November Newsletter

Thank you to all the families that joined us for The Magic of Montessori Kindergarten Workshop! If you were not able to join us, and you have questions or curiosities, then please take a moment to peruse the new Kindergarten page of our website. We created it to give families a closer look at the Kindergarten experience at Athena, explore the benefits of completing their Montessori early childhood journey with us, and learn how this important year supports children’s social, emotional, and academic readiness for elementary school. Most of the points we covered at the workshop are also on this page of our website.

If your child is currently in their second year of Primary, we encourage you to schedule a conversation with your child’s Lead Guide, Mandy, or Kimberly to learn more about our Kindergarten program and discuss what the year might look like for your child. You can find our Calendly link in the Admin Update sent through Brightwheel every other Wednesday.

Our Kindergartners and some of our older third-year Primary students participate in Science Club, a weekly highlight they look forward to every Friday! We gather the Kindergartners from all five Primary classes and meet in the breezeway where the experiment of the week is revealed. The teacher presenting the experiment gives the children some clues, encouraging hypotheses as to what the experiment might be about, and then asks critical thinking questions all along the way. The children then reenact the science experiment in small groups, and/or set it up on their classroom shelves for ongoing investigation. Our Primary Lead Guides take turns hosting Science Club on a rotating basis. We thought we would offer our community a peek behind the scenes at what the children have learned so far this year. We have explored friction, surface tension, states of matter, pendulums and perpetual motion, chemical reactions and the release of gasses! Enjoy these photos of our future Nobel winners in action!

Check these out!

Headwaters is having an Elementary Open House on Saturday, November 7th. When parents ask what elementary school is culturally most like Athena, Headwaters is the school that comes to mind. If you are touring schools looking for what is next, this open house might be a good event for you. You can use this link to RSVP: Elementary Open House

After Athena, some of our students transfer to Long-View Microschool. Long-View is a small school that starts at 2nd grade and goes through 8th grade. On their website, Long-View describes their focus and priorities as: Long-View develops thinking skills, agency, curiosity, and investment in learning. We focus on constructing robust knowledge structures and facilitating the development of conceptual understandings that promote transfer and connections. We support children to be active participants in their own learning by explicitly teaching productive learning dispositions, critical listening, the importance of asking questions, how to take intellectual risks, the importance of participating in discussions, and how to learn within a community.

They are hosting an Open House for prospective parents on Wednesday, December 9, from 12:00 - 1:30pm. Families can register for that event here. Longview's “Plan Ahead Preview” enables interested parents of preschool and kindergarten students to see their school live before they are eligible to apply leading into their student’s second grade year.

We are still happily accepting leads for anyone who would like to share their culture through music, dance, an interactive display, or any other form of art or entertainment. If you have someone in mind or suggestions for us to explore, please contact us at Info@AthenaMontessoriAcademy.com.

We can't do these events without volunteers! If you are interested and able to help for a short amount of time at the event, please click the link below to sign up for a volunteer slot! We are so grateful for our volunteers!

We’d love for you to join us for a special toileting workshop led by our Tots Guides! Click the link below to learn more. We are offering two dates for this one so we hope to see you there!

“I’ve been considering the phrase ‘all my relations’ for some time now. It’s hugely important. It’s our saving grace in the end. It points to the truth that we are related, we are all connected, we all belong to each other. The most important word is all. Not just those who look like me, sing like me, dance like me, speak like me, pray like me or behave like me. ALL my relations. It means every person just as it means every blade of grass, rock, mineral and creature. We live because everything else does. If we were to collectively choose to live that teaching, the energy of that change of consciousness would heal all of us – and heal the planet. We do it one person, one heart at a time…we are connected, we are the answer.” –Richard Wagamese, Ojibwe author

It’s November, and that means the start of the holiday season. At Athena Montessori, we look forward to celebrating our bounty with family and friends. We host our annual Cultural Fest, a community potluck where we are all welcome and encouraged to bring a dish that speaks to our roots, our heritage, our culture. Later in the month we take a week off to welcome loved ones into our homes, or to travel. We gather to break bread, to raise a toast, to make memories, to share hugs and laughter. We give thanks. Thursday, November 27, is set aside as Thanksgiving Day. For a community practicing antiracism and striving to be grounded in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, the history of Thanksgiving is problematic. For many people native to this land, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning. For many people whose forebears came to this land from Europe, “The First Thanksgiving” is a lie we were trained to believe as children. But what do we do with the truth now that we know it? Do we eschew the holiday altogether? Do we celebrate and gather, but teach the children of today nothing about the history of the holiday, just gloss over it because we are deeply uncomfortable?

We would like to share with you all, our community, one Indigenous perspective from Sean Sherman, known as “the Sioux Chef,” who is probably the most high-profile advocate for Native foodways in the United States. His Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni, which showcases modern Indigenous foods, won a 2022 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. More recently, he made TIME magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People and was named the 2023 recipient of the prestigious Julia Child Award. In Summer of 2023, he launched the Indigenous Food Lab, a “professional Indigenous kitchen and training center” with an ambitious goal — establishing a new Indigenous food system that supports tribally operated kitchens across North America. Chef Sean wrote the following article for TIME magazine, and it was originally published on November 19, 2018.

Please click to read the article below.

Our fundraising efforts continue to support two important priorities at Athena: strengthening our school safety and security measures, including our partnership with Watchmen Protective Services, and growing our scholarship fund to help make an Athena education accessible for more families. We look forward to bringing our community together for a great evening and hope to see everyone there! Stay tuned for more details coming soon!

This year, our Athena community came together to create a beautiful Día de los Muertos ofrenda, an altar that honors and remembers loved ones who have passed. Traditionally, ofrendas are decorated with photos, flowers, candles, favorite foods and drinks, and personal mementos that celebrate the lives of those being remembered.

This tradition was brought to Athena by our Tots 3 team and has become a meaningful way for our entire school community to learn about Día de los Muertos. Through classroom activities, children helped bring our display to life by making paper candles, decorating sugar skulls, and crafting colorful marigolds and papel picado.

At the heart of this tradition is the opportunity to celebrate life and remember the people we love by saying “I love you” and “thank you.” We are grateful to tour Tots 3 team and families for sharing their traditions with our community and helping us create a space filled with love, reflection, and celebration.

We look forward to continuing this tradition together and creating opportunities for our children to learn about the many ways families honor and remember those they hold dear.

Athena Montessori is committed to serving the community we are a part of. This fall and winter we are organizing a drive for goods in support of Casa Marianella. Casa Marianella has operated in Austin since 1986, starting as a modest single house providing shelter, food, and legal aid to immigrant adults and children. Today, Casa Marianella serves an average of 325 immigrant women, children, and men in a variety of different buildings and programs. You can learn more about the organization on their website, linked above.

We are looking forward to involving our Athena students in this community service drive. Providing tangible goods to people in need is something our younger learners through our Kindergarteners can understand. The passion that children bring to a big idea is contagious and boundless. Cheers to a fruitful season of gratitude and giving!

We are in the pre-launch stage of our drive at the time of this writing, stay tuned for details shared in classroom newsletters, on flyers around campus, in our admin update, and on our Instagram page, @AthenaMontessoriAcademyATX.

As admin team members, one of our favorite parts of the day is greeting you all at the parking lot gate every morning. We love to see the children, the babies in strollers, and all of you. It is a warm and wonderful start to the day. We will always greet you, we will say ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’, and you all return our greetings. In this way, we are modeling social graces for the children, without the pressure for them to participate. A morning greeting serves as an example for the children; we don’t expect them to say hello to us. As the years go by, and they get to know us, and feel comfortable to say hello, we will happily engage with them. In the meantime, please know that every time we adults say good morning to each other, we are laying the groundwork for future ‘hellos’ from the children! ~ Your Athena Admin Team

For Small Hands carries a wide variety of items for children, all child-sized, fun and developmentally-appropriate! Use our code below, and Athena will get a percentage of the sale to apply towards materials for school. We will be passing out For Small Hands catalogs next week for details.

CODE 165595

A new semester can bring new enrollment opportunities! If your family or a family you know is looking to start their little one in school soon, please connect with Joy at Admissions@AthenaMontessoriAcademy.com. We may have upcoming openings!!!

Enrollment for the 2027-2028 school year will launch with re-enrollment of current students in December. Sibling enrollment and general waiting pool enrollment will begin in January. You can expect to hear from Joy by the end of April if she is able to offer your child a spot.

Please direct all admissions & enrollment questions to Admissions@AthenaMontessoriAcademy.com.