Culture
Pioneer Valley Montessori School offers many events throughout the year to facilitate friendship and community among our students and families, to showcase our students’ work, and to help others within the greater Springfield area. A few of these event include:
Events
Parent Share Nights - held twice a year so that children can show their parents their classrooms and some of their favorite work activities.
Harvest Day - the elementary and preschool children work together to make apple and pumpkin pies for the entire school to share.
International Peace Day - our students participate by making pinwheels and planting them in our backyard. The “Pinwheels for Peace” movement began in 2005 by teachers in Florida as a way to help students express hope for reducing violence and intolerance – especially within schools. The movement has since been adopted by schools around the country.
Grandparents/Grandfriends Day – our students invite their grandparents or grandfriend to visit during the school day.
Earth Day – The older children team up with the younger ones to complete a variety of activities to learn more about being kind to our earth and its inhabitants. One year, we had a Birds of Prey rehabilitation specialist talk about these amazing creatures. We’ve also had planting sessions, scavenger hunts for nature items, recycling activities and more.
Community Involvement
Parent Community Organization (PCO) – The PCO coordinates a number of fun, family-friendly activities such as our Halloween Spooktacular, movie nights, and special playdates. The PCO also raises money to fund our annual yearbook and to offset the cost of field trips.
Story Time – The older students routinely visit the preschool classrooms to read stories to our younger students.
Spring Performance – while this has taken many different forms over the years, one aspect has remained the same: this is the opportunity for our students to show off their talents to their family!
Community Service
Montessori education fosters the development of leadership skills and compassion. To reinforce this, our students are also involved in a number of community service projects throughout the year. Some of these include,
Collecting non-perishable foods for the Open Pantry.
Donation of Child-size Hats, Underwear, Gloves and Scarves (HUGS) for a local homeless shelter.
Collecting Pennies for Peace to help fund educational projects for children in foreign countries.
Preparation and serving of a meal for a soup kitchen.
We are a welcoming community that values diversity
In an age-appropriate manner, we discuss the diversity around us and teach respect and kindness.