Dear Parents,

Warm greetings! We are sure everyone enjoyed the first snow day, with the children getting a preview of the upcoming winter season.

The Chanukah festival is here!! At this time of the year, Gimmel friends are happily engaged in Chanukah art activities. These activities are important, because they will not only enhance their creativity but also teach them about the different aspects of our culture and traditions. In order to understand the worldwide reach of this festival, our afternoon students will identify all the places where Chanukah is celebrated, referring to the Montessori globe.

In our hands-on science experiments, the children will use an olive press to create oil from olives. This is a fun and messy experiment that everyone loves and it also requires a good deal of planning, focus, and fine motor coordination. Our afternoon group will perform the "oil-lamp experiment," which involves making a basic lava lamp in a clear jar to demonstrate the concepts of density and chemical reactions; combining water, oil, food coloring and a fizzing tablet (to produce gas) will create colorful bubbly blobs that rise and fall.

In geography, we will introduce landforms and waterforms. The students will use concrete Montessori landform trays which provide them with tangible representations of abstract geographical concepts. Continued practice with these materials will enable the students to identify, recognize, distinguish and comprehend relationships between different features of the earth. We will start with the lake and island landforms. The children like to imagine what they might see or do if they were to visit one of these special places - for example, ducks on a lake or fish swimming in the waves around an island. Perhaps over the winter break, take a look at a map or stroll down a trail and see if they can help you spot any of the landforms we have studied.

Please ensure your child is appropriately dressed for the weather including winter shoes for outdoor activities; additionally, an indoor light jacket will be helpful to keep your young ones warm during the work cycle. 

Have a wonderful week!

Morahs Uma, Kara, Kristy and Chaya