Cobham Montessori School

Newsletter Week Commencing 20th January 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

NOTICES

The Big Garden Birdwatch

We hope you all managed to do an hour of birdwatching over the weekend. Please do bring back your sheets so that we can enter them online and then the children can also work with the data in the Elementary classroom.

Coffee Morning - Behaviour

Thank you for those of you who were able to attend our coffee morning on Friday. We discussed the topic of behaviour and how we can support our children when they are displaying behaviour which is either inappropriate or undesirable!

Since September the attendance of our coffee mornings has been rather low and we are wondering if parents and carers would find it easier to attend at a different time? Or if Zoom might be an easier platform for everyone? Please could you let us know your preferences by emailing Katykatybartlett@cobhammontessori.co.ukwith days/times/in person/on zoom/subjects of interest etc. Many thanks.

THIS (LAST) WEEK IN SCHOOL

Children's House

This week, all the children had plenty of things to share with their friends at the Children's House. From reading their reading books to friends, showing handmade cushions, or sharing important things with them. 'I have a tiger at home, and I snuggle her when I go to bed.', 'I have an uncle. He lives in Barcelona.' to which other children said: 'We know, we know.',

In yoga, Miss Hayley's story was about a selfish crocodile who never let any animal into his river. When the Selfish Crocodile finds himself in terrible pain, no one wants to help him except one animal... It's a brilliant tale of friendship.

The children have been singing the song 'Make New Friends' with Miss Jess. This song comes from a poem written by Joseph Parry. The children have been singing this song during their work, lunch groups, and getting ready to go home. You might have heard it by now.

On Wednesday, we played song games with the children. The children entirely led this activity. Songs we sang were '10 Little Sausages Sitting on a Pan', '5 Speckled Frogs', and '5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer'.

For cooking this week, we made fruit skewers. Yes yes, the level is going up! We are aiming for a Michelin star. The children had to work cooperatively, cutting strawberries, pears, apples and bananas. Once all the fruits were ready, each child moved freely with their skewers to get the fruits they wanted. We could admire the different patterns and colours. One of the older children put into practice his knowledge of the diagraphs to read the label' bambooskewers.'

This week, a parent delighted us with a visit. She read 'David Attenborough' from the series Little People, BIG Dreams. The children might not have been as attentive this time to the lovely story as they were to our young visitor, Baby G.

Snapshot of the week:

Conversation between two children working together

Ch1: 'Can you wait for me? I am 1 year younger, so I go slower.'

Ch2: 'Ok, no worries. You are doing great.

Elementary

This week we have been drawing the children's attention to what they are learning by talking about meta-cognition. Meta-cognition is essentially "thinking about thinking" and by being aware ofhowwe are learning we can focus more fully onwhatwe are learning. As with anything that we consciously choose to do, the impact is greater and we hope the children retain more as a result.

Unusually we began the week with a trip to Painshill and a return to forest school after the Christmas break. We played the river game, noticing the different ways water moves throughout it's journey from highlands to lowlands: flowing fast at the top, falling over waterfalls or weirs, stopping at a dam, then meandering and flooding across lower, flatter lands. Our game took us all the way to the waterwheel where we were able to see it working - we worked out that the wheel is 195 years old and converts the motion of the water into a pump to pump water to the man-made lake in Painshill.

In Yoga Hayley got the children well warmed up with deep breathing and a sun salutation series. Then the children played a guessing game using their imaginations to pretend a wrapping paper tube was lots of different objects. The session continued with a series ofback bends, including bow pose; before finishing with thoughts for what we want to learn this year - many children put instruments or new crafts.

In Mandarin the children were reminded of the story of the Chinese Zodiac in preparation for the New Year of the Snake.

Finally, in sports we continue with tag rugby, which is not everyone's favourite. However, we have seen a huge improvement in the engagement and effort being put in by everyone.

We will need scooters on Wednesday and Friday, and pickup will be at Forest School on Wednesday.

Kind regards,

Yvonne