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Becoming a Green School

Becoming a Green School

We are excited to share that Greenspring Montessori School is now recognized as a Maryland Green School with the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education (MAEOE)! The Maryland Green School Award represents a school-wide commitment to environmental literacy that includes staff, students, and the community. ⁠

The first goal in our Strategic Direction is creating a strong allegiance to nature. Part of that has been our mission to become a Maryland Green School! The certification process is a way of documenting our commitment to a nature curriculum and sustainable management of the school, student-initiated sustainability projects, and partnerships with the community.
Throughout the year our Green Schools Committee has been working hard to complete the Green Schools application and identify areas where we can improve our sustainability and access to nature, expand upon our outdoor environment curriculum, offer professional development for our staff, and more. The Committee is also identifying goals for future improvements, including planting more host plants for pollinators, strengthening our use of the outdoor environments, building an apple orchard, and exploring options for rooftop solar panels on our buildings!
We are now among 642 Maryland Green Schools representing 36% of all schools in the state. We are excited for all of our students to be receiving an outstanding nature education alongside their beautiful Montessori curriculum. Special thank you to Sylvia Glassco, Adolescent Community Director and Chair of the Green Schools Committee for leading this work at Greenspring Montessori School.
March 2023 Capital Project Update

March 2023 Capital Project Update

Our new Elementary Village is complete!

We celebrated the completion of the Susquehanna Village with a ribbon cutting on January 20, 2023. This Elementary Village is home to two Lower Elementary classrooms, an Upper Elementary classroom, a full kitchen, and outdoor environments. It will become a community hub for over 90 students and staff members.

Students, families, and staff rallied together to move all three Elementary classrooms into their new spaces in one day! Thank you to everyone who lent a hand to make this a reality.

The students are completely settled and thriving in their new spaces. The Guides have loved giving lessons in their new spacious classrooms filled with natural light. The students enjoy all of the amenities that are designed just for their size. They are all looking forward to truly making these spaces “home” in the remaining months of the school year.

Looking forward, we are excited to begin work on our Outdoor Environments. With our new plan, these spaces will be just as beautifully prepared as our indoor classrooms. Stay tuned for future updates on our Capital Project page.

Our Adolescents’ Visit to the Mexican Cultural Institute

Our Adolescents’ Visit to the Mexican Cultural Institute

For Spanish enrichment, the Adolescent Community visited the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, DC this month. We have been studying the murals and researching the themes and iconography chosen by the artist Roberto Cueva del Río. Our tour of the Institute was completely in Spanish, a fact that certainly challenged our students’ linguistic abilities. Students composed two questions in Spanish about their sections of the mural that depicts the history of Mexico from the pre-Columbian through the early twentieth century. In the next month, we will review video taken from the tour and work to translate and understand their experiences.

Kwanzaa Presentations in Children’s House and Elementary

Kwanzaa Presentations in Children’s House and Elementary

We would like to thank Greenspring parent, Kisha Carrington, for coming in today and sharing her Kwanzaa traditions with our Children’s House and Elementary classes. Kisha showed our students how to light the Kinara, described the seven principles of Kwanzaa, and brought a basket of fresh fruit to share with each class. Special thanks also go to the Upper Elementary volunteers who helped Kisha throughout the morning with her presentations!⁠ ⁠

Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 through January 1 to celebrate African American culture. ⁠ Each of the seven days are devoted to one of the principles:

  1. Umoja – Unity in family and community
  2. Kujichagulia (Self-determination) – To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves
  3. Ujima (Collective work and responsibility) – To build and maintain our community together and to solve our problems together
  4. Ujamaa (Cooperative economics) – To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together
  5. Nia (Purpose) – To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community
  6. Kuumba (Creativity) – To do always as much as we can in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it
  7. Imani (Faith) – To believe in our people, our parents, our teachers, and our leaders

We are grateful to all of the families and staff members who have shared your cultural traditions with our children this year. ⁠

Learning about Monarch Butterflies in our Dual Language Classrooms

Learning about Monarch Butterflies in our Dual Language Classrooms

During the first two months of the year, the younger Children’s House students have been learning about the lifecycle of the butterfly in Spanish. 
 
Sra. Ale has also been working with the Children’s House elders to learn more about the monarch butterfly’s life and its journey to Mexico. Together they planted milkweed seeds in our pollinator garden and are participating in the Symbolic Migration program through Journey North.
 
In the Willow class, children have been observing small caterpillars eat milkweed, grow, then enter a chrysalis. So far, the students have released two adult monarch butterflies and are waiting for the last one to emerge from the final chrysalis!