Hello all,
I hope you took time to grieve last night, but also to sleep and eat and take care of yourselves. I am feeling so grateful for all of your children and I am looking forward to having them brighten the classroom today.
One of the most amazing things about Montessori is that we are given the responsibility to teach the whole child, which means that we have an opportunity to focus on the skills of learning to cope with grief and all the feelings and frustrations that come with that. I am changing our goals of the next few weeks from focusing on leadership and organization to a focus on providing support and building a strong community in the coming weeks. Please know that I will be following the child through this: providing whatever support and love your child needs in this time.
We will be working our way back towards normalcy, but this tragedy does change what our week will look like slightly.
Today: Children will be offered the opportunity to mourn however they need to. We will provide opportunities to make cards and do art and team build, while simultaneously offering the opportunity for children to complete work and move forward as though today were any other Wednesday. In the afternoon, we will be joining the Jr. High in an art project to honor Molly and Troy. Again, students will have the option to either attend that art project or continue working in the classroom. Lessons on dealing with grief and loss will be happening through out the coming weeks, and opportunities to meet with the crisis counselors will be happening throughout the day.
Thursday: The field trip is still on. I think it is important that we keep this field trip so we can retain that normalcy as best we can. We still need drivers. Please sign up here: https://www.trackitforward.com/site/389525/event/441046
Friday: We will play Friday by ear, typically this is our love of learning day and right now I see no reason to change that. Students will have the opportunity to do and study the things that they love, which I believe is its own form of healing.
Thank you so much for the outpouring of love and support. As always, any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions, please email me at lhughes@mariamontessoriacademy.org