Tag Archive for: Mountainside Montessori

Sustainable Agriculture in Action

At Mountainside, the students run a small chicken operation, and work hard to sustain its economic viability. They sell eggs to the parents and feed the chickens scraps from their lunch boxes. They do basic accounting to track their profits and, in some months, their losses.

These chickens have enriched our lives and provided many educational opportunities for our children. They also work much better than speed bumps as they free range around the parking lot! Read more

Pesto in Progress

It began with Miss Joya lovingly planting some basil plants over the summer with her children. She tended them regularly, a true testament to exactly how much time she spent in her classroom over the summer months. By the first week of school, they were just exploding.

Since our school mission includes sustainable agriculture and free play in nature, we thought it would be a great idea to involve the students in some way. Here is how it went: Read more

The Play's the Thing

Play: The single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness.
–Stuart Brown, M.D.

I recently had the pleasure of supervising the Elementary recess period. Despite the fact that it was the middle of December, it was 65 degrees and there was not a coat in sight. The Elementary play area is approximately four acres, so the children were fairly spread out.

I was immediately invited by Zoe and Piper to participate in their aerobic workout. Great….. Just what I needed! Read more

It's the Climb

The great things in life never come easily. It is sort of like climbing Mount Everest – imagine the feeling you get when you reach the summit!!!

We are not there yet, of course. But we finally got some traction, and we made it over that part where the rocks under our feet kept shoving us backward instead of forward. (That would be the four different sources of financing that fell through.) But we never lost sight of our goal and were never deterred.

We got busy fundraising and getting the Mountainside name out in the community. Finding the right property to fulfill our vision took almost a year, and I cannot tell you how much property we looked at in Orlean, Hume, Marshall, and Warrenton. But I do remember arriving at 4206 Belvoir Road and instantly feeling that this was going to be the new home of Mountainside Montessori. Read more