Desert Garden Montessori

Greenhouse Update: It is up! Thank you to all the parent volunteers who helped Mr Gary and Greenhouse Megastore for completing our beautiful greenhouse. There are currently 3 hydroponic tower gardens but will house 17 more soon, thank you for your generosity and the curriculum that goes along with it! Special shout out to True Garden for being one of our donors towards the structure of the greenhouse as well!

Our Wellness Education is in full swing this year. To follow more updates on our Wellness Wheel for Life initiative check out:

Take them to nature. The beauty of the outdoors, sunshine and cool weather. The toddlers are enjoying the much needed play and art activities.

How do you foster play at home?

Community service is a vital part of the DGM community. Halloween for Hunger is a yearly tradition hosted by the MYHS. Check your pantry, do a grocery run, the Friendly House in Phoenix will be benefiting from this year’s efforts. Thank you to all who have donated already!

“We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected to each other to form one whole unity.” -Maria Montessori

“Joy is the evidence of inner growth.” - Maria Montessori

📷 CR7 Primary Fall Practical Life Work

What is your favorite Fall activity?🍂

The valley is waking up, now that our weather is cooling down. Where do you take your family for local events? Do you go to the pumpkin patch?🎃 The fair?🎡 Hiking?⛰️

Our Wellness Education classes are enjoying the outdoors! With our greenhouse up, more exciting things are about to happen. Check out our recipes account on Instagram.

Fall is here! Thank you Trader Joe's and your Neighborhood Shares program for our flowers. Montessori talked about Care of Environment. Part of the prepared environment is a classroom that is ready for the child’s needs.

Photo: Toddler 6 classroom getting ready for lunch.

Don't forget to send in your Halloween for Hunger Canned Food Donations for Friendly House 🎃

We will be accepting donations up until our annual Harvest Festival on Saturday 11/18! We are happy to serve our community and love this yearly tradition of ours!🍂

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Desert Garden Montessori is an accredited IMC School. We are proud to be one of the host schools to all delegates this year’s National Conference in Phoenix.

There will be 50 delegates from all around the world that will visit our school and enjoy lunch with us in November. More info to come!

To know more about IMC, click this link:

https://www.montessori.org/imc/

Every second Friday, visit us to give sustainable alternatives. Bring your own containers (BYOC) to refill your earth friendly cleaners, shampoo, etc.

Check out these options!

Outdoor play is an essential part of development. It is by nature, an excellent self-regulation activity for children.

Knobbed Cylinders in Primary Classrooms are one of the classic materials in Montessori. It is a sensory material that practices pincer grasp; teaches size, depth and width discrimination.

What is your favorite Montessori Material?

Control of Movement. Pouring is a staple work in early childhood, Montessori class. It teaches concentration, coordination, order, independence. If spills happen, natural consequences of wiping one’s spill ensues. No big deal, ooopsies happen all the time. 💕

Photo taken in Toddler Classroom 3.

Concrete to Abstract, this is one of the pillars of Montessori Approach. Children learn best through experience and sensory inputs. Before a child will learn what 1, 10, 100, 1000 is, he will be able to touch and feel it. Montessori provides rich sensory inputs to learning before the idea becomes an abstract thought.

In this photo: Primary 8 child learning Decimal Places - unit, tens, hundreds, thousands.

Cool weather in the desert invites outdoor learning. In Montessori, children can learn at their own pace. There is freedom within structure, lessons are presented based on their development. Our teachers carefully design environments and observe children while encouraging, guiding. It is a working hub, alive in community and children are encouraged to love learning!

Have you heard the saying - ‘it takes a village’?

We are more than a school, we are a community. We take care of one another and we celebrate each other. If you haven’t found ‘your people’ yet, we encourage you to tour!

We can’t wait to meet you🌱

https://www.desertgardenmontessori.org/tours/

Have a restful Fall Break, everyone. 🍁🍂🌵 Welcome the season and all the goodness it brings with one breath of gratitude.

We are grateful for each one of you!

Desert Garden Montessori is so proud to announce that we are a Cognia Certified School.

For more than 125 years, schools have been inviting Cognia and their legacy agencies, NCA CASI, NWAC, and SACS CASI, into their classrooms. Why? Because they go beyond evaluating school quality. They provide trusted expertise and actionable ideas that move the needle on school quality.
Accreditation is the launchpad for school improvement. Based on rigorous research-based standards and evidence-based criteria, the process probes the whole institution—from policies to learning conditions and cultural context—to determine how well the parts work together to meet the needs of every learner.

Accreditation isn’t about passing a one-time inspection—it helps education providers meet improvement goals and sustain commitments to better learner outcomes. - www.cognia.org

Who would have known that playing peek-a-boo builds trust and create playful connections with young children; all important skills in shaping your child’s worldview. ✨

FUN FALL BREAK PROJECT! Children from kindergarten to 6th grade can participate. Tag us and Zzeeks Pizza in your process!!

Happy Designing! 🍕🖍️🎨

Zzeeks Pizza box coloring contest.
This years guidelines are :

1) Must incorporate the name Zzeeks Pizza into your drawing.

2) Design must be on an
8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper landscaped. Not portrait.

3) You can only use 3 colors in your drawing.

4) On the back of your drawing please include -
Your Name, Your School, Your Grade Level.
Please print legible.

5) All entries must be dropped off by December 15 to any Zzeeks Pizza location.

Due to an overwhelming request to bring back the Zzeeks Pizza box design contest we are proud to announce its back.
This week Zzeek & I will try to visit as many elementary schools as we can. Contest is limited to kindergarten through 6th grade. If you want to request your elementary school to participate in this contest, please list your school email for contact. 
This years winner will receive $1000 cash and their drawing will be featured on all of our 12” boxes starting in January.
$500 from Zzeeks & $500 is being matched by Performance Food Group, our preferred vendor.

Loving the cool weather in the mornings and the promise that it brings! 🍂🌵💕

Mobiles are around the campus, they rustle when the wind blows along with the leaves on towering trees. Gentle reminder to take a breath, and take the goodness that life brings.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, friends. 🌱

Ms. Kim is having so much fun in her art classes! Our HS friends have made Human Tape Sculptures out of plastic wrap and packing tape. If you come by MYHS you might see a few “Hanging Around!” 😆

Nothing beats the transitional rains that September brings. While some schools are starting their year this month, schools in Arizona have been open since August. 🌵☀️

When the desert heat is blazing hot, it keeps our outdoor activities short. We are so grateful for our Heat Ready Training by Ms Mary Muñoz from ASU, and supplies from Heat Ready PHX . Our staff is aware of the physical warnings of dehydration and the ways to prevent this from happening. What’s in the bag? Surface thermometer, mister, UV bracelets, thermometer.

Better weather is coming soon, we can feel it! 😁

“Supposing we study the phenomenon of error in itself; it becomes apparent that everyone makes mistakes. This is one of life’s realities, and to admit it is already to have taken a great step forward. If we are to tread the narrow path of truth and keep our hold upon reality, we have to agree that all of us can err … So it is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives… Whichever way we look, a certain ‘Mr. Error’ is always to be seen! If we seek perfection, we must pay attention to our defects, for it is only by correcting these that we can improve ourselves. We have to face them in the full light of day and realize their existence as something unavoidable throughout life.” —Dr. Maria Montessori

Every Montessori material has a “control of error” so a child can auto correct his/her work. Acquainting your child to errors as early as preschool is such a great way to learn about life itself.

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Montessori classes have multi-age classrooms (18mos-3yo; 3-6yo;). It is one of the hallmarks of the Montessori approach.

In a mixed-age classroom, children stay with the same teacher for three or more years. This allows the teacher to plan around a three year cycle and give the child more time to practice and master material. Older children have the opportunity to learn leadership, and younger students have more mature peers to look up to as role models.🌱

The best part is children make the transition from observer to leader in their own time. It doesn’t happen for all children at the same time, but when it does, it’s pretty magical to observe.✨

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The power of kindness and community can change the perception of one's thoughts and views of the world around them.🌱

We are continually striving to be better in all areas. Quality First is a program under First Things First that supports with training and coaching to help improve schools in ways that nurture the emotional, social and academic development of every child. Desert Garden Montessori is proud to be in partnership with Quality First.🌱

If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.”
—Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in 2002

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One of the hands on electives we offer our MYHS students is ceramics 🪴

By taking mixtures of clay, earthen elements, powders, and water and using our hands, minds, and creativity to create is a wonderful experience for young individuals to express themselves through art.

Interested in our MYHS curriculum? Reach out to our admissions director at:
[email protected]

Thank you for all your generous donations to our Dream Event fundraising last year! Our Primary playground has new sails, re-tiled amphitheater and updated turf! Your generosity goes a long way.🤍

Keep an eye out for our fundraising dinners this year! 🌱

To donate to our general fund:

https://donorbox.org/dgm2022-2

We will be closed for Labor Day to honor all of our staff and the hard work, love and dedication they put into creating a safe, healthy, and inclusive environment for all of our students and their families.

Thank you and we will see you tomorrow!🌱

This is the essence of Montessori, and can be found in the design of the materials, the prepared environment, and in their actions.

Deeper commitment to education for peace and social justice supports the attainment of basic human rights such as freedom, dignity, safety, equitable treatment, and a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing.🌱

Celebrating Maria Montessori on her birthday! For being an innovator, educator, first woman physician in Italy and for gifting us a path to education that endeavors to learn for a lifetime. Thank you, Maria Montessori.

Upper Elementary students start their Wellness Education class with breathing exercises introduced by Ms. Cassie.UE students started their Sustainability class with breathing exercises, listening to our own body and self-awareness help when we are outdoors. Mindfulness interlaced in all areas of our curriculum.

Maria Montessori believed each generation of children brings renewed hope for a more peaceful world. As children move from respecting their physical space to respectful collaboration, they will come to understand that conflict is an opportunity for growth and understand their own potential for leadership.

By creating respectful, inclusive classrooms, celebrating diversity in all its forms, crossing cultural boundaries, and modeling engaged citizenry, Montessori educators nurture students who will transform the world and make it a better place for their generation and the generations that follow.🌱

Peace Education is one of the cornerstone elements of Montessori. Maria Montessori lived through two wars, global pandemic and colonialism. She also had a deep friendship with Mahatma Ghandi. It was so important for her to impart skills of problem solving and finding inner peace. She invested these skills to young children as she placed so much hope in them for a better world.

In DGM, Peace Corners are found in each classroom.

Keep an eye-out for free Mindfulness Class for parents.