Montessori Buzz October 20, 2020
Dear MA Families and Friends,
Reminder: Contacting teachers / No-emails policy
To report absences, early/late pickup, or other messages to your child/ren’s teachers, please call the school and leave a message for the classroom. If it is before or after hours, you can dial the class extension to go straight to their voicemail. If it is during school hours, Reception will forward you to the classroom or the voicemail if the teachers aren’t able to pick up.
Reception is not responsible for forwarding emails to teachers; please call the school directly. Also, access to teachers via email was available only for at-home learning last year; now that we are back in the classroom please follow our no-emails policy.
A list of staff extensions is on the back of the printed YAG calendar and on the school’s website: https://montessori.on.ca/about/staff-faculty/.
Reminder: Elementary Growing Chefs!
The Elementary Growing Chefs! Ontario hot lunch program starts this week.
Attestation heads up
Great news! The Monthly Attestation links are available on the Parent Portal under the RESOURCES tab / September Return to School Resources and your child’s Classroom Bulletin Board under DOWNLOADS. (Click the Show More / Show Less button under Downloads if you don’t see the link.)
Please complete this attestation before the first day of each month to confirm that you’ve read the most recently updated Parent COVID Guide(s) as applicable to your family, and will follow our COVID-19 policies and procedures. The latest updates were made on October 15 and shared in the Oct. 15 COVID Update email to families; updates to our policies and processes are noted in the Guides with RED Updated [DATE] in the section heading.
Thank you for continuing to follow the many COVID processes and policies – for everyone’s health and safety. We want the in-school learning to continue!!
Elementary Scholastic program
Again this year, our school will participate in the Scholastic Reading Club program. Reading every day is the best way for children to become independent readers. New this year: Your order will ship to your home and you can order online whenever you want at https://classroomessentials.scholastic.ca/
When you checkout, please enter our Class Code (CLASS CODE – RC 41 95 22). When you use the Class Code our Library earns 20% of the value of the order in rewards and you get Free Shipping on your order of $35 or more*. The rewards earned can be put towards new books for the library, digital resources, and more! *Note: Orders under $35 will be charged $3.50.
Here’s to a great year of reading!
Photos from the week!
Casa Nomenclature
Montessori Nomenclature cards are a big part of the Montessori classroom. The word nomenclature comes from the Latin word nomenclatura – “assigning of names”. These cards are often used for building vocabulary and concepts.
Today we are learning about parts of the Apple. The exocorp (skin), mesocorp (flesh), and the endocorp (core) are some new names that we learned. We are going to try and trick our parents tonight and see if they know what these words mean. If we ask for some mesocorp without any exocorp we wonder what kind of snack they will make for us!!
Casa fall cleanup!
Fall is here in full form today. Despite the grey skies and chill in the air, our Westmount Casa class was very busy at playtime today helping to clean up our playground. They were very eager to collect the leaves. (Until they spotted a skunk who made its home under the slide!)
Upper El project on Lemurs
The workload and expectations increase significantly between Lower and Upper Elementary. So our Year Fours have been busy bees!
When they finished with their daily plans, Sophie and Katja followed their personal interests and researched lemurs. Over the past month, they worked together to type their findings and drew a couple adorable pictures! These brave souls even stood up in front of our class to share their project. David Attenborough would be impressed. We sure are!
Upper El – Mesopotamia study
Freddy and Spencer from UE2 worked hard on their Mesopotamia ziggurat! They researched, built and presented their project to the class!
Orange Shirt Day in Junior High
Written by: Layan Daher and Maitlyn Hsia
Edited by: Carter Mechefske and Elise Donaghy
Teachers that got this sent to them to edit: Mandy Denomme and Ann Sugrim
As you may already know from your child or children, these past few days from September 29 to October 1, Junior high has celebrated and discussed Orange Shirt Day. This is an event made to commemorate the survivors of Residential Schools all over Canada. As a community of young adults we took the time to discuss, understand and learn about the Residential Schools. We are the future of this world and we believe as a community that it’s important to learn from our mistakes in order to ensure a bright future for everyone.
We discussed the Why Every Child Matters Study, which had information about the mission of Orange Shirt Day. We then discussed with Ann on Tuesday afternoon in each of the Junior High Cohorts, and along with the handout we also received a Google Doc sheet which kind of summarized the whole thing. (Thank you, Ann, that was very helpful.) 🙂
The next day during Humanities, we talked about the Orange Shirt Day study handout, along with the Truth and Reconciliation which was formed on June 2, 2008. We also discussed the effect Residential Schools had on Canada’s First Nations Children. In particular Thomas Moore, who sadly is not here to recount his dreadful experience, was enrolled in the Regina Industrial School (which operated between the years 1891 and 1910.) He was the twenty second child to enroll in that school and was sent home because he had contracted the sickness tuberculosis, which he then later died because of it.
Everyone from Cohort A and B sat in a circle both on Wednesday and Thursday in their respective classrooms. There we had a discussion about some of the questions we answered the night before as homework and we talked about it as a group. We watched two videos that were made by young and older Canadians which were created for Orange Shirt Day. There were a lot of people talking about what is happening now that can help us embrace the Indigenous Cultures and organizations designed to help survivors through the immense trauma they experienced. Along with survivors telling us about their experiences in the residential schools, we also had the privilege to watch five year old Rosie Darling, who explained the story of the metis people from founders, proud, defeated, shamed, hidden, lost and found generations. (One of the class favorites from this video.)
Overall getting to learn about Orange shirt day and the Residential Schools was an impactful experience that we will never forget. We personally learned many lessons and even though Canada is considered to be one of the most welcoming and kind countries, mistakes were still made in the past. We understand now in the words of Kerry that it’s not always about what you’ve done, but what you will do to fix it. We hope as Montessori children go off into this world that they will be respectful to all walks of life. Because in the end we’re all living in this world together.
(A huge thank you to the staff and teachers involved for having us learn about Orange Shirt Day!)
Some MA Alumni love
The school received a shout-out from our favourite golden girl this week when CBC Sports aired the segment on alumna Maggie MacNeil that was filmed in our Junior High studio last fall. (See YAG October photo.) 😉
There’s no audio in Maggie’s hand-held video but here’s a look: https://twitter.com/i/status/1317547100113166337
