Hello Spruce Families!

I cannot believe that September has already come and gone! Your children are sliding into the school year wonderfully – making new friends, reacquainting with old friends, and learning to trust Cydnie and me as their guides in this beautiful space. They have learned the two rules of our classroom (1. Take care of all living things 2. Take care of all non-living things) and are adeptly putting those two rules into practice, learning how they cover a wide range of transgressions. The classroom feels like a busy beehive, with children moving from one work to another fluidly and me having to make appointments with them to get their lessons in! All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the school year.

I’ve had a couple questions from parents regarding sharing and I wanted to touch on that for a brief moment. As preschoolers, it is developmentally appropriate for your child to not share. In fact, I can’t think of any point in our adult lives that we are required to stop using something we have and hand it over to someone else when they demand it…that’s actually called robbery.          So instead of the mindset of “sharing” (when someone else wants to use what your child is using thereby forcing them to give up something before they’re ready), try to transition your thinking to “turn taking”, allowing your child to have their turn for as long as is reasonable and gifting the other party with the opportunity to practice patience. This is actually one of the key components of a Montessori classroom: we have only one or two of each work for a reason, and we allow children the time and space to fully explore those works and develop their ability to concentrate, but only when the work is not being used by someone else. As your child reaches their Kindergarten year, their willingness to happily share will start showing more and more, especially if you have set a good foundation of modeling what giving joyfully looks like.

And just one quick note to end this message: children are drawn to small/beautiful/precious things. If your child is drawn to a small/beautiful/precious thing from the classroom and brings it home with them, please admire the thing, maybe make a list of what makes it so beautiful and precious, maybe take a photo of your child with it, and then acknowledge that the small/beautiful/ precious thing must stay at school and ask if they would like to return it in their pocket/backpack or in a special bag.

Thank you all for your part in making the beginning of the school year so great, your children wouldn’t have been so successful if it wasn’t for your help! Also, yay for germ exposure and building up the immune system! Looking forward to a great October!

Sincerely,
Amy Glen
Spruce Guide
971-237-3347

“Within the child lies the fate of the future.” – Maria Montessori