Notes from Ms. Alena (Head of School)
Exploring Nature
From the very beginning of life, it is vital to maintain the link between child and nature. To achieve this, we need to become aware of the importance of nature in our own lives, only then we will be able to share this wonderful world of miracles with our children.
Spending time in nature is a fully integrated sensory experience. Watching the sunlight bounce off of trees as they sway in the wind, smelling the plants and flowers around you, hearing the leaves crunch under your feet, feeling the cold dirt in your hands, and sometimes even tasting the fresh vegetables or herbs from a garden. Engaging with nature grounds us and reminds us of our connection to the environment. Nature provides a powerful tool for nurturing young minds.
The highlight of this month was the 4-day trip of our Elementary students to Nature’s Classroom in Hartland, WI.
This national program of nature exploration brought to our students such a great experience of going in the path of rediscovery of nature, in the path of rediscovery of the world through their eyes, taking care of themselves and helping each other, learning how to compromise living with roommates, and building a new friendship.
During this trip, our students learned a lot of new facts, built many new skills, tried different new foods suggested by their friends, made a lot of new friends from the other Montessori schools, and, the most important part of this trip, they spent most of each day in the forest and on the lake.
Thank you, Children!!!
Our planet is an amazing place! But it needs each one of us to play our part to keep it clean, healthy, and thriving. April 22nd is Earth Day!
As grownups, it’s a great time to celebrate our Earth and set an example of environmental responsibility for our kids, so they are empowered to care for our environment.
At Montessori Pathways, we take our children on nature walks to show them the beauty of our planet; we use recycled materials in arts and crafts projects to reduce waste and pollution, we plant flowers to make our planet beautiful.
Our children are also eager to keep our planet clean and always are enthusiastic to go around the neighborhood and pick up all trach.
Thank you so much, Little Friends, for helping our planet being clean and healthy!
Way to go, Montessori Pathways students!
You all are having such big hearts!
School Events in April
Summer camp is around the corner!
We appreciate parents for submitting all applications by the deadline. Your cooperation greatly assists our preparations for Summer Camp and the upcoming academic year.
Monthly themes are established, activities are organized, and field trips along with events are arranged.
Children can look forward to plenty of exciting activities this summer, just like always!
Summer Camp bags with information and additional forms will be sent home soon. Please check your child’s bag and email regularly for updates. We're eager to enjoy a great summer together.
May 4 – May 8 – National Teacher Appreciation Week
This week is a great chance for our families to pass your warm and kind words to your teachers!
May 13 (W); Rain Day – May 14 (Th) at 9:00am – Planting Day! Pastries with Parents!
Come and create Pathways Garden together with children!
May 20 (W) at 2:00pm – Kindergarten Moving Up Ceremony. Kindergarten Parents are Welcome!
May 21 (Th) at 2:00pm – Six Grade Graduation Ceremony. Elementary Parents are Welcome!
May 22 (F) at 10:30am – School-wide Final Picnic at Montessori Pathways School. Everyone is welcome!
May 25 (M) – No School - Memorial Day
• The Last Day of School is Wednesday, May 27.
• The school will be closed for Summer Camp preparation May 28 - 29
• The Summer Camp begins Monday, June 1.
June 1 – August 21 – Summer Camp
August 24 - 28 (M – W) - No Class (2026 - 2027 School Year Preparation / Orientation Days)
August 31 (M) – 2026 - 2027 School Year begins
NEWS FROM THE ELEMENTARY CLASS
Ms. Bridget, Ms. Carole
Nature’s Classroom is an experience like no other. Montessori students look forward to this 4-day trip of nature, games, classes, bunk bed sleeping, choosing your own food and meeting new friends and teachers. It was a wonderful trip to make new Montessori friends from the Montessori School of Chicago, Seton Montessori, The Bilingual Lab School of Chicago and Nature’s Classroom Montessori School. Ms Alena sent wonderful pictures to all parents with a write-up about daily classes and activities. My favorite part of the trip is seeing how the first graders and first timers react to the freedom at NCI: freedom to choose classes, sleeping arrangements, when to shower, what to eat and how much, what to do in their free time and freedom to explore in a beautiful natural environment. It was an amazing trip.
Parent-Teacher Conferences were a good chance for us to touch base and plan for the next year. I enjoy sharing some successes and areas of growth. Thank you to all parents for partnering with me to do this important job.
We had our first full day Kindergarten visits this month. Students got to work with their friends as well as show them Nature class at VA. They love to show the ropes and share their excitement of a place they love.
April is National Poetry Month. During this month, I recited some of my favorite poems by my favorite poets each day and then on Wednesday writing day, they were able to try their hands at some poetry writing. We begin with Acrostic Poems. They were to write words that described them using the letters of their name. I’d like to share a few:
We had an exciting visitor come to our class via zoom. Scholastic Books has a program called Story Voice in which authors are invited to speak to school kids. Dav Pilkey, author of Dog Man and Captain Underpants series, was the guest speaker. Many of our students are huge fans of his books so we were looking forward to this visit for a while.
Mr. Pilkey shared his story of how he was not a good reader when he was young, but his mom kept taking him to the library every week and let him choose whatever book he wanted. He enjoyed those visits. When he became an adult, he wanted to write a book that all kids could read.
He also read some of his book to us and drew Dog Man. We all had our sketch books to draw along with him. He then told us about a Manga Captain Underpants book he did as well as when Book #15 of Dog Man will come out. (November 2026). It was a great day listening to a real author. I am a fan now.
Collaborative work has taken over the class. Many choose to work with friends and make better choices in working with partners.
Spring is in the air so we will be spending more time outdoors working on projects. Simple Machines,
Ancient Civilizations, Mapping, Life Science and Acids and Bases are some of the topics. Lots of students are choosing their own topics to research.
NEWS FROM THE SOUTH ROOM
Ms. Kathy, Ms. Ellen
April Showers bring May flowers. What beautiful weather we had to end the month with. We opened our “Outside classroom”. The children were encouraged to bring materials outside to work at tables and on blue mats as if in the classroom. The most popular indoor materials were even more exciting outdoors. One child chose the “Shrubs and Trees” classification work and was excited to see real Lilacs, Cherry blossoms and Magnolia buds around us. It was amazing with the added sense of smell! Most of the materials can and have been enjoyed outside except for food preparation and snacks. Everything from art, Sensorial, math, language, geography and science
Our caterpillars arrived on April 20th, and they were 1 centimeter long and very skinny. The children anxiously arrive at school, care for their belongings and rush in to observe and measure them.
Some documented the growth in their journals with the date, size and drew a picture to accompany the findings. By day 2 they were 2 cm., then 3 then 3.5 and getting thicker.
We observed the tiny creatures thoughtfully and talked about what would be changes to expect in the following weeks. “Caterpillar to Butterfly” a National Geographic book by Laura Marsh was beautifully illustrated and full of fun facts and of the interesting life cycle of a butterfly. From eggs, pupa, larva and finally the metamorphosis into a Butterfly. The entire process takes approximately 4-5 weeks, but ours were already hatched from the egg stage so 3 weeks until the South room can observe and then release the Painted Lady butterflies.
Ask your child how big the smallest and largest butterflies in the world are. On the shelves the children found parts of a butterfly, lifecycle of a butterfly, types of butterflies matching butterflies to their caterpillars, It is all very fascinating and a great learning experience of the huge word “metamorphosis”.
Earth Day was April 22 this year and coincided with our mulching spruce it up day. The children were amazed at how wonderful our playground looked afterwards. They are excited to keep it that way, grabbing dust pans and brooms to sweep any stray mulch or rubber chips and returning it to its place. Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to make things beautiful once again.
Earth Day also brought discussion of how to care for our Earth. We read the book “Change the world before Bedtime” by Mark Kimball Moulton. Josh Chambers and Karen Good. Which discusses the small changes we can all make to care for the Earth. That anyone can be an ordinary kid superhero by doing simple tasks. One child in our group said, “Every day is Earth Day!” There are so many things we can change to save our planet. We discussed the 3 R” s, Reduce, reuse and recycle.
The children are also learning about germination. We discussed the parts of a seed and that a seed contains life. It just needs the right environment to grow. We planted bean seeds in a baggie with a paper towel that gave them water and light. Now we watch and wait.
We also put a baggie with seeds, water and a paper towel in a dark closet to see if it will grow. The bags are hung from the window for the children to look for the first signs of the seed growing, the roots. If all is successful the seedlings will be transplanted to soil and sent home for your child to plant and enjoy,
It is hard to believe the year is coming to an end. The children are working hard in all areas. All the children are beginning to solve problems on their own. Instead of giving an answer as to what to do next, we prompt them to solve problems. First, they can ask themselves, then a friend the last resort is to ask a teacher.
As we share our final newsletter of the year, we look forward to a few remaining events and the start of our summer journey.
NEWS FROM THE EAST ROOM
Ms. Masha, Ms. Laxmi
April has been the month of new growth and awakening in the East Room! Our students came in recharged after a much-needed Spring Break and dove straight back into their routines. We are seeing a lot of new growth with our younger friends as they progress towards their next chapter.
The youngest children are building first words and starting to blend them as they read them back. We are on the brink of several new readers emerging in the East Room! Friends who used to practice numbers 0-9 have grown to practicing teens and tens! And several new children have grown into playing the Bank Game with much excitement. Perhaps this is why our Work Together Night was filled with so many academic presentations, despite that not being a requirement. Thank you, parents, for taking the time to come out and support your children. It really means a lot for them to see you here and learning from them. They love to teach you.
April also brought us Earth Day. Many of our students remember last year’s Earth Day and why we celebrate it. We read the book ‘Ocean! Waves For All’ by Stacy McAnulty, which highlights the beauty and importance of the ocean while starkly contrasting it with the dim and ugly state much of the ocean has become with our increasing pollution.
Many of the students remembered important ways to help the Earth – using less paper, walking or biking instead of driving, turning off the tap while brushing teeth, and taking only as much food as we can eat to not waste food.
We decided that rather than making a new craft with new paper to celebrate the day, we would use the scraps of leftover paper we always collect to express ourselves during Earth Week! The oldest children went on to collect trash in our neighborhood in the afternoon as well.
April has also allowed us to finally return to the outdoor classroom – a favorite aspect of the Montessori environment. We can explore the study of botany and zoology even closer—look at the ladybugs crawling by as we study parts of a ladybug, pull out a weed’s roots to study the parts of a root, and see and smell the flowers and shrubs that emerge in spring while we study their names. But we can also reignite interest in works –scrubbing outdoor cars, painting on the outdoor easel, sweeping our patio, washing windows from the outside, and more.
Academic work is also more enticing while sitting in the warm spring sun, feeling the gentle breeze, and listening to the birds chirp. There is no limit to what the children can work on outside (ok, one limit – food preparation stays in the “kitchen” of the class!).
And in April, the outside also comes into the classroom as we have new growth in both zoology and botany! We are growing our very own caterpillars again this year and the Kindergarteners are working hard to measure and record their growth throughout the process. The younger children are gentle in observing the caterpillars’ movements in anticipation of when they will form the chrysalis! Thanks to Ember’s mom, we are also growing some new crops in our botany area – spinach, tomato, pepper, squash, and zucchini plants that we will hopefully be able to add to our garden for the summer. After an informative presentation on crop rotation, the group worked together to prep and plant these crops. Thank you, Katrina, for this wonderful experience for the East Room!
We are excited to see the growth and blooming of the students during the upcoming final month of the school year!
