Little Elephant Montessori School

Both our campuses are open! We are excited to start the new school year on August 10th in Rockridge and August 17th in Berkeley. We continue to follow health and safety guidelines with small class sizes of 12 children per group. Temperature and health check at drop ff each day.... All adults are wearing masks all day. Children are encouraged to but it is not required. All materials are disinfected after each use. Children have assigned tables and their own pencil box with supplies. Each child has their own special work rug. This helps to keep their work organized on the floor and also encourages physical distancing. We have shortened our hours to 8:30-3:30pm in order to maintain additional staff during those hours to help with the extra cleaning and disinfecting requirements. While it has been a big shift for all of us the children have adapted beautifully as expected. We do have a couple of openings beginning Sept 1st at Rockridge and August 17th at Berkeley. We hope you are all staying safe and look forward to a wonderful new school year!

Little Elephant-Rockridge campus had a successful reopening yesterday! We are so excited to be back in session for the summer. The kids are in one small group with 4 teachers. The classroom has been pared down significantly to accommodate the new health and safety guidelines. Teachers are disinfecting and sanitizing.....well everything! The children are already adjusting beautifully to the new guidelines and are having a wonderful time being with their friends after such a long time! Next step.....full reopening on August 10th!

LE too! in Berkeley had a wonderful opening day yesterday. Thanks to the parents and staff for making the first day back go smoothly. We have made some pretty big changes in order to keep everyone healthy and so far so good! The children are so happy to be back with their teachers and friends. And, the wonderful Ms Julie and her husband Dean made this beautiful pink tower mosaic out of stained glass on the side of of our Little Free Library!

We are excited to be reopening both campuses of Little Elephant! Little Elephant too! will be opening on June 22nd and Little Elephant on July 6th. Thank you to all our families for your support and sticking with us though this incredibly tough time. Email me at [email protected] for information and a virtual tour. Sending love and peace to all.

Dear Community, I’ve been thinking long and hard how to write a post about the current situation in our community. I decided to write as a Montessorian. Not as a woman or an immigrant or an incredibly privileged white person. But as a Montessorian. Dr. Maria Montessori dedicated her life’s work to peace education. She believed that raising peaceful children would change the world. Actively teaching peace. Speaking out against the wrongs of the world and talking to our childre...n about it. Being role models for them as to how peaceful humans interact and treat others. This is how children learn their values and create their moral compass. For many years we, at Little Elephant have practiced Positive Discipline. One of my favorite quotes we use when teaching parents about PD is We all do better when everyone is doing better. I feel like this is more relevant right now than ever. Treat everyone with the same compassion and kindness you would like to receive and we ALL do better. Supporting Black people now, voting with change in mind and actively teaching peace doesn’t take anything away from you or anyone else. Supporting Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean you don’t think everyone matters. It means you see a people in need and help them. If everyone in this country is doing better, we all do better. As a life long Montessorian I tend to look at every situation trough the eyes of a teacher and here is a teachable moment for every American. Fellow Americans are begging for justice, support and change. Is it really too much to ask? And if we let go of our desire to win, our 'us against them" attitude, is it that hard to change? We at Little Elephant will continue to, and with renewed vigor teach our littlest elephants peace, compassion and kindness. We will stand in solidarity with our Black neighbors, friends and community. In Peace, Natanya #blacklivesmatter