Farm: The farmers began volunteering at The Nashville Food Project which is a non-profit that serves communities healthy food across the Nashville area. You can explore their philosophy and mission  here . Farm groups will be volunteering throughout March. Abintra is fortunate to have a very functional greenhouse on campus that we drive past every day. Starting seeds in the greenhouse will produce seedlings that can be transplanted when the weather warms, and some plants are much easier to grow this way. Tomatoes, peppers, and flowers all benefit from getting a head start in the greenhouse when the weather outside is still fluctuating. This spring, some students have shown interest in growing seedlings for the garden on campus, the farm, and to sell at Thursday farmers markets. The most important commitment to this work is watering. Seedlings must be watered every day, including weekends. If your child commits to this work, there will be weekend days that your...

“ Practical life activities make up one of the most important areas of Montessori education, helping with order, concentration, coordination, and independence.” - Maria Montessori Cultural - Cooking Students from Lower school 3 and Upper School 1 and 2 made s opaipillas . They rolled the dough, cut shapes, and grated oranges, lemons, cinnamon and nutmeg. They took turns frying the sopaipillas, and the best part was eating them. Muy buenas! Students also made  tortilla de patatas, Spanish omeletes. They peeled lots of potatoes, grated onions and garlic, and made a batter out of eggs. The hardest part was turning the tortilla upside down. They did it! “As soon as children find something that interests them, they lose their instability and learn to concentrate.” Maria Montessori We wrote Spanish stories and put on a play using puppets. Students work with vocabulary cards and make their own sentence books in Spanish with words...

As we find ourselves surrounded by the winter's chilling weather, we continue our studies of the changing seasons. Students in the Lower School 1 and 2 classrooms have been reading books that describe winter’s colder weather, effects on plant life, and snow-covered landscapes.  Along with reading books, we have many opportunities for class discussions on winter and its characteristics. Snowflakes have been an exciting topic and the children have been working steadily with the Build A Snowflake lesson. After reading through The Snowflake, Winter’s Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen, the children learned that every snowflake has its own individual characteristics. With the Build a Snowflake lesson, students choose one snowflake picture and then create their very own representation of that image using different objects. Not only do they continue strengthening their hand-eye coordination, pincer grasp, and overall fine motor skills, but their creativity shi...