Peony Buds Montessori

I sit written finals this week. 8 papers on Montessori theories and practices written in six hours. It is so much…SO much. It’s the summation of a century of curriculum and philosophy condensed into 24 pages. How can it even be done??

It’s so hard…but then I remember all the sweet little faces waiting for me back in the classroom. Absolutely everything I do is for them. Every word, every album edit, every hand drawn illustration, every stitch by hand while making geography folders. It’s all for them and for the future of humanity.

These children are my life. They have GIVEN me my life. I am who I am because of them.

And that makes it all worth it.

(And now I’m crying in the library 😂)

The most essential thing you can do with a bunch of children is plant berries because lord knows they eat their body weight in them DAILY!

We now have 4 baby strawberries growing in our garden box! They join our blueberry bushes, and will soon be neighbors to teeny tiny tomatoes and small cucumbers. The kids are so excited to help grow things for us to eat in the school room!! They’re responsible for watering them every day to help them grow.

If your kid loves digging in the garden, have them join our bunch! We only have three spots left to fill before we move into our new school house, and you definitely don’t want to miss all the fun and love we have here!!

Let’s Bloom Together 💕💐

(And while you’re here…donate to our SpotFund so we can make the move to the new building that much smoother! Link is in the comments!)

May we all have sons that look at us the way Mario looked at Maria ❤️

Happy mother’s day to all the incredible moms out there…including the one who’s the mother of the method!

This could be you if you donate to our new school building campaign!

Help us raise future astronauts and teachers and hot ER doctors by giving these wonderful children a school building all of their own. We’re 10% of the way to our goal!!

https://www.spotfund.com/story/b4428c8f-0745-431e-91fd-bfab43813c32

Hi everyone!!!

I hope you all were as excited as I was to see our new school house announcement!! I’m so blown away by the response of the community, as so looking forward to what comes next.

I’ve had people ask if they can donate to the school directly. I’ve made a SpotFund page so that people can do just that. It’s linked below.

I appreciate every single cent that comes our way. With your help, you’re making not only my dreams come true, but you’re making a wonderful childhood for the future leaders of our time and place.

Thanks for everything!

So much love and light!
LB Bishop

Click here to support Lb Bishop's story *PeonyBudsMontessori *spotfund is the easiest place to create beautiful and free online fundraisers. It takes just minutes to start raising money today.

I am beyond excited to announce that Peony Buds is moving into a new building in the new school year!!

After being hosted in my home for the past two years, we have finally outgrown our current space and are moving into a much better building.

The new building is less than half a mile from the current location, and will be an entirely dedicated environment just for our school!

I've been watching this building be renovated for the past three or so years, and I took a crazy leap of faith and wrote the owner a four page letter telling them who I am and asking them for a chance to rent it before anyone else. The owner was so moved and agreed wholeheartedly that it would be the perfect space for all the children!

In order to secure the building and the costs associated with the move, we are going to be doing fundraising this summer. We have some great things planned like a community yard sale, pizza and movie nights, music groups, and much more. If you have any ideas then please let me know!

If you feel so inclined, you may make a donation to the school directly through our SpotFund. Every single dollar gets us closer to actualizing the dream and means the world to me and all the children!

http://spot.fund/PeonyBudsMontessori

We celebrated Earth Day by doing some anthotyping!

I prepped a turmeric and rubbing alcohol solution and painted the papers for the kids (and only because turmeric stains SO BADLY and despite our Montessori principles….that’s a recipe for disaster!). We all went out to collect nature things from the neighborhood to use on our papers. We left them on our papers in the sun while napping, and then wiped a baking soda water solution on the pages to develop the prints!

The kids were really amazed that the sun could paint for them!! I think I’ll be scaling this activity to one they can do independently this summer because it’s just too fun.

I’m also going to be making a crazy exciting announcement sometime this weekend. Keep on the look out for that. And if you want in on what’s coming next…book a weekend tour here and see how amazing we started and learn where we’re going next.

Let’s bloom together 💕💐

Birthdays around here are so SO special. All their friends gather around to hear the story of the lives (with photos for every milestone!), they make cake for the whole class in the sunshine, and we have fancy afternoon tea.

I love both of these children so much and I’m so lucky to be able to help them measure out ingredients.

Happy birthday you two.

The past 24 hours have been nothing short of remarkable. As much as children love to talk about stars and rockets, none of them had ever truly seen a rocket launch. So this morning when everyone arrived, we sat in the family room and watched the Artemis II launch recording. Eyes wide, mouthed gaped, brains focused….much like the astronauts themselves (probably!). We counted down from ten and cheered when the thrusters ignited. We gasped when the boosters detached. We even watched a second launch video that happened to be captured from a commercial airplane passenger. Then we came back into the school to watch the flight path at our very own Mission Control center. The laptop has been up all day to check on location and telemetry figures.

Pilot Victor Glover thanked his teachers for where he is in life and said he would never have made it to space without them. I told the kids that he had a teacher like I was THEIR teacher, and that one day if they go to space maybe they’ll thank me for teaching them when they were small.

And then I started crying at the sight of all of these hopeful and amazed little faces looking back at me. The thought of my sweet students ever being grown up enough to go to space was so overwhelming. Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen were once this small and now look where they are literally today. It’s mind blowing to think about.

Children are our future. The hardest part of this career is that we love our students so much and we are such a large part of their lives, but we know that they won’t remember us or the days we spent together. And that’s so heartbreaking, but so worth every single moment that we get the privilege of having. We won’t ever get a thanks for the time we spent guiding them to be fiercely independent or introducing them to the initial number symbols (very important for future space calculations!), but we can rest easy knowing that we are building the leaders of the future.

Let’s Bloom (and zoom!) Together 💐💕✨🚀

Hi everyone!!

Peony Buds is hiring for an occasional substitute teacher! We are looking for the perfect fit to join the team.

It’s not often that myself or my assistant needs to be gone from school, but when we are there needs to be a second adult in the building. This position would also partly encompass the month of June when I am in St Louis finishing my AMI program.

If you or anyone you know might be interested, send your CV and a very informal intro letter to [email protected].

Expect a thorough interview, a background check/drug testing as required by the state, and a day or so of training and observation in the school room.