Maddy and Erin’s group did the weather today. Famous people such as Tiana, a frog, Attila the Hun, and Chester Bennington reported the conditions.
Next, they headed off to build shelters. Later, they went to visit the Raptor Center, where Glen Helen rehabilitates injured birds of prey. Some are too disabled to return to the wild, so they become permanent residents.
Last night we had a fun game night in the dorm, enjoying snacks, music, and the skin safe washable tattoo markers and plates that Will and Kaleb brought. People were rocking some impressive arm art and nail colors.
We woke up to a surprise – the power was out! Everyone handled it really well. There were candles and lanterns in the lodge, and even a mostly hot breakfast. The power came back on later in the day while everyone was out on the trail.
Today’s photos are mostly of Katie and Kell’s trail group. I’ll post photos from the other trail group tomorrow.
Katie and Kell’s group took the first turn at presenting the weather – in character as a strange assortment of animals. Also pictured are a cozy storytime in the loft and some shelter-building.
McGuffey will be on a two-hour delay today.
As always, if we are open and you feel the conditions in your area warrant it, stay home.
In an effort to reach as many possible families in Ohio who may be impacted, the Ohio Department of Education has asked all Ohio schools to share the information below with parents by email and on our website. McGuffey Montessori is neither a defendant nor a claimant in this lawsuit.
The State of Ohio, the Governor, the Ohio Department of Education, and other state-level defendants to a class action lawsuit have reached a proposed settlement and have requested our school’s assistance in informing students and parents of the proposed settlement. A link to the settlement is below.
2020 Shop Local cards are here! Get them at Juniper, MOON Co-Op, the Oxford Farmers Market Uptown, and McGuffey Montessori School for only $15. This year’s card features benefits including…
—5% off every day at MOON Co-op
—10% off your purchase at Kofenya
—15% off one item at Juniper
—5% bonus on Oxford Farmers Market Marketbucks
—$6 day passes at Miami Rec Sports… and much more! For a complete list of the discounts available, go to oxfordshoplocal.com.
Although fundraising is a critical piece of McGuffey’s budget, it is also part of our school philosophy to act responsibly as a part of our community, and to pay it forward.
For this reason, McGuffey shares a portion of the proceeds with some of our favorite non-profit organizations—the Oxford Community Choice Pantry, the Oxford Farmers Market Uptown Sprouts Program, and the Friends of the Oxford Lane Library. These are organizations our students, families, and staff consider a valuable part of this community.
We also believe it is important to support our local economy, and, for that reason, have chosen a “Shop Local” theme for our card, and have sought businesses from Oxford and the neighboring communities to participate in this program.
McGuffey students, parents, and staff donate their time and talents to facilitate the production, sale, and distribution of the Shop Local card, so there is no cost to participating businesses or our non-profit beneficiaries.
Thank you for supporting McGuffey, the other non-profits, and our locally owned businesses !
As you do your holiday shopping, please remember to use the McGuffey Amazon.com link. Simply start your session by clicking the Amazon logo in the upper right-hand corner of any page on the McGuffey website. This will take you straight to Amazon, but your transaction will be tagged with McGuffey’s ID. We typically receive 6% of your final purchase price, which can add up to quite a bit over time.
Please share this link with family and friends and encourage them to use it. It’s an easy way that friends, family, and alumni can help support McGuffey.
Please note, McGuffey will not receive a percentage of items saved in your cart if they were placed more than 24 hours after you started at our website. To fix this, please take a moment to take the items out of your cart and replace them.
Orders made on the Amazon phone app contribute to this program but at a lower rate.
Using the Amazon link raises several thousand dollars each year by simply taking the time to make one extra click. Please support us with this simple fundraising effort!
For a while now, Primary students have been asking about the buckets that are kept in the classroom’s outdoor shed; most of them were gone. Today, everything that had been missing was brought out and placed in the middle of our morning meeting. Primary teachers explained that when items aren’t put away, it shows that the work is not important. If a work isn’t important, we don’t put it out as a choice. We were all stunned to see how many outdoor works had been left out.
After a group discussion, students expressed that the items are important. They agreed they could show how important they are by putting them away when finished. A few children wondered if it would be a good idea to reduce how many loose items could be used at at time, from five down to one. Everyone agreed to try one work at a time and to talk again in the future to see how the care of our outdoor environment is working. If it’s going well, the class might decide to change how many things could be chosen. We finished our morning meeting by dismissing the students one by one to pick an item from the middle of our meeting space and mindfully place it back into the shed. As each child carefully chose something, the room was silent.
McGuffey is proud to uphold high standards for responsibility and independence. Primary students as young as three years old know they can solve problems and work together as a community to make their environment and school a better place.
As part of our study of the human body, we are grateful to have hosted a visit from dentist, Derek Ross and dental hygienist, Jaimie Ross. They told us about the proper ways to brush our teeth and how to floss. We got to practice using models and we saw how teeth fit into bone by examining real skulls. We also got to guess how much sugar is in some favorite drinks. We were all surprised! It was a wonderful reminder to brush our teeth to keep the sugar from settling in. Jaimie and Derek also brought us hard boiled eggs that had been soaked in color filled drinks like gatorade and soda. Our job was to try and brush those stains off which took a lot of work.
Thank you Jaimie and Derek!
The Primary students have started a long unit on learning how the human body works. This past week included the study of respiration and circulation. After having studied nutrition and digestion in the previous unit, we knew that the body needs nutrients. We learned that oxygen has needed nutrients as well as food. The lungs and heart work together to bring oxygen to the blood.
Works on the shelf helped us explore respiration and circulation including puzzles, a stethescope, models and a science experiment using balloons to see how our diaphragm pulls air into the lungs.
Upper Elementary has been studying Astronomy. They shared some of their favorite work with their Primary partners. Students demonstrated day and night with the Tellurium sun and earth model, showed them simulated solar systems, stars, and galaxies using Universe Sandbox, helped them match three-part cards, and read books to them. They loved answering their partners’ questions about the universe.
