Little Elephant Montessori School

Making it snow at LEMS Too! ❄️

Please share with families looking for an enriched early learning experience for their children.

Little Elephant too in Berkeley is open for enrollment!

This month has been all about the children and how they see themselves. Here, the children design how they look with culturally diverse cutouts. There are so many developmental appropriate practices to having children choose their cutout person:

Cultural Awareness and Appreciation: By representing themselves with cutouts that reflect diverse cultural attributes, children gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural differences.

Self-Expression and Identity: Crafting cutouts allows children to express their personal identity and characteristics, which is crucial for developing self-esteem and a strong sense of self.

Fine Motor Skills Development: The process of creating cutouts and applying sticker letters involves cutting, gluing, and placing small items, which helps children develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Language and Literacy Skills: Spelling their names with sticker letters supports early literacy development.

Creativity and Imagination: This activity encourages children to use their creativity and imagination in choosing colors, designs, and attributes that represent themselves.

Social-Emotional Learning: Discussing their cutouts and names with peers can promote social skills, empathy, and communication.

Sense of Belonging: By creating personalized cutouts, children feel a sense of inclusion and belonging within the classroom community. Displaying their work can foster pride in their identity and contribution to the group.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

5 years ago we planted a baby maple with the hopes of having a climbing tree in front of the school. Today I found this lion hanging in the tree!

What a wild ride August has been for Little Elephant! We have successfully been open now for several weeks at both campuses with no confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19. We are diligently following CDC and health dept guidelines and our parent community has been wonderful in helping to keep COVID out of our schools.
Our latest challenge is extremely poor air quality due to wildfires all around the bay area. We are working our way through the health implications of being cooped up inside with no fresh air flow! Fortunately the temperature has cooled off and air quality is improving. Never thought we'd need a/c in the bay area but that's next on our to do list!
I am so grateful for my resilient and dedicated teachers and the support of parent community.

Both our campuses are open! We are excited to start the new school year on August 10th in Rockridge and August 17th in Berkeley.

We continue to follow health and safety guidelines with small class sizes of 12 children per group.

Temperature and health check at drop ff each day.

All adults are wearing masks all day. Children are encouraged to but it is not required.

All materials are disinfected after each use.

Children have assigned tables and their own pencil box with supplies.

Each child has their own special work rug. This helps to keep their work organized on the floor and also encourages physical distancing.

We have shortened our hours to 8:30-3:30pm in order to maintain additional staff during those hours to help with the extra cleaning and disinfecting requirements.

While it has been a big shift for all of us the children have adapted beautifully as expected.

We do have a couple of openings beginning Sept 1st at Rockridge and August 17th at Berkeley.

We hope you are all staying safe and look forward to a wonderful new school year!