Fall started with our Back to School night where we welcome the new families who have joined us at Midtown. As was mentioned at the meeting, one of our main purposes as a Montessori school is to foster community between the children as well as with our families. Our teachers work hard to encourage our community to flourish by hosting family events, inviting parents on field trips and encouraging families to reach out to each other.

Over the past couple of months we have had quite a few community events, including:

Field Trips

Our annual field trip to Live Earth Farm. This is such a fun field trip and the children love exploring the farm, meeting the animals, tasting the produce and spending time outside with their school friends and their families.

Our next field trip is in December when we visit our neighbors at the Santa Cruz County Animal shelter. The children take toys for the animals and learn about the work the shelter does to look after them.

Holiday celebrations

Our annual Trunk or Treat was great fun and a wonderful opportunity for the children to start Halloween in a small and relaxed way as the holiday can be quite overwhelming for little ones (and their adults!)

Coming up we have our Stone Soup Potluck and Winter Light Celebration before the year is out.

Birthday Circles

Parents are invited to come to a gathering to watch their child ‘walk around the sun’, as is the Montessori way to celebrate a birthday! The children show photos of themselves at different ages and get to blow out the candle to close their celebration circle. Walking around the sun is one of the most remembered parts of a Montessori graduate’s school experience and people often recall it when they step into our classroom for tours.

Open Houses

We hosted one of our quarterly Open Houses in October. Families come into the classroom for a guided tour from their children. Parents, siblings, grandparents, friends – everyone is welcome to visit and share in the learning fun.

Parent presentations

We love parents to come and share their interests with the class. Last month, as we have been studying the continent of Africa, one of our parents came into school to talk about scuba diving in the Red Sea and showed us some videos of the animals she saw. We also practiced making hand signs that are used while under water, as ways to signal what fish or other animal we see. All of the children benefit from this kind of enrichment and the child whose parent comes in is always so proud to show them off to the class!

Volunteer projects in the yard

We are always working to make the playground a more fun and interesting learning environment for the children. We welcome parent volunteers to be involved with projects such as painting our rainbow bike track, planting in the garden beds and constructing the colorful play houses. This month we replaced the old sand box with a larger new box and brand new sand – quite a feat! This benefits our children as well as those at the Chrysalis Autism Program who share the playground with us. We are so grateful to our parents who help with these projects for the good of our children and the wider educational community on our site.

At a time when community can feel hard to make, a child’s school is a wonderful place to develop connections with families who are at the same stage of life. The above is just a snapshot of how we make this happen at Midtown Montessori.

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So many other activities this Fall! Here are pictures of some of the other things we’ve been up to:

So many other activities this Fall! Here are pictures of some of the other things we’ve been up to:

Putting leaves on our Thankful Tree.

Harvesting strawberries and radishes from our garden.

Planting over 30 different kinds of succulents for our fence pots.

Making one ingredient banana ice cream and tasting it.

Doing our daily Montessori work – learning about the world and our place in it.

​As we move into Winter the children will still be playing outside (rain or shine), they’ll see our garden change and different vegetables grow, new work will go into the classroom, we’ll celebrate the season together and then get to spend time with our family and friends over the holidays. The Midtown community is thriving and we feel so lucky to share it with our wonderful families.

Sarah

Ps. You are receiving this newsletter because you scheduled a tour or contacted us through our website. It is a snapshot of the weekly emails that our headteacher Joe sends out to all parents at school, keeping them updated on life in the classroom. Previous month’s newsletters can be found on our website. If you wish to unsubscribe please click the link at the bottom of this email.​
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sarah@midtownmontessori.com

A: 987 Bostwick Lane, Santa Cruz, CA

C: (858) 226 3107

CCL #444417036

Our website now has a booking form to enable you to book tours directly.