled and the rest was sent to a landfill. We wanted to address this problem in the form of upcycling. Upcycling is the name for recycling something in such a way that the resulting product is of a higher value than the original item. You can help us with this project by donating any of your old clothes to the box in the lobby.
-Ilona, Marian, Ellie, Annelise, and Ava
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To learn more, you can visit the film's website
here.
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ATTENTION COMMUNITY MEMBERS!
The Brattleboro Ski Hill located at Living Memorial Park is looking for volunteers to help run their lift
this weekend, in order for them to stay open for the public. Please consider helping out our local Ski Hill where our students enjoy Mountain Days. If you are interested in helping, please contact Hannah at 802-380-1965 or
neffhannah@yahoo.com.
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The 98th Annual Harris Hill Ski Jump
is looking for volunteers!
Dates: February 15 and 16
Hours needed: anywhere from 9:00-3:00, depending on volunteers position
Volunteers get free admission!
Please contact Kathryn Einig by
email
or cell (802) 258-1983 for more information or to sign up.
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Nature Explorers Winter Camp, Feb 17 - 21
with Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center
9am to 3pm, for children in grades 1 to 4, come for 1 day or all 5.
We will create art for animals, follow the tracks of animals, build snow shelters, learn how animals survive winter, and explore the wonders of winter.
These dates will take place at the Winston Prouty campus in Brattleboro.
Members: $45/day, $210/week, Non-members $55/day, $250/week
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