This month in Mountain Laurel cottage...

This Month in the classroom
April has been the busiest month so far in our classroom! Many, many, many things went on - Claire and I feel like we ran a marathon ;-)
It was great to meet with y’all during Parent-Teacher conferences. It is always so exciting to share your children’s progress and work.
Aside from all the lessons and the usual follow up work, many visitors came to shadow as potential students for next year. One of our visitors joined Mountain Laurel last week. We are thrilled to have Parker and his family join our community. Parker is eight years old and blended right in like he had been with us from the beginning of the school year.  
I am very proud of Mountain Laurel students for how nice and welcoming they have been to the different children shadowing. When a group of 11 kindergarten students visited us, the mid and beginning-cycle students took the lead with pride and responsibility. Just as the future beginning cycle students came to visit Mountain Laurel, our Full Cycle students went to Rockwood to shadow for a couple of days and had a wonderful time. 

We have been practicing our favorite songs because the children want to sing them to you before the end of the school year. Stay tuned for a date and time, but tentatively pencil down Thursday, May 25th at 1:15 pm. 

During this last week of April, the Full Cycle students took the IOWA Standardized test. Like most Montessori schools, we offer this test in 3rd and 5th grade. It is a great way to expose them to testing without the stressful part of being graded. It gives us teachers and parents a snapshot of the children's progress and what needs to be reinforced before the end of the school year. The students were excited to take the test, and in general, they said it was easy, with the exception of a few questions. If you are a parent of a Full Cycle student, please sign-up here to schedule a conference to review the test results.  
While I was preparing for Conferences, Ms. Pat taught the children how to do paper mache masks; they did an amazing job! I was blown away by their creativity. 
Last year when we couldn’t have Going-Outs due to Omicron, I planned “Going-Ins”.  We had Ms. Patty Paquette, a historian and a grandmother of a former Mountain Laurel student, visit us a couple of times to teach the children about pre-colonial times. She came back this week and talked about the colonial time. The returning students were super happy when I announced she was coming back. She worked with half of the class this week and will meet with the other half next Thursday. 
The children have been enjoying going to the chicken cop to get eggs. We have MANY in our fridge. If you would like some Cedars Organic free-range eggs, send an empty carton and a $5 donation. 

If you haven’t visited Rockwood’s full-cycle students' Coffee shop called Firefly Cafe, you are missing out ;-) They have coffee, hot cocoa, and pastries from 8:00 to 9:00 am Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Not only would you enjoy good coffee, but you would experience a sneak peek of what your child would do when they become full-cycle students at Rockwood in a few years.

What’s next
Cedars Spring Festival!
Yeeei, it’s this Saturday. It is so much fun, and we haven’t had it since 2019, so get ready to enjoy games, friends, and family at the elementary playground from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Meet and Greet Rachel 
Saturday, May 6th, from 9:00 to 10:30 am in our classroom. There will be coffee, snacks, and child care at the Elementary Playground.

Friday, May 12th NO SCHOOL /Full Cycle’s Test review conferences  

Serenade to families: The children want to sing their favorite Mountain Laurel songs to you, so please come to the playground on Thursday, May 25th at 1:15 pm. It will be VERY SHORT, so you don’t want to be late because you’ll miss it!

Last Day of School: Friday May 26th, early dismissal. Please be on the lookout for details on the Cedars’ Post. 

Ways to help our classroom

• Please sign up here to bring Flowers at LEAST once during the school year
• Donations from the Classroom Amazon Wish list

Thank you for sharing your children with us, if you want to see pictures for this month click here

Warmly,
Maya and Claire