Montessori Ed Week 2021 offered us one more chance to reimagine tradition! Given our new normals to protect one another from a deadly virus, a great many traditions would not be appropriate this year. Further, the staff of our schools, the backbone of Montessori Education Week are carrying incredible loads in order to simply offer a safe education to students and keep families connected. The timing coinciding with many schools attempting to reopen onsite was particularly challenging! Honoring the needs of the community, MNMN did not promote a large-scale celebration this year. Instead, MNMN spent the week sending Thank You notes to every Montessori school community in MN with gifts for each person working in member-schools. The ingenuity and celebratory spirit of guides and students still brought Montessori Ed Week to life inside some classrooms. Here are a few not-to-miss examples! You'll indulge us holding special fondness for Jonathan Montessori's Tulip-shaped snack for their littlest learners...they definitely got the memo! Though many of you helped create it and have been with us since the birthplace of our statewide celebration of Montessori Education Week, here is a little trip down memory lane! Dozens of Network members have assembled at multiple meetings under the guidance of Montessori alumnus and parent, Anne Nickel Hage to create lists of ideas to celebrate in school communities and throughout the greater community.
That collaboration grew with shared branding, artwork, governors declarations, and social tagging (#MontessoriEdWeek) that carries tradition from year to year. MN schools have demonstrated ingenuity and creativity that brings joy to children and promotes the Montessori method to larger community. Groups have created community library displays, published press releases, held large open houses, and Italian-themed dinners. Schools have coordinated spirit-week themed dressing, innovated remarkable lessons, offered cross-level big-work projects, shared awe-inspiring displays of collective work, and orchestrated memory-making school-wide events. MNMN loves the opporutunity Ed Week provides for a community gathering! Our favorites are St. Kates annual afternoon tea and the community premier of Inside Montessori It has been our honor and pleasure to promote, create kits, share resources, and train other state and national organizations to ensure Montessori Education Week can be enjoyed by all communities. Comments are closed.
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