March Newsletter Room 302 Friday, March 29th, 2019

“The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.” – Dr. Maria Montessori

Dear Parents,

Thank you very much to those parents who signed up to help us out for our Taiko Project. All the spots were filled within a week! Our third graders have already started making our practice taiko drums. I am planning to have our second graders sand bachis (drum sticks) and first graders to decorate the drums with origami art. They will be beautiful. Playing taiko is something I love to do and being able to share the joy with my students is such a privilege for me. This wouldn’t had happened without your help and support and I am very thankful.

Since the Spring Parent/Teacher conferences are not mandatory, I have been contacting parents individually if I feel a conference is needed. If you do not hear from me but you have something you would like to discuss or if you have questions or concerns, as always, don’t hesitate to catch me at dismissal or email me if you would like to set up a time to talk. We can meet anytime between now and the end of this semester. My door is always open.

After this Spring Break, our 3rd graders will have CMAS (Colorado Measures of Academic Success) examinations the week of April 1st (literacy) and the week of April 15th (math).

In April, we will be also starting to prepare for our stage plays. I will let you know when a date has been selected for our plays. The other day, we have a teacher visitor from Butterfly Pavilion. We learned about invertebrates. The next day, children wrote letters to the teacher. They wrote about many topics: thanking the teacher for coming and sharing, what they liked about the presentation, and what they learned. We write letters and notes all the time and children take time to make them beautiful. This is a classroom culture based on grace and courtesy that I would like all my students to continue to do.

We practice various grace and courtesy activities in our classroom: pushing our chair back under the table when we stand up, walking around other people’s work on the floor, using our “classroom” voice in the classroom to show respect to others, serving tea and snacks and presenting them beautifully to each other or when we have guests, saying good morning/ afternoon, and the list goes on and on. One of our third graders noticed one day that our dish rack tray was dirty. She pulled it out and started cleaning it spontaneously. I sometimes see students picking up pencils, eracers and notebooks from the floor and putting them away without being told. Many of our students have been practicing to say “good afternoon” to teachers lately. I absolutely love the awareness for the environment and grace and courtesy that children are developing. Please help your child to practice grace and courtesy and practical life exercises with you as well.

Due to the winter blizzard a couple of weeks ago, we had to reschedule our picture day. It will now be on Friday, April 19th.

Thank you again for all your support. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Atsuko O’Keefe