December 12th, 2025

Hello families,

This week we settled into longer work periods, allowing students more uninterrupted time to focus and engage with both familiar and seasonal tasks. Here is what we got up to:

We created some winter themed art using chalk pastel, paper and marker.

In Literacy, we learned about he FLSZ rule — one-syllable words that end in f, l, s, or z often have that final letter doubled (for example: bell, puff, miss). We also learned about the digraph "ck". A digraph is where two letters work together to make one sound.

Roll and reads can be found here on the UFLI website and are great for home practice:

https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/foundations/toolbox/42-53/

We also learned about adjectives while decorating and describing our own Christmas trees. Ask your child what the Montessori grammar symbol is for adjectives (the blue triangle).We practiced noticing the colors, shapes, sizes, and textures of our trees and ornaments, using "juicy" adjectives to make our descriptions more vivid.

Spelling practice using our spelling tic-tac-toe boards. There will be no spelling quiz next week.

In science/literacy we sequenced and retold the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? using the shadow puppets we created. See below for some very cute videos of the kids performing! Ask your child what they worked on for their performance and what parts of their puppet are opaque, transparent and translucent.

We completed our Medicine Wheels with room 12. In Montessori we support children in understanding themselves as whole learners and in recognizing their connections to others. The teachings from the Medicine Wheel compliment this beautifully, helping students reflect on their actions, build self-awareness, and strengthen their sense of belonging and connection in our classroom community.

In mathematics we continued learning about tallies and completed our December calendars using an ABBC pattern. We also learned two new winter math games. In the new year we will be begin learning about place value.

Winter/Christmas themed games in gym!

Our whole school has been coming together for a special initiative: creating cards for members of our community! Students are pairing up with their buddies to craft thoughtful messages to brighten someone’s day. It’s wonderful to see our students collaborating, showing kindness, and celebrating the joy of giving.