Happy Holidays, Clearwater Families!

Greetings!

We just finished our Winter Solstice Celebration! Over the past week we've been reading about Winter Solstice celebrations all around the world and took a close look at the themes of light and welcoming back longer days! We discussed Hanukkah, Las Posadas, Soyal, and Teng Chieh and the holidays that we celebrate in our own homes. We had fun doing winter projects like making borax snowflakes, gift wrapping, and making gifts for each other (We're sad that we missed a lovely photo op with all of the children with their candles lit after receiving their gifts). Our community felt truly lovely and bright on this cold winter's day... that is until we had to pack up all our snow gear and send the children home pack-mule-style...  

We truly hope that all of you have a wonderful, relaxing, and rejuvenating holiday with your families and we will see you in 2018!

Warm regards,

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Clearwater Announcements: Trash Bags and Individual Conference Forms

Hello Clearwater Families!

We're gearing up for the end of the week, our Winter Solstice Celebration, and the upcoming holidays :)

We have two quick announcements for you:

1. Please send in a trash bag on Friday: To prepare for the upcoming days off, we would like to send home all of your child's winter gear, indoor shoes, and water bottles to be washed. This will also give the cleaning crew a chance to do a deep clean in our hallways.  If you could please send a plastic bag or trash bag with your child on Friday, this will help them have an easier time bringing all of their extra stuff home.

2. Individual conference forms: You will notice a stack of forms in your child's Thursday Folder tomorrow.  These are individual conferences that we have had with your children over the course of the semester. We discuss how things are going personally, with the community, and with their work. These have been truly wonderful conversations that have given us the opportunity to know each of your children on a deeper level. We often focus on just one area (i.e. personal, community, or academic), so you might notice some blank spaces.  If you get the chance, look over these individual conference forms over with your children. 

Have a wonderful evening and remainder of the week!

All the best,

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

December Newsletter

Hello Everyone!

Sorry this weeks newsletter is a little late. We hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend. We are working hard in anticipation for a fun week before winter break. 

Lessons We've Had

- Polygons

- Exchanging with Golden Beads

- Adjective Grammar Box

- NA Flags

- Addition Snake game 

- Compound words 

Upcoming Events & Reminders

Please continue to have winter gear at school for your child. It has been great to have each of them well equipped to have so much fun outside. 

Also, Winter Break starts December 23rd. We will come back to school on January 3rd. We hope you all have a great time with family and friends and enjoy some relaxation. 

Snack Volunteers Please check to see if your snack week is coming up. Click here to check and see if you would like to sign up for any other volunteer opportunities. Here's who's up in the next two weeks:

Dec. 11-15	Seamus Kane
Dec. 18-22	Simeon Thompson

Thank you all for a great first half of the school year!!!

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Clearwater Newsletter 11-22-2017

Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving! 

We just ended our day, celebrating with the Minnesota River classroom. The third years prepared a lovely feast with delicious snacks, center pieces and they were all very welcoming.  We said thanks, showed gratitude, feasted, and sang songs.  

We spent a good deal of this week reflecting on all of the things we are grateful for and it was heartwarming to hear what your children had to say.  On a similar note, we wanted to share something with you that our Head of School, Sam O'Brien, shared with the entire GRS faculty. This reading inspired us to reflect more intentionally about this time of year. If you can, take a look at this article: 

Thanks "giving" & "taking" perspectives & explaining privilege to young children

Lessons we've had

- Search for 10 with the snake game

- Constructive Triangles and equilateral triangles

- Writing about our precious objects

- Spelling - long i/short i

- Amphibian Study

- Exchange Game with Addition

- Sequencing with the knobless cylinders 

- Telling time: o'clock and half-past

Upcoming Events & Reminders 

Winter Clothing

This is a friendly reminder to help your child come prepared with winter gear for recess - help them be in charge of this. Here is the GRS policy for outdoor gear:

• If the temperature is 32 degrees F or below, a coat, hat/hood, and gloves/mittens are required.
• For Elementary: When snow is on the ground, boots and snow pants are necessary.  
• When the wind chill falls between -15 degrees F and 0, recess may be abbreviated at supervisor discretion.
• At all other times, outdoor recess will be held.

We're happy to help gather up gear. If your child is in need of some specific winter gear, please just let us know.   

Snack Volunteers We are so grateful for the snacks all of you have prepared thus far! And we really appreciate the prepared, healthy snacks we've seen lately i.e. mini-sandwiches, ants on a log, banana bread, etc.   We have plenty of crackers, chips, and popcorn, so leaning on the proteins, fruits, and veggies would be great :) The children are so proud and excited to help out with these special snacks and we know that this takes lots time and energy, so thank you so much. 

 Please check to see if your snack week is coming up. Click here to check. Also take a moment and see if you would like to sign up for any other volunteer opportunities.  Here's who's up in the next two weeks:

Nov. 27-Dec.1	Mila Sibert
Dec. 4-8	Mina Perin

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

In gratitude,

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Clearwater Announcement for Tomorrow: Class Photo, No Lunch, No BCKC

Hello families!

Hope your Tuesday is going well. We have 3 quick announcements for our noon dismissal tomorrow:

1. We will be taking a classroom photo together in the morning:)

2. We will not be eating lunch at school tomorrow. It might be good to plan to have lunch with your child soon after dismissal at 12:00.  

3. There will not be Big Canoe Kids Club after school tomorrow. Buses will take home regular bussers. 

Looking forward to seeing you all conferences! 

All the best, 

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Clearwater Reminders: Picture Retakes Friday, Nov. 10th and Precious Objects

Hello Families!

We hope your Monday is going well so far. We have two quick reminders:

1. We just wanted to let you know that students will have picture retakes this Friday, Nov. 10th.

2. Please have your child bring in an object that could fit in the palm of their hand. This object should be somewhat precious --- precious enough to write a story about.  We will be doing a writing lesson on Thursday, Nov. 9th.  

All the best,

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Newsletter

Hello Families! 

We have all been working hard these last couple weeks and hopefully you have seen lots of this great work!

Lessons We've Had

- Noun & Article

-Composition of the Earth

-Needs of the Plant

- Types of Vertebrae 

- Parts of a Fish

- Surface Tension 

- Finding 10

- Flower arranging

Just to name a few :)  

Upcoming Events & Reminders 

Each child has been asked to bring in a precious object for some writing work we are doing in the classroom. If you have any questions about this please let us know. We are excited to see all the different objects that the students bring in.

November 15th is a half day and conferences are the 16th and 17th ( No school those days)  Thank you to those who have already signed up!

Snack Volunteers Please check to see if your snack week is coming up. Click here to check and see if you would like to sign up for any other volunteer opportunities. Here's who's up in the next two weeks:

Nov. 6-10	Lulu Prose
Nov. 13-15	Marlo Byram

-- 

We hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Clearwater Reminder: Bring winter gear tomorrow!

Hello families!

Clearwater Families,

This is just a friendly reminder to send the following winter items with your children on snowy days:

- jacket

- gloves

- hat

- snow pants 

- boots 

Also, if your child does not have indoor shoes, please make sure your child brings them from now on.  Tracking in dirty boots does not bode well for a clean classroom.  

We will be going to the park tomorrow, so thank you in advance for helping your child come to school feeling prepared to play in the cold. 

All the best and Happy Halloween!

--

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Greetings Clearwater Families!

What an incredible first week and half!  We intentionally spent the first days getting to know one another, establishing community norms and learning about the ins and outs of our daily routine.  Together, we've written our classroom beliefs and we've discussed what is our job (as guides) and their job (as students) to make sure we uphold our classroom beliefs. We've also done a number of community activities such as songs, games and mindfulness practices and we are already seeing this group become a cohesive community that thoroughly enjoys each other in the classroom and on the playground.  We couldn't be more delighted. 

Lessons We've Had

Practical Life Lessons:

- How to work during work time

- How to come to lesson

- How to set up and clean up for beautiful lunch (ask them about the jobs they can do to set up for lunch in the classroom :)

- How to prepare and eat snack

Academic Lessons:

- Creating a World Map

- Classifying living and nonliving things

- Introduction to Cursive

- Short Bead Chains (introduction to skip counting)

- We are also telling stories about the beginning of the universe and how life came to Earth. Dr. Montessori coined these impressionistic stories as "The Great Lessons." There are more to come because, of course, there are endless stories across many cultures that each have their own idea of how the universe began!

Upcoming Events and Reminders 

Thursday Folders will start coming home on this coming Thursday. In there, you will find some work that your child has done and also ideas for activities to do at home that would enrich and support your child's experience at school.

Buttermilk Falls Farm - Friday, Oct. 13  GRS has a strong partnership with Buttermilk Falls and the children will get to revisit this beautiful place throughout there time at Great River. More information to follow. 

Snack Volunteers Please check to see if your snack week is coming up. Click here to check and see if you would like to sign up for any other volunteer opportunities. Here's who's up in the next two weeks:

Oct. 2- 6: Amos Keitel's family

Oct. 9-13: Faith Putz-Yang's family

Thank you!

To all of you for bringing your children to school on time with all of the things they need for the day (lunch, water bottle, appropriate clothing for crazy heat and rain).  This truly helps them come to school prepared to take on the day.

Finally, we'd like to send out our gratitude towards Jennifer Rogers and Noah Keitel for taking care of our laundry this month. For Cynthia Putz-Yang for signing up to bring in flowers and for Andria Sibert and Mike Hang for volunteering to chaperone for our trip to the farm!

Have a wonderful weekend!

In gratitude,

Emily Bowar & Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori"   

Dear Clearwater Families,

Greetings and huge thanks to all of you that could make it to the open house last night! We enjoyed meeting with so many of you and seeing the classroom with children in it for the first time. We feel so fortunate and excited to get started :)

It was brought to our attention that there a couple of typos on the welcome letter, so we've sent you an email through PowerSchool, so be sure and look out for it (may be in your spam folder). Also, below I've included a link to the volunteer opportunities available in our classroom. Many of you have already signed up (thank you!). Here's the link: Clearwater Volunteer Opportunities

When you get the chance, please check your email and look through the orientation packet (again, if you already received it) and check out all of the wonderful volunteering opportunities we have to offer. If you are interested in volunteering, just email us at clearwater@greatriverschool.org.

With gratitude,

Emily Bowar and Jessy Eaton Fabel

Clearwater Guides

"Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core." ~ Maria Montessori