Millhopper Montessori School October 2015 Newsletter

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Page 1 “Free to Be Three” Page 2-3 Fall Festival Page 4-13 Classroom Updates Page 14 Spanish Page 15 Technology Page 16 Media Page 17 Music Page 18-22 Art Page 23 Language Arts Show Page 24-25 Spirit Week Page 26 Summer Camp Page 27 Staff Continuing Education Page 28 PTO Page 29 New Faces Page 30-31 Parent Nights Page 32 Calendar

QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER FROM MILLHOPPER MONTESSORI SCHOOL

The mind of a three year old is absorbent. If the environment is filled with beautiful and enticing activities that children can use through their five senses, they will develop naturally.

Children at age three use all their five senses when they explore their world. The primary way in which they learn is a combination of the five senses, especially touching things with their hands.

“Don’t touch,” we often say, and many times for good reason. All the while, the three year old has an inner voice screaming for him to touch. It is important to realize that developmentally, three year olds need a prepared environment with a certain amount of liberty in which to explore, one where they can safely do this with their five senses. By this age, the home environment has been explored to great lengths. It is now a wonderful time for a child to go to school.

A developmentally appropriate program for three year olds is one where they are free to do what is right. The ground rules need to be clear and consistent and the community of the classroom needs to be well organized. The shelves need to be at the children’s level and the learning materials on them need to be freely accessed by the children. Long uninterrupted blocks of time should be built in to each day because they are all about perfecting their motor skills. Perfecting skills come from uninterrupted practice and repetition. Developing concentration is acquired this way too.

Three-year-old children are developmentally in a sensitive period for order, courtesy, refinement of the senses, language development and even the foundations for early reading and writing. Their language is virtually expanding exponentially. They can use simple sentences, pronounce words better and are learning the rules of grammar by imitation. They realize printed words in a book tell the reader what to say and they love to have stories read aloud and want to hear the same stories over and over, gravitating to stories where animals are given human traits.

At this age, children engage their entire bodies whenever they can. Toddlers are more top-heavy and as a child turns three, he/she can do many more things independently and successfully such as pumping a swing or riding a tricycle. They can do more with their hands and have better finger dexterity with crayons and clay. They can string large beads, dress with buttons, snaps and zippers. Art begins to actually look like real subjects.

It is important to remember that emotionally, they are beginning to develop friendships with other children and still need familiar adults nearby for security and help as they develop logical reasoning skills.

It is a very exciting and liberating age.

A good resource for understanding age three comes from the National Network for Child Care (nncc.org) Ages and Stages as well as Three Year Old Behavior Solutions for Every Parent, by Chris Thompson (talkingtotoddlers.com/parenting-articles-tips-and-advice/three-year-old-behavior) Chris Thompson is wonderful at describing how to enter your child’s world to understand and manage the behavior of children at this age. Ages and Stages from the National Network for Child Care provides lists of what three year olds can do physically and intellectually. I highly recommend both resources along with any of Dr. Maria Montessori’s writings on the Absorbent Mind and the Sensitive Periods.

Fall Festival Sponsors MMS wants to extend a huge “Thank you!� to all of our Fall Festival Sponsors!

We are so excited for a wonderful evening!

Goh/Hsu Family Moros-Hanley Family Budhoo/Mullings Family Cuffe Family Chauhan Family Santamarina Family Goslinga Family Broad-Wright Family Freeman/Kaplan Family Revennaugh Family Dodds Family Stevenson Family Jaszczak Family Castellanos Family Vass/Nelson Family Jaffe Family Patel/Govind Family

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Fall Festival Sponsors MMS wants to extend a huge “Thank you!� to all of our Fall Festival Sponsors!

We are so excited for a wonderful evening!

Curcio Family Livingston Family Black/Waddell Family Wynn Family Lentz Family Jacob/George Family Mohseni Family Stern Family Dix Family Ihnatsenka Family Webb Family Amdur Family Gill Family Gillis Family McDonald Family Masters Family Iyer/Nataraj Family

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In August many children who begin in the Little House are coming to school for the first time. The first few weeks are full of emotional changes in their lives as they learn to separate from parents and transition into a school environment. The year begins with lessons in grace and courtesy, which continue throughout the year. Students begin to learn to choose work independently, to roll the rugs they use to demark their individual spaces on the floor, to push in chairs, to wash their hands and begin manipulating their clothes, and through modeling, how to be a kind citizen of the classroom. Transitions throughout the day can be difficult for young children and early in the year the daily routine is established so the child knows what to expect within the structure of the classroom. The lessons in grace and courtesy continue throughout all the levels here at MMS in accordance with helping children embrace being responsible and conscientious.

Pink Tower and Brown Stair

Beginning in September the students learned about transportation including car and truck types, emergency vehicles, boats, motorcycles, and safety equipment. A police officer visited and allowed the students to examine and sit in his vehicle. The fire truck also came later, in October, and helped expand the students’ understanding of emergency vehicles and safety.

Visiting the police car

“Driving� the fire truck

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Trying on different helmets

In October the students began a cultural study of Japan, complete with learning colors and numbers in Japanese and with presentations by Japanese families from our school community. The students decorated carps with hundreds of scales cut from origami paper. The students tasted Japanese food and practiced with chopsticks. They learned about the importance of rice and tea in Japan’s culture and manipulated these items while working in the classroom. The students were able to see Japanese clothing, coins, and other cultural items. Quiet Japanese music played during work time and the students also listened to children singing songs in their native tongue. Cultural studies help the young child begin to develop a world view as they are presented with new ideas about places other than their own. This can expand their understanding of geography, community, and family structures.

Carp decorated with origami paper scales

Nakanishi Family Japan presentation

Cutting Japanese cuisine

Matching Japanese coins

The students also enjoyed activities and songs in October relating to Halloween, and spent time decorating their bags for the annual trick-or-treating. They began to look forward to the Fall Festival, an event attended by the entire school.

Showing off their capes during Spirit Week PAGE

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Fall has arrived! Along with the new season, the students are learning new lessons and showing improvement with their independent work. As the students progress in their concentration and problem solving abilities, we are seeing a lot of growth in their lessons and even rug rolling is done to perfection. The grace and courtesy lessons are showing more as they learn to help each other and use words like, “excuse me” and “thank you.”

In September we had a wonderful time with our unit study “Farm”. The students learned how farmers care for the animals. Bryce’s mom, Mrs. Strickland, donated a horse to our classroom and the students loved brushing its coat. Students enjoyed matching farm animals and learning about objects that represent farming like a barn, tractor, trailer, and hay bale. It is great to see their extended vocabulary grow! They matched adult to baby animals and learned their names. Example: cow - calf, horse - foal, pig - piglet, hen - chick and many more. Their favorite song was “Old McDonald had a Farm”. In art, the students had the opportunity to make their own farm yard scene by either push pinning or cutting out their favorite farm animals. We concluded our unit with a farmer’s breakfast. Their favorite part was cracking and scrambling eggs.

Brushing the farm horse

Matching farm objects

International Themed Dress Up Day Spirit Week Canned Food Drive PAGE

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In the science area we introduced living & non-living things and healthy and non-healthy foods. The learning activities were strengthened by sharing during Show & Tell about each of these areas.

Displaying push pinned fruit bowls Categorizing living and non-living objects

Organizing the food pyramid

One of the students’ favorite classroom activities was to mix primary colors to make secondary colors with food coloring. They also had the opportunity to mix primary colors to make a painting. They mixed red and yellow to make orange; blue and red to make purple; and blue and yellow to make green! What fun!

Mixing food color water

Painting to make secondary colors

Color Box #5 Darkest to Lightest Our unit study for October is “Ocean.” Students learned about many kinds of ocean creatures such as sea turtles, whales, sharks and crabs. They enjoyed painting an ocean creature of their choice and creating an ocean scene out of push pins. We also had fun working with many different sea shells, star fish and sand dollars.

Number Rods

The students were very excited for Parent Night and had the opportunity to show their parents the lessons they have learned as well as their art projects they push-pinned and painted.

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Happy autumn everyone! It’s hard to believe we are already in our third month of the new school year. The children have been very busy so far this year and it is wonderful to see how quickly they are learning and growing.

We started the school year with our Grace and Courtesy theme. We learned to respect each other and practiced good manners. We also learned basic classroom procedures, such as how to use materials and what transitions should look like. This is especially important for our new students, as many of them have not been exposed to a Montessori classroom.

Our September unit study was on our bodies and the different systems that work together to keep us living. We learned that our immune system helps us to stay healthy by fighting germs. We also learned the importance of helping our immune system do its job by washing well and eating nutritious food. We learned about the digestive system, the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system and the muscular-skeletal system. We have been having lots of fun with special projects to supplement our lessons. We painted life size portraits and then built skeletons on the back to show our inside framework. We have even borrowed a life-size anatomy model from the middle school to examine closely as we discuss the various organs and their jobs within their systems.

Piecing together organs inside the life-size anatomy model

Categorizing food on the food pyramid Gluing part of the skeletal system on body

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Displaying their human bodies next to their paper skeletal bodies

The entire school celebrated Spirit Week with themed dress-up days, a pep rally and picnic lunch. The students enjoyed dressing up for the various themed days, watching the pep rally cheers and having lunch with Mr. Richard Aslanian’s class. We also participated in the canned food drive for The Bread of the Mighty Food Bank during Spirit Week. Our class collected 136 cans of food! We’re looking forward to it all next year.

Delivering the cans for the food drive

Dressed up for International Day, displaying their Long Bead Chain work

The PTO Health and Safety Committee made arrangements with Alachua County Fire Rescue to bring a fire truck to visit the Beginners through 5th grade class. The students were able to touch the fire truck and its equipment, sit in the driver’s seat, climb through the truck and watch a demonstration on the fire fighters ‘suit up’. The fire fighters provided information to the students about how to stay safe during a fire, and allowed students to ask questions. The children loved this experience, and got to take home a fire safety pamphlet and a coloring book!

Visiting the fire truck

On October 15th we had our first Parent Night of the school year. The children came with their parents to show them the classroom and some of the lessons they are working on. This was a very special event for children to have the opportunity to share their work and progress with their parents.

Children demonstrating work to their parents

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It has been a good start to our new year. Our traditional sorting of the houses was done on the first day of school and the students are now engaged in cooperatively working together to help their house succeed. Best of luck to Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as they try to achieve winning the House Cup.

The Four Houses

In Geography and Science we have been learning about the formation of our earth and the land masses. We have seen models of the supercontinent, Pangea, and how our present day continents have moved into their current location on our planet based on the Theory of Plate Tectonics. Currently we are studying the Montessori Timeline of Formation of Earth lesson

Life and accompanied that with a computer model from National Geographic. These materials help the students to see the evolution of life on earth and what has come before the arrival of humans on our planet. The Timeline of Life is one of the 5 Great Lessons of a Montessori 6-9 Classroom. The precursor materials to this are the Long Black Ribbon and the Clock of Eras. These materials demonstrate how long it took before life ever began on our planet.

Long Black Ribbon PAGE

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In our Social Studies lessons we have been concentrating on the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen and the functions of a community. We are looking forward to once again presenting our Historical Timeline of famous people of history on October 29. This year, our focus will be to present the timeline in decades.

The students are hard at work researching a person to portray and learning lines to recite for the presentation.

Many students have been working hard to prepare Powerpoint presentations during the first two months of school. It has been rewarding to see how many class members are working on their own to create a project to present to their peers. This also gives students an opportunity to work on public speaking skills that have been introduced during Drama classes with Ms. Sylvia Aslanian and Ms. Liz Bublitz.

We had a great time during Spirit Week this year! It was a lot of fun having Ms. Renee Brohamer’s class join us for a picnic lunch in our classroom. We are hoping to continue spending time together with our new friends as the year goes on.

Left: International Themed Dress Up Day Right: Having lunch with Ms. Renee’s class

The theme for reading this year will be Reading Safari. Each month we will have a different genre to explore.

The students will receive animal stickers to add to their explorer field tags as we track their progress. Just as there are different animals to explore and discover in nature, there are different genres to explore in reading.

Fiction, Non-Fiction, Biographies, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Humor, and Poetry are a few genre examples that we will encourage throughout the year.

Our First through Third grade students have been separated into seven small groups allowing for more individual assessment and growth. The students continue to strengthen their decoding skills and accuracy, ensuring stronger readers. Our ”Mambas” reading group(1st &2nd graders) recently had the opportunity to read Dragons Halloween to Ms. Christina Eckstein’s and Ms. Martha Dolan’s preschool classes. Our reading students did an excellent job with their performance by adding excitement to reading with their diction and facial expressions!

“Mambas” Group reading aloud PAGE

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During the first week of November, the Middle School students will spend three exciting days at Camp McConnell taking part in ROPES training. ROPES training presents students with situations that requires them to share their knowledge and experiences creatively with each other while trying to solve and overcome a variety of problems and obstacles. The ROPES course will be divided in to two groups of activities- low elements and high elements. The goal of these first elements is for the entire group to participate and succeed. To accomplish this, they must cultivate a sense of trust and respect for each other. The high elements are individual challenges that are made much easier by the feeling of solidarity that is developed by completing the low elements.

Below are some images from past years’ trips. Look for the current Middle School students’ trip pictures in the December Newsletter!

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In September, the Middle School students took a trip to the Millhopper Branch of Alachua Public Library in order to learn how to navigate the system.

In October, Middle School students played Once Upon A Time to reinforce elements of plot in language arts.

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¡Hola a todos! This school year is going by so fast, that it’s hard to believe that we will soon be celebrating the holidays. The students have been busy, learning new Spanish vocabulary and grammar, and learning about the Latin American culture.

The first weeks of school the Sixth grade students studied Greetings in Spanish, so they did several drills to review formal and informal greetings and presentations. Then they studied the verb "ser" and how to tell where someone is from. Also, they learned how to ask and answer questions about the weather. In order to make this topic more appealing to students I taught them the lyrics of a rock and roll style song “¿qué tiempo hace hoy?”

During the last few weeks they have worked with the expressions "me gusta" and "no me gusta" to describe their likes and dislikes. As part of the first unit in the month of September I taught students about the independence of some Central American countries. In October, we discussed the importance of the “12 de Octubre” and how it is celebrated in different Latin American countries.

The Seventh grade students studied Unit 2, lección 2, En la Escuela. They learned the vocabulary about school, school items and how to say what classes they have and how to describe them. In grammar, they learned about prepositions and how to describe the location of classroom objects. As part of this grammar lesson, they learned the lyrics of the song “Dónde está mi tarea”. It was a fun way to learn the prepositions. Also, students learned how to say where they are going and talk about how they feel. Two weeks ago they began Unit 3, lección 1, Mi Comida Favorita. They have been learning how to talk about foods and beverages, ask questions and say which foods they like and don’t like for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As part of this unit, we prepared a Latin American dessert. It was fun for students to use the vocabulary they have learned in a real situation. Students also did a presentation to the class, in Spanish, about the recipe and how to prepare it.

The Eighth grade students studied Unit 5, lección 2, Una Fiesta en Casa. In this unit, they reviewed specific vocabulary about how to plan a party, talk about chores and responsibilities, tell someone what to do and say what they just did. They also studied the use of irregular verbs, affirmative “tú” commands and “acabar de + Infinitive”. As part of this unit, students had to organize a party, and celebrated all the class birthdays with food and cake at school. It was a great opportunity for them to use the vocabulary that they have been learning and to practice new Spanish expressions.

Hasta pronto, Sra. Karina Newman

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This school year, each grade has been focusing on certain areas of Technology. Their studies are as follows: Kindergarten has been practicing mouse skills and learning about the use of the back arrow, a link, the mouse pointer, Internet Explorer and how to get onto to Millhopper Tech. First Grade is learning to use the keyboard and concentrating on learning the keys, specifically, home Row Keys. Second and Third grade are learning to type in EduTyper. They have their own accounts. Fourth grade have been learning to use Google Apps for Education. They have used Google Docs, Google Classroom, and are creating a Google Slides Presentation on the History of Communication. Fifth Grade has learned to use Google Classroom, and recently created their own Internet Safety Posters in Glogsters. These will be posted soon on our website and be used this month to teach the younger students about Online Safety. Middle School has been working on the History of the Internet which led them to specific topics such as Education in Technology, Technology in Hospitals, Music, History of Google, Pinterest, Facebook, Tubmlr, History of Xray, and many other topics having to do with the how the internet plays a role in all the latest technologies. They are creating a game based on all their research which will be shared on the website.

All students are encouraged to practice these lessons at home to improve on the skills taught each week.

K - 5: www.millhoppertech.com M3S: www.m3sroxx.com

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Students from Beginners through Fifth grade have weekly Media classes. We began the year going over basic library skills such as finding a book, handling books, and classroom procedures. Now we are reading fiction and non-fiction books about all things autumn. Lower Elementary students are learning about different types of folk tales, while Upper Elementary students are focusing on introductory research skills.

October brings our annual “Pumpkins and Poetry” contest! Students in First - Eighth grade are encouraged to submit up to two of their best ORIGINAL poems about the season: Fall, Halloween, football – and of course, pumpkins! The deadline for submissions was Friday, October 23, and winners will be announced Wednesday, October 28. Each classroom has a first, second, and third place winner, and poems will be posted for everyone to view during the Fall Festival.

D.E.A.R Day this year will be Monday, November 16. This year, we will get “Wild About Books” with an African theme! As usual, D.E.A.R. day kicks off Screen Free Week. Students (and teachers) will be challenged to go an entire week without watching television, playing video games, or otherwise using a screen for entertainment. Are you up for the challenge?

Our Fall Book Fair will be held November 30 – December 4, which is the week after Thanksgiving break. It will be a great opportunity to get a lot of that holiday shopping done! All proceeds go towards books and supplies for the Media Center and classrooms. We need help! If you are interested in volunteering with the Book Fair, contact the Media Specialist, Jennifer Kuntz (jkuntz@millhopper.com) or PTO President, Laura Lentz (lauralentz@gmail.com).

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Ms. Liz Bublitz has been making instruments and creating music with the Beginners through Kindergarten classes. The classes handmade shekeres, which are percussion instruments having originating in Africa. Then Ms. Liz demonstrated how to play an original shekere and allowed each child to take a turn playing it. As for the First through Eighth grade classes , Ms. Liz already has them rehearsing for the Winter Show on December 18!

Playing the shekere

Making a shekere

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MS. ERIN SOREL’S 1ST & 2ND GRADE CLASS Claude Monet - IMPRESSIONISM For our first project in the First and Second grade, we looked at Claude Monet’s Waterlilies series. We discussed how he painted from nature at different times of the day and at different times of the year.

Then we drew our own waterlilies using oil pastels on white paper, and painted watercolors over them to create a watercolor resist.

Leonid Afremov – IMPRESSIONISM After Monet, we looked at a more contemporary artist, Leonid Afremov, who painted in the impressionistic style, similar to Monet’s. We looked specifically at his paintings of city scenes during rain.

We noticed he often used warm or cool colors to create a mood, and reflections in the street or sidewalk from the water. To show our own raindrops, we used white oil pastels on white paper, and then used watercolors over that. It was like magic to see a white piece of paper become a painting of raindrops!

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MS. ERIN SOREL’S 1ST & 2ND GRADE CLASS (continued)

Georges Rouault – EXPRESSIONISM Next, we looked at an artist named Georges Rouault to see clowns that don’t look like ones we normally think of in the circus. Rouault painted clowns with dark colors and sad faces.

His pictures tried to show the person behind the clown makeup.

We discussed the colors we saw, how he used thick black lines as outlines, and the backgrounds he used for his clowns.

We started by drawing outlines of our clowns in light colored chalk, followed by coloring in the spaces between the chalk lines with oil pastels. Then we painted over the entire drawing with black watercolor. Where there was chalk is where the black paint “stuck” to the paper, creating the thick black lines that Rouault used. Where there was oil pastel, the black paint resisted, and the color showed through. The black paint really made the colors bright!

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MR. RICHARD ASLANIAN’S 2ND & 3RD GRADE CLASS Nam Jun Paik – NEO-DADA, FAUVISM In the Second and Third grade class, we started the year by looking at the artist Nam Jun Paik, a Korean-American. His work was mostly sculptures using electronics to make people and animals. He would often have pictures on the screens of the TVs in his sculptures that enhanced the theme. We made our own “sculptures” using paper and paste. First, we painted our background in squares using watercolor on one sheet of paper. Then, on another sheet of paper, we drew our robot parts. After that, we cut them out and pasted them to our background. The students often made up a story to go with their robot!

Vincent Van Gogh, Leonid Afremov – IMPRESSIONISM For this project, we looked at Van Gogh and Leonid Afremov to compare how they use warm and cool colors in their work. We made our own version of this color theory by tracing our hands, drawing concentric circles, and then using warm colors for the hand, and cool colors for the background or vice versa. Quite stunning!

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MS. CHRISTINA MILLER’S 4TH & 5TH GRADE CLASS Van Gogh – IMPRESSIONISM In the Fourth and Fifth grade, we studied Van Gogh’s Sunflower series. We discussed his use of blending, shading, short strokes, and how he would often paint in either a warm or cool color palette. We made a sketch of our own vase of flowers, being sure to have lots of details and levels of flowers, then used oil pastels to add color. After that, we used watercolors to paint over our pictures. It was amazing to see the variety of flowers!

Name Blocks – OP ART To start our unit on perspective, we discussed one point perspective. We drew a horizon line towards the top of our paper, and chose a vanishing point. Then we drew our name in block letters below the horizon line, and used a ruler to draw perspective lines from the name to the vanishing point. After coloring our name, then we colored the “block” behind the letter, which is where it got tricky! It was a learning experience to know which block went with which letter. This was great practice for our current project – a street scene that uses one point perspective.

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MS. SHERILYN FARRIS’ 6TH, 7TH & 8TH GRADE CLASS Bridget Riley – OP ART Our first project in the Middle School class was an Op Art piece. We looked at the works of Bridget Riley, a British artist. We discussed how her paintings made a 2 dimensional object (paper/canvas) into a 3 dimensional illusion. She used line, pattern, and perspective to achieve this.

We drew horizontal line spaced one inch apart from the top of the paper to the bottom. Then, we drew vertical lines on our paper that got progressively closer towards one side of the paper. Finally, we colored in alternating squares to make our drawing look like it was receding. We discovered that the illusion happened when the squares started out very evenly, and got gradually thinner, resulting in vertical rectangles.

Andy Warhol – POP ART After our Op Art, we moved to Pop Art. Andy Warhol is one of the most famous Pop Artists in the world.

We studied his works 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Diptych. We made our own Pop Art by taking pictures of ourselves, manipulating the image to get only black and white, printing several copies, and then coloring each one differently. It was amazing to see how our faces changed so dramatically!

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5th Grade Language Arts Museum Art work inspired by the book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Bailliet Over the summer, students read the novel Chasing Vermeer. In the book, a famous Vermeer painting is stolen from the Art Institute of Chicago! Calder and Petra, two sixth grade friends, investigate.

The Fifth grade students explored the Art Institute of Chicago online, chose a piece of art which they liked and created a work in that style to illustrate a scene from the book.

The Isabella Gardner Museum : Theft In 1990, thirteen works were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston, Massachusetts. The art has never returned, even though there is a $5 million reward!

The Fifth grade students each researched one of the stolen works of art and shared a theory about what might have happened.

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MMS Gives Back...

This year the all MMS students were encouraged to give back to our community through a canned food drive during Spirit Week. Each classroom competed to win “The Golden Can Award” by bringing in the most cans to be donated to Bread of the Mighty Food Bank.

The outcome was spectacular!

On September 22, Bread of the Mighty Food Bank truck came to load all of the food raised throughout the week. MMS raised a grand total of 2,022 lbs. of food to donate! This is 904 more lbs. than last year. Our grand total equates to 1,554 meals! And, Congratulations to Ms. Liz Falls and Ms. Alex Caputo’s class who raised 531 cans and boxes of food and earned “The Golden Can Award”. We are very proud of all of our students for participating.

Here is the overall breakdown of items collected: Ms. Crystal Sorrow 157 Ms. Martha Dolan 52 Ms. Christina Eckstein 114 Ms. Renee Brohamer 136 Ms. Liz Falls 531 Ms. Erin Sorel 335 Mr. Richard Aslanian 182 Ms. Christina Miller 251 Ms. Sherilyn Farris 264 PAGE

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MMS Spirit Week and Pep Rally

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MMS Summer Camp Sampler Every summer, MMS has a Summer Camp open to MMS students and the public. Our camps take place over the course of five to eight weeks, and children ages 2 years old through 8th grade can attend, along with high school student junior counselor volunteers. Teachers base their curriculum upon weekly themes, while following the Montessori style learning and practices. If you haven’t yet seen it, check our Summer Camp Sampler Brochure online at http://millhopper.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Summer -Camp-Sampler-Brochure.pdf or pick one up in the Front Office.

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MMS Staff Continuing Education On Tuesday, September 15th, several of our teachers attended a Montessori training instructed by Helen DeVere, who is the director and instructor for the Orlando Montessori Teacher Education Institute in Orlando, FL AMS-credentialed (Early Childhood, Elementary I). This training covered Montessori philosophy, the process into normalization, the four basic areas of the environment, the three period lesson, and information specific to the assistant teachers’ role. Our Early Childhood, Specialty subjects, and Early Childhood After School Program teachers appreciated the informative training and will integrate what they have learned into the classroom.

For six consecutive Thursday evenings during September and October, Ms. Sherilyn Farris, Mr. Richard Aslanian and Coach Cam Parker took part in a LEGO ROBOTICS course through Santa Fe College’s Center for Innovation and Economic Development. Its intention is for teachers to learn the basics of LEGO and LEGO robotics construction and programming. And they did just! They learned how to program a smart car of the future and become a transportation engineer. They also programmed their prebuilt smart cars to detect and stop for pedestrians, pull over for emergency vehicles, follow routes and much more!

With this learned information, these teachers will implement such lessons into the classroom curriculums in order for students to experiment with such techniques.

For the weekend of October 16th Coach Cam made the arduous trip to St. Petersburg Beach for the SHAPE Florida Physical Education Conference. He participated in many sessions designed to increase each teacher’s ability to teach fundamental and advanced skills to students. Jump Rope tricks were a focus of Coach Cam’s, so he spent two sessions learning about double-dutch, rope wraps, crossovers and more. Coach also garnered a great deal of free equipment from presenting companies including manipulation equipment for young students, poly spots for marking the field (a much bigger deal than it sounds), stopwatches, equipment for our After School Program and much more. For our older students, Coach checked out a session on wearable technology that he hopes to integrate into the middle school experience and a new approach for drug awareness and prevention. The school also purchased a few Sweets Kendamas and some Playout Fitness cards.

Overall, it was a fun and informative three days for Coach Cam that will only enhance our already wonderful Physical Education program.

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This 2015-2016 school year’s PTO is off to a fantastic start! There is a strong team of Officers; President Laura Lentz, Vice President Jennifer Curcio, Secretary Amy Hass and Treasurer Deeta Adkins. Committees have also been created for all the activities and events throughout the school year. These committees will consist of organizing our annual Fall Festival, various Health and Safety related events, Art Appreciation Day, Spirit “Knights” at local restaurants and “Knight” Under the Stars. Thank you to all the volunteers for going above and beyond to spearhead each committee. Each classroom also has volunteer parent representatives; Carrie Chauhan, Tanya Gault, Elena Cziotka, Vivian Gutierrez-Hernandez, Debi Revennaugh, Elise Hoover, Prasad Modak, Amy Hass, Sheila Koon, Leesha Wynn, Missy Norman, Jennifer Curcio, Deeta Adkins and Anita Bender. Another big thank you for parents taking their time to make arrangements and support their designated classrooms. This is going to be a successful year with teachers and parents coming together to make it all happen! Please join us for the next PTO Meeting on Tuesday, November 10th from 6:00-7:00 PM.

Ms. Crystal’s Beginners class visiting the ACFR truck, an event organized by the Health and Safety Committee member, Elena Cziotka.

Our first MMS Spirit “Knight” fundraiser was a great success! Many families and staff dined out at Piesanos, and by mentioning our school we earned 20% per bill from the restaurant that night. Congratulations to MMS for acquiring over $200.00 this first time around, and thank you to Piesanos for hosting!

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New faces at MMS This 2015-2016 school year we have had several new teachers join MMS. Though we miss our previous teachers, the new additions have been an excellent asset to specific MMS classrooms and the After School Program.

Ms. Beth Lawton has joined Mr. Richard Aslanian as his Assistant Teacher in the Lower Elementary 2nd & 3rd grade classroom. Beth has been affiliated with MMS since 2008, as she previously taught in the Preschool classroom for four years. She also has two sons now currently enrolled in the Beginners and Kindergarten classes.

Beth has B.A. in English Literature from University of Florida. Welcome back, Ms. Beth!

In one of the Preschool/Kindergarten classrooms, Ms. Alex Caputo has joined Ms. Elizabeth Falls as her Assistant Teacher. Alex has a B.A. in Psychology and Criminal Justice, and her previous work experience involves teaching at an after school program and summer camp. She has effortlessly acclimated to the classroom and we feel lucky to have here at MMS. In the other Preschool/Kindergarten classroom, we welcome Ms. Erinlynn Sattler, who has teamed up with Ms. Renee Brohamer as her Assistant Teacher. Erinlynn has a B.S. in Health and Wellness Promotion from UNC Asheville, and is a Certified Personal Trainer through the American College of Sports Medicine. She has previous work experience as a summer camp counselor, teacher and childcare supervisor at various camps and locations since 2005. Erinlynn has also easily transitioned into the role and we are fortunate to have her as another member of our team.

Ms. Meghan Bustamante is working alongside Ms. Elaine Manion, the Lower Elementary Reading Therapist, as her Part-Time Assistant. Meghan has been an MMS parent since 2013 with three kids currently enrolled in the Preschool, 2nd grade and 3rd grade classes.. She has a B.A. in International Affairs and a minor in Multinational Business from Florida Sate University. She has also completed Public Health courses at Johns Hopkins University.

Meghan has done volunteer work with children across Sub-Saharan African nations and Romania, and is on staff at To Love Children Educational Foundation International. As you can see, Ms. Meghan an ideal fit for supporting Ms. Elaine’s reading program with 1st-3rd grade students, as she can multi-task and utilize her education and other professional skills to help children learn and improve their own skills.

We have a returning After School Program Teacher from last school year, Ms. Lisa Glenn. Lisa attends University of Florida majoring in Microbiology and Cell Science. She also volunteers at UF Shands Hospital Pediatric Unit.

Mr. Dominick Aslanian is a returning After School Program Teacher at this past summer’s Summer Camp. Dom attended MMS from Beginners class-8th grade, and both his parents have taught here for many years. He currently attends University of Florida. Lisa and Dom are splitting the duty of the Preschool/Kindergarten After School Program Teacher position alongside Ms. Sam and Mr. Yo. We appreciate having familiar faces supervise and work with our younger ones, so welcome back Ms. Lisa and Mr. Dom! On our Elementary and Middle School After School Program has an entirely new addition, Ms. Bailey Erickson, to the already existing team of Ms. Gini and Coach Cam. Bailey is a freshman at University of Florida studying Plant Genetics. She is enjoying being a part of the trio who supervises and interacts with our older students during the afternoons.

And last but not least, we have a new administrative staff member, Ms. Geetha Thoguluva.

As most of you know, Geetha is our Accountant/Bookkeeper in the Front Office area. She holds both an Associate degree and a Bachelor’s degree in General Accounting from University of Central Florida. Geetha has fifteen years of accounting and bookkeeping experience, and we are thrilled to have a ‘number expert’ in the Front Office area working with our team and families.

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Parent Nights During the month of October, all of the classes have their Fall Parent Nights. This was an opportunity for parents to come see their children demonstrate their most recent work. Teachers also presented lessons so parents could get an idea of what a typical morning work cycle looks like. This is always an entertaining and informative night, as students get to show off their hard work and parents can appreciate their children’s and teachers’ efforts.

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Parent Nights

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November 2015

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Tuesday, November 3 Thursday, November 5

Middle School ROPES Trip @ Camp McConnell

Thursday, November 5

Little House Gator Parade

Friday, November 6

No School—UF Homecoming

Tuesday, November 10

Teacher Work Afternoon NO Studios—After School Program available

Tuesday, November 10

PTO Meeting – 6:00 PM – All Parents invited

Wednesday, November 11

No School—Veterans Day Holiday

Monday, November 16

DEAR Day School-wide event

Tuesday, November 17

Ms. Renee Brohamer’s Thanksgiving Feast

Wednesday, November 18

Ms. Elizabeth Falls’ Thanksgiving Feast

Thursday, November 19

Ms. Martha Dolan’s Thanksgiving Feast

Friday, November 20

Ms. Crystal Sorrow’s Thanksgiving Feast

Friday, November 20

Ms. Christina Eckstein’s Thanksgiving Feast

Friday, November 20

1st-8th Grades Thanksgiving Feast

Monday, November 23 Friday, November 27

Thanksgiving Holidays

Monday, November 30 Friday, December 4

Scholastic Book Fair

December 2015 Tuesday, December 8

Teacher Work Afternoon NO Studios—After School Program available

Wednesday, December 16

Ms. Martha Dolan & Ms. Christina Eckstein’s Holiday Sing-Along @ MMS Big Room 11:30 AM-12:00 PM

Wednesday, December 16

Ms. Renee Brohamer & Ms. Elizabeth Falls’ Holiday Sing-Along @ MMS Big Room 1:00-1:30 PM

Friday, December 18

Ms. Crystal Sorrow’s Little House Craft Party @ 9:15-10:30 *Beginners’ school day ends at 10:30 AM

Friday, December 18

1st-8th Grades Winter Holiday Show @ Abundant Grace Church 12:30 PM - Students picked up and transported by parents to church. Students must arrive at church no later than 1:00 PM. Parents may then enjoy refreshments in lobby while students rehearse.

1:30 PM-2:30 PM – 1st-8th Graders perform Winter Holiday Show. *School day ends at 3:00 PM – NO After School Programs available*

Monday, December 21 Friday, January 1

Winter Holidays