Valentine's Day Celebrations
It was a lovely day to celebrate Valentine's Day at Villa di Maria! There were more shades of pink than ever, and it was a bright and sunny day full of plenty of regular work in addition to a few parties! Below, some photos from around campus and inside classrooms. 
Lower elementary students decorated for an afternoon dance party while the primary students played on the playground (and fell asleep on car rides home) after having their own morning celebrations. The creativity of the Valentine boxes never ceases to amaze us!
While one elementary classroom made their own sweet and heartfelt in-house Valentines, the other classroom played a very funny game of "Telephone."
They also toasted to a Happy Valentine's Day with sparkling grape juice, apple juice, and water. The dance party was a blast, and as usual, the kids were still talking about their fun days well into the evening. What a special place to share the love with friends!
Happy Valentine's Day!
We adults can tend to take for granted all that goes into preparing a meal: the manual dexterity it takes to open cans, for instance, or the skill of chopping onions. Observing these four children go through the process was a good reminder of the complexities involved in prepping a meal start to finish!
Chopping onions, for instance, requires knife skills and strength, and a whole lot of persistence, especially when those strong onions begin to sting your eyes and make them water!
Each child had the opportunity to attempt to open cans before allowing the expert of the group to take over. There was plenty of patience, guidance, and encouragement for those who struggled.
And the onions...
Oh, the onions!!!
The children followed a recipe they had previously printed out, and checked back often to make sure they were following it closely.
With guidance from Lower Elementary assistant Melinda, the children took turns with each step of the process to build their skills and understanding of the cooking process.
And of course, the important last step before serving their delicious meal: cleaning up!
They did an excellent job, and the entire Lower Elementary building was filled with wonderful smells of cooking sauce, spices, and onions. A large portion of the Lower Elementary classroom opted to pay for the meal from the money they have budgeted for the cooking program. Be sure to check back in for Part II!
While the children enjoyed some (rather cold) outdoor time after lunch and recess, Directresses and Assistants worked hard to ready the classrooms with Chinese New Year decorations and Chinese culture items in general. Ms. Sophie did a wonderful job setting up a special surprise Kung Fu presentation by Mr. Qi Xing, who is from China and has practiced Kung Fu for over 30 years.
The children were treated to the traditional Chinese New Year story of Nian; the highlight being Directress Anna Schwind reading a page in English, followed by Jie Zheng's reading in Mandarin. The children were absolutely captivated by the version in both languages!
Soon after the reading, the surprise of the Kung Fu presentation was revealed. Clearly, these children were beyond excited!
Mr. Qi Xing, who is a 32nd generation of disciples of Shaolin Temple in China, is particularly good at Shaolin boxing, Shaolin sword, and hard Qi Gong. He has earned many domestic and international Kung Fu Championships, and is now operating Qi Master at Kung Fu School in St. Louis. What an honor it was to see his presentation!
When Mr. Xing asked for volunteers, the hands shot right up!
After the presentation, Ms. Sophie discussed some traditions of the Chinese New Year before the children went on to do crafts having to do with the new year. Some favorites were coloring pages, paper fortune-tellers, and pop-up dragons. The staff really went all out with this one!
The last part of the celebration was the food! Children enjoyed lotus candy, oranges, vegetarian spring rolls, dumplings, and fortune cookies.
Happy Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rooster!
Too often, learning is misrepresented. While healthy competition is just that, being one's best self is not to the exclusion of others.
How wonderful it is to see children working together, testing each other, building each other up rather than pushing one another aside. How special to witness a collaborative decision-making process, even when it doesn't go smoothly. How important to teach our children to work together, so that they may do so gracefully as adults.
Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing this piece of the Montessori world with us! It is truly a wonderful, meaningful process for all!
Donning hard hats for safety, the children were taken through in groups to make the tours more manageable.
Questions were asked and answered, such as "Will we get stuck in any of the concrete?" and "No, all the concrete has dried and hardened." First, the necessary details!
Above, one of the workers showed the children where the fireplace will be -- somewhere around here, in the library. Being within the rooms was very special -- the building is so much larger once you step inside! Also, the windows really are huge!
This worker also pointed out where the play yard will be. The children gathered around to peak out the window and imagine the space -- a practice that is getting easier and easier as the building comes along.
Here is the west side of the building, and below, the north side.
Thank you, BSI Constructors, for taking your time to show the children around, and for your patience and positivity while answering their questions!
There was still plenty of color in the gardens tucked in around campus at the beginning of December. Those flowers held out far longer than usual! It was such a special treat to see them still green and pink and purple before the frost came mid-month.
As mother nature does her thing, the cold and frosty weather has arrived...
We look forward to all of the fun holiday activities that will take place within the Villa classrooms — from celebrations to practice for the big performance, to pajama day and beyond! We hope you and your families are cozy and well!
The new elementary building will include three classrooms, a kitchen and multipurpose room, a pool house with girls' and boys' locker rooms as well as an office, and a pavilion for community gatherings and Camp Pegnita.
This is a sample of the siding for the new building. All of the materials chosen for the new building are environmentally friendly, in addition to maintaining some of the characteristics of the current structures and surrounding neighborhood.The children were very curious about the construction process itself. They asked questions about the large machinery, such as "the one with the big roller," which is used to flatten the concrete they have poured. In fact, they were quite curious about all things relating to the slab: the big pourer, the concrete finisher, and whether getting the concrete wet might ruin it (as there were some rainy days following the pouring of the concrete slab). They all agreed that they wanted the job of the guy who operated the ride-on trowel (shown below).
Photo credit: Constructionequipment.comEach worker talked about his or her job and what they liked best about their job. Questions ranged from what happens if someone forgets to put in a piece of wood, to what type of pencil was attached to one of the hard hats! Amazing the little details these curious learners pick up on!
The construction of Phase I (which includes all of the structures mentioned above) is on target for being complete by May 31, 2017. This will complete on campus construction for awhile before Phase II begins - at least one year, more likely around three years - (Phase II will include an administrative building and a gym; Phase III will include four Primary classrooms), leaving a bit of time for everyone to settle in.
The skeleton of the building is going up fast; since taking the above photo, the roof is now up! One of the most exciting aspects of this space is the grand size — not just of the building, but also of the huge windows which will allow plenty of natural light into the classrooms and new spaces! We cannot wait to see the finished product!Thank you, Melinda, for taking these beautiful pictures! 
They also provide a little privacy! Here, a child reads to himself within the comfy shelter of some big green leaves.
Within the primary and elementary classrooms, there is also the important lesson of caring for the environment. Children are shown how to dust leaves, remove dead leaves, water, and otherwise care for the plants within their classroom. There is also the flower arranging lesson, to be covered in a future blog post. The flowers below were picked from one of Villa di Maria's own fall gardens.
The thought and care that goes into each Montessori classroom continues to amaze and inspire. If you'd like to introduce some plants into your child's home environment, here is a list of easy-to-care for varieties:
Ms. Sophie so patiently guided two children through the long process of making apple dumplings to share with one classroom, while the other classroom prepared a feast for their classmates. Four of the third-year students took it upon themselves to organize. They formed a committee, encouraged children to sign up and bring in different dishes, and executed the whole thing without a hitch. It was really impressive to watch them negotiate, work through so many different issues and steps along the way, and finally pull together the lunchtime feast.
They moved tables around a bit before deciding on the best way to present the food.
Many children lingered as the food was slowly brought out — it all looked so tempting!
While the four children were working to pull together the main event, Ms. Schwind played several rounds of "21 Questions" with the rest of the class. Their deductive reasoning skills are so impressive!
In case you were wondering, the answer to the round above was the South Asian country of Bhutan, which Ms. Schwind pointed out is the happiest country in Asia, and one of the happiest countries in the world. And I believe the children guessed correctly, but it took them all 21 questions to get there!
The children who put on this feast not only set it up and organized, but also served every one of their classmates before serving themselves. They thought of everything, even putting numbers on or near each food item recommending the quantity each person should take so there would be enough for everyone.
And they had plenty! Below, some of the very full plates:
There was plenty of ham...We are so thankful for Villa di Maria! The people who make this place what it is, the hard work they put into each day, the patience, empathy, and love they show our children — it is all part of what makes this place so special. Our hearts are full. Happy Thanksgiving, both to and from Villa!
From left: conch, Tibetan trumpet, and bull horn
The children gathered outside in some pretty bright November sunshine to listen to the Jostleins talk about the history and use of each horn, followed by a demonstration of the sounds they produce. Also, a good sense of humor is always appreciated!
Two students counted the protrusions on the conch shell to see if they corresponded with a Fibonacci sequence (they do correspond with the golden ratio) and also noted that the inner spiral of a conch is in fact included in the 
… And what a beautiful sound it makes!
The grand finale was the assembly and discussion about the Alphorn, named from the region of the world from where it hails (the Alps). The children enjoyed the BIG sound, and noted that they could feel the vibrations from the Alphorns through the ground where they sat. It was a lovely show on a beautiful November afternoon. The whole afternoon was really special, and the Upper Elementary students have made a big impression on the Third Years!
Thank you, Tricia and Thomas, for taking time out of your day to spend it with us!
Megan Eilers, Lower Elementary Directress, invites us into her classroom at the end of the school day to see what "jobs" time looks like. She has organized a chart for the children, and is experimenting with the best amount of time for them to really master their jobs: "We're thinking of moving to two-week periods for the children to have the same job. Otherwise, it seems at the end of the one-week time period, they have just learned to do the job well and have to go do a different one."
And there are so many jobs to master! This classroom divides up the work into the following jobs: dusting and straightening all the shelves, sharpening pencils, washing dishes, caring for pets and plants, doing laundry, straightening cubbies, collecting trash and recycling, putting up chairs, vacuuming, lunch set-up, cleaning tables, chairs, and cubbies, and there's even a job inspector to keep everyone on task and up-to-date.
The job inspector, hard at work
Doing classroom jobs on a daily basis not only teaches responsibility for one's environment and community, it also teaches respect and appreciation for each other and the surroundings they need to be neat and clean. This is one skill that can carry over into the home life in a very helpful way… at least, we can hope!
The open-ended play that results from loose parts — the sticks and logs and things found in nature, provided by nature itself, allows for deep creative experimentation: the crucial element being the children's freedom to adapt the materials in a large variety of ways. These logs can become structures, machines, vehicles, absolutely anything a child (or group of children) decides.
The power of loose parts lies in its infinite possibilities. It does not dictate a story or purpose; the child does so.
If you are interested in creating more loose parts play for your child, consider the following in your back yard: stones of varying size, slices of wood rounds, sticks, pinecones, sand, wood chips, chalk, gravel, acorns, planks, tubes, and wheels.For indoors: popsicle sticks, dominos, wood blocks, felt balls, yarn, pipe cleaners, marbles, cardboard tubes, washers, buttons, shells, magnetic building tiles, strips of fabric (silk, wool, cotton), and even dried seeds or beans!Happy playing!
The guide starts by asking children to recap what had happened the previous day and many hands shoot up. They all contribute, some in greater detail than others, pieces of the story that make the whole. And that's the thing—this group dynamic is representative of the collaborative nature of the Montessori lower elementary classroom: all voices are heard, each child is valued, their voices are part of a bigger picture.
Read aloud is fascinating to observe. A small room, absolutely packed with children, is completely and totally quiet. There is only the sound of paper being folded and the shifting of bodies. Each child understands and respects the expectations: they are to listen, whether their hands are busy finger-knitting, folding origami, or drawing or simply folded in their lap.
When the guide reads a humorous or light passage, the children erupt into laughter. Then, like magic, it is quiet again.
Being together in this small space, one cannot help but notice the sense of community. The older children help the younger ones, using hand signals instead of words—guiding them through a tricky fold in origami, offering a hand when a stitch is off, or sharing scissors and pencils. A treasured time of day, read aloud is a time to relax and refresh the mind before another work cycle.
What is happening here? Coordination with one's own body in addition to coordinating with others' bodies, balance, teamwork, joy, and relaxation all in one!
Imagination, abstract thinking, and a self-imposed time-out: this child was upset and went to be by herself for a few moments. Her friend, standing, checked on her and took a position of protector. They ran off together minutes later. 
Pure joy!
Simply observing children at recess is enough to see the evidence of this complex and important part of a child's day. What an honor to be a fly on the wall! Let those kids play!
With plenty of fun events on the horizon, excitement is in the air. Halloween is just around the corner. We can't wait to share some pretty great costumes with you when the time is right!
All of the children have a part to play and a story to make of themselves in each class. But some roles are hard to fill and take a rarer set of qualities. Sometimes, in some classes, they remain unfilled because no one is up to it, and the classroom experience as a whole is less rich and a little less complete. The contrarians, as I think of them, are scarce. Their special gifts have often been thought of and treated by the culture at large as burdens instead of opportunities — even when they are yet children! — so I prize those ones especially.Thank you for [your contrarians].And thank you, Anna, for never failing at the magical ability to see the good in every child. Your perspective and words are truly inspiring!
The younger (and older) siblings of the Lower Elementary kids had just as much fun as their brothers and sisters! It is a joy to see these budding friendships and to observe the older students taking care of and including their friends' little brothers and sisters. It really does take a village, and that village is made of all different age groups!
Outdoor natural climbing structures allow for this age group to test and challenge their bodies, and to create elaborate pretend games that often focus on group and social dynamics. This group quickly formed small packs and ran through the nature's classroom space and the surrounding woods together.
A few of the older siblings brought nets and containers and successfully caught fish from the large pond. "There used to be two fish in this container, but the big fish must have been hungry…"
Let's hope for more of this glorious weather!