Cobham Montessori School

Newsletter W/C 16th September 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Updated Policies and Procedures

Please note that following our review of policies and procedures over the summer, the updated versions are now available for you to view on our website. We have a selection of the most important policies available on the website; however, for a full list, feel free to contact us.

Meet the Teacher

We have a Coffee Morning on Friday 27th September at 9am - for members of the Elementary community. Please come along for a chance to have an informal coffee and catch-up as we explore the upcoming year.

LAST WEEK IN SCHOOL

Children's House

In the Children's House, we spoke about our families in our morning group and who forms part of our family. 'My uncle lives in Spain’ , ‘baby Gigi is my sister.’

We have also been focusing on how we use our words and hands kindly. We have witnessed beautiful moments where an older child with much patience told a younger child getting ready to go home, 'Oh no, it is not like this. Let me show you how we do it.'. Or another one commenting of her friend's work: 'That's fabulous!, 'Beautiful numbers!' On one occasion, an older friend knocked down a plant, spreading all the soil on the floor. With no hesitation, two younger friends got the broom, dustpan and brush and helped her tidy up.

It was a busy week, where children have been counting long bead chains, doing Metal Insets, writing numbers and letters, sewing, building the Pink Tower, or painting on the easel for the first time. 'I am going to write these numbers for all my friends! 'I will put our booklet in the Book Corner so the younger children can see our numbers.'

We started the week with a parent visit. The parent shared his passions and hobbies with the children, such as baking, driving cars, and listening to music. The children ignited when the music started bursting from a speaker, and they had to imitate Indian movements. Bollywood, here we come! Still, on Thursday, we could hear, " Remember when your father came here to dance with us?"

We also welcomed Miss Hayley back for yoga, where she told a story about a goat that went to school. The goat had to tell his parents everything he did at school. At the end of the session, Miss Hayley sprinkled the children with 'magic dust' while the children were lying down with their eyes closed.

During ballet, the children continued practising their gallops and ballet poses.

During the singing session with Jess, the children sang a song about conkers. Jess brought a bag full of conkers for the children.

In the garden, a child noticed our cherry tomatoes were ready to be picked, so with the help of a friend, they picked them up for a snack. Well, that was the plan, as no cherry tomatoes were ever seen, but two very full and happy children came inside the Children's House.

The children enjoyed cooking gluten-free flapjacks. We just needed 3 ingredients: oats, ripe bananas and delicious dates. A treat from Miss Ashley. straight from Chef Max's garden in Dubai. What a treat! The children made some for the Elementary and Children's House teachers as we had extra dough. Aren't we spoilt?

We have included in our singing repertoire a new song “Miss Polly had a Dolly.’

At sports this week, the children have continued practising basketball. 'I have been practising bouncing with one hand at home!'. In Friday's session, some children were not listening, and there were some games the children hadn't had the chance to play. We will try again next week.

Elementary

The children are making good progress with their journals, our younger friends are still getting the hang of remembering to record all the work they're doing as well as putting in the times. These classroom systems can take a long time to bed-in so we need to ensure we're being consistent in these first few weeks. With that in mind we also need to ensure the children are reminded of the expectation to follow-up their work and to practise all the skills they need in order to make progress in the Elementary and beyond.

The animal research is still ongoing, with many groups exploring the different aspects of pet-care. Some are very keen to use the computer as their first port of call, but we have been gently guiding the children to look more closely at the books they already have! They have also been discovering that interviewing someone who is expert in a topic is another great way to glean information (we have many pert experts in our community!)

We were delighted that Yoga resumed this week; Miss Hayley kicked off the new year with some fun games and a lot of partner work. Unfortunately some of the members of the community were not able to listen respectfully, which meant they were unable to complete all the games they wanted to do.

Thursday saw our return to Tiltwood. The residents and children had really missed one another and we spent a very pleasant hour listening to calming music, mindfully colouring, playing games and making conversation.

On Friday we had another basketball session with coach Anthony, the group was split so that we could have two different games happening at each end of the court. Many of the children were very tired and we're definitely feeling that the "newness" of the term has worn off already!

A quick reminder that Mandarin will begin this week, the younger friends will have a normal collection time of 3.15 on Thursday, but the older friends who are attending Mandarin will finish at 3.45pm.

We will need scooters for Wednesday and Friday and pickup will be at Painshill on Wednesday.

We hope you all have a lovely week.

Kind regards,

Yvonne