2025 Newsletter Term 02 | Issue 02 – Farmhouse Montessori School

Jul	21st	Term 3 Student Start Date
Jul	25th	Parent Information Session 8:15 a.m. – Primary School
Aug	12th	School Photos – Preschool
Aug	13th	School Photos – Primary School
Aug	14th	School Photos – Preschool
Aug	18th-22nd	Parent Classroom Observations – Primary School
Aug	21st	Preschool Group Tour – 4:15 p.m.
Aug	26th	Father’s Day Morning Tea – Preschool
Aug	28th	Father’s Day Morning Tea – Preschool
Aug	29th	Father’s Day Morning Tea – Primary School

See more Important dates here

Dear Farmhouse Montessori Families

As we come to the end of a full and rewarding term, I would like to extend my gratitude for your continued support and engagement. It has been a term filled with joyful learning, strong partnerships, and a sense of community across both campuses. Below are a few highlights and updates.

Preschool Conferences : Over the past weeks, our Preschool team has had the pleasure of meeting with many families during the Conferences. These conversations are a meaningful opportunity to reflect together on each child’s unique strengths, interests, and progress. We thank you for taking the time to connect with us and for your continued partnership in supporting your child’s learning journey.

Reports: End-of-semester reports have been shared with families. These reports offer a snapshot of your child’s development over the terms and highlight the Montessori materials and experiences that have captured their interest. Please reach out to your child’s teacher if you have any questions or wish to discuss the report further.

Inter-Campus Connections: This term has brought rich opportunities for connection across our campuses. Children have engaged in a variety of inter-campus activities, including excursions, shared reading sessions, and collaborative work cycles building deeper relationships and expanding their learning.

We have also extended our reading program through collaborations with local preschools, offering meaningful opportunities for connection and shared learning. Our Cycle 2 and Cycle 3 students have been enjoying reading with younger children in our library, a way for them to connect, take on responsibility, and share their love of books.

Staffing Updates and Welcome
We warmly congratulate Katherine and Catalina as they begin their maternity breaks. We also wish Rachel the best as she prepares to relocate to Orange. We are incredibly grateful for Rachel’s dedication, passion, and the positive impact she has had on our school community. She will be truly missed, and we thank her sincerely for everything she has contributed.

We are excited to welcome new team members Claudia Montanari, Larissa Charles, and Mereia Marco, each bringing valuable skills and enthusiasm to our community.

The preschool coordinator role will now be shared between Merrill Tilwani and Corinne Dawson, who are both committed to supporting our school with dedication and care. To connect as a community and give you an opportunity to meet the new educators, we warmly invite you to afternoon tea at the Preschool Campus on Wednesday 23rd July from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there.

Parent-Child Classes: Our Parent-Child classes held at the Primary Campus offer families a wonderful introduction to Montessori in a nurturing and engaging setting. It’s been lovely to see children exploring the classroom alongside their caregivers. We are grateful for the warm interest in these sessions and look forward to welcoming more families in the upcoming term.

Warm regards,

Harshitha Ravikumar | Interim Principal

Do We Cover NESA Math Outcomes in Montessori?

This is a question we’re often asked, so I thought I’d answer it here.

Let’s take the NESA outcome for place value for example. We start working towards this outcome from the time children join us in kindergarten and year 1 through the use of the Golden Bead material and numbers cards to make, read, and record numbers into the thousands. Children are able to connect a concrete material with written number symbols from a much earlier age than if they were relying on abstract teaching alone.

This work sets a strong foundation as the children move into year 3 and 4. We place a strong focus on reading and writing numbers regularly — in words, numerals, and expanded form. This consistent practice strengthens fluency, reinforces conceptual understanding, and helps children move comfortably between different representations of the same number.

As children complete the four operations of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication they work with materials that emphasise place value including the Large Bead Frame, Flat Bead Frame, and Checkerboard. We also include tools common in mainstream classrooms, such as the number expander and place value house, to support different learning styles and reinforce number structure in a familiar visual format.

We put a lot of thought into covering NESA outcomes and your teachers are available to chat about this more if you’re curious.

Kind Regards,

Merrill Tilwani | Interim Preschool Coordinator

In the Elouera classroom, mathematical learning begins long before children are introduced to formal numerals. In the Montessori approach, mathematics is embedded naturally in everyday experiences, laying a strong foundation for later abstract thinking. Through hands-on materials and real-life tasks, toddlers explore early maths concepts in a meaningful, developmentally appropriate way.

You’ll find maths woven into practical life activities; pouring water between jugs teaches one-to-one correspondence and volume. When children spoon beans or use tongs to transfer objects, they are exploring quantity, order and precision. Cooking activities also offer countless opportunities to engage with maths language and thinking. Measuring ingredients, counting spoonfuls, and observing the change in size or quantity all support the development of mathematical understanding.

Bead threading and classification work introduce patterning, sequencing and categorisation. Children learn to sort by size, shape or colour and begin using early comparative language such as “big,” “small,” “more,” and “same.” These foundational experiences support the development of spatial awareness, logic, and problem solving.

By embedding maths into meaningful, hands-on experiences, Montessori environments support children in developing confidence, vocabulary and a deep understanding of mathematical ideas from a very young age. In Elouera, these early encounters with maths are joyful, purposeful, and part of everyday life.

Warm regards,

Elouera – Corinne, Nina, Karen, Yuko, Anniebelle.

Maths in the Montessori Environment

Mathematics in the Montessori classroom is an active, tactile experience where children learn by doing. Instead of simply seeing numbers on a page, children touch, move and explore materials that bring abstract concepts to life. The sandpaper numerals help little hands trace the shape of each number while building a link between symbol and sound. As children progress, the coloured bead stair and golden beads deepen this hands-on journey. The coloured bead stair allows children to build and see the relationships between numbers, while the golden beads offer a beautiful, concrete introduction to the decimal system. By holding units, tens, hundreds and thousands in their hands, children experience maths as something real and exciting.

This approach fosters a sense of discovery and joy that stays with them as they grow. Montessori maths materials encourage children to think, experiment and understand, creating a lasting love of learning that extends far beyond the classroom.

Warm wishes,

Burbangana educators – Vanessa, Annabelle, Katherine, Helene.

Maths is introduced through hands-on, concrete materials that allow children to explore maths concepts in a tangible way. This approach aims to build a strong foundation for future maths learning. The maths area is an environment which helps and prepares the child’s mind to understand mathematical concepts and to be comfortable and able to enjoy maths. All the working areas of the classroom guides the child’s involvement into maths. Practical Life, they learn to be exact and precise showing a sense of order. Sensorial they learn to discriminate and make quantitative and qualitative comparisons. They have the use of graded materials and learn shapes and their names in geometric forms.

Children are taught to count by units, after understanding what a unit is. A unit is an abstract concept so to help the child understand we turn the concept into objects.

Most of the materials have a Control of Error which gives them an opportunity to check their own work, and this helps build their confidence.

In the home environment, you can support this by providing opportunities for sorting and classifying objects. Counting everyday objects like toys or steps. Measuring and pouring activities during cooking or water play. Having fun engaging in pattern recognition with objects or in activities like drawing or building with blocks. Observing patterns and shapes in their life around them.

Spindle Box

Children sort spindles into boxes labelled with numerals, reinforcing the concept of zero and quantity.

Cards and Counters

To show that each number is made up of separate quantities

To show the sequence of numbers – odds and evens

Number Rods

Introduces counting and quantity with rods representing numbers 1-10

Memory Game

Child chooses a slip of paper with a number; they have to remember their number and fetch the number of objects and bring them back

— Catalina, Jo, Rachel, Claire.

In the Montessori classroom, we often speak of the mathematical mind a natural tendency in young children to seek order, pattern, and precision. While our indoor materials beautifully support this development, we also see rich opportunities for mathematical thinking in the outdoor environment.

Outside, maths becomes a lived experience. Children count stones, compare the lengths of sticks, notice symmetry in leaves, and explore measurement by pouring water, cooking, or jumping distances. Nature provides real, tactile experiences of size, quantity, shape, positional language and pattern—all foundational maths concepts.

Outdoor exploration supports the Montessori principles of movement, independence, and purposeful work. It allows children to connect abstract ideas to the real world in meaningful, joyful ways. Whether building with wooden blocks, cooking, or arranging leaves by size, they are deepening their understanding of maths through hands-on discovery.

By encouraging these experiences at school and at home, we help children see that math isn’t just something we “do”—it’s something we live.

—Dawn.

Language Development in Orana

At Orana, language development is nurtured through a rich and intentional blend of Montessori materials, conversation, and community experiences. In the classroom, children have been working with the Pink and Blue Series, which help build foundational reading and spelling skills by introducing phonetic and blended words progressively. Tools like the Moveable Alphabet and Sandpaper Letters support the connection between sounds and symbols, while young readers and sight word activities foster confidence and fluency. These materials are presented in a hands-on, engaging way that supports each child’s unique learning journey.

Each morning, our circle time provides a meaningful space for children to share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences. This daily practice encourages oral language development, listening skills, and respectful turn-taking. Children gain confidence in expressing themselves and develop a deeper understanding of language through active conversation with peers and adults. In addition to speaking, children also engage in silent reading, which helps build focus, vocabulary, and a love of books.

Our classroom environment is further enriched through interactions with older children from the Yani and Aikya classrooms. These mixed-age experiences provide younger children with the opportunity to observe and model more advanced language use, while older children strengthen their own skills by guiding and communicating with their younger peers. This collaborative and respectful dynamic enhances both spoken and written language development, while fostering a strong sense of community across our school.

Warm regards,

Laura & Bruno.

This term in Aikya has seen a continued focus on mathematical exploration grounded in Montessori principles, inviting students not just to learn facts but to discover the relationships between numbers, quantities, and patterns.

Mathematics with Meaning
Whether working with fractions, percentages, decimals, or large operations, children engaged in activities designed to build understanding through connection. Montessori materials, such as the Decimal Board, Fraction Circles, Checkerboard, Stamp Game, and Bead Chains, enable students to transition smoothly between the concrete and abstract concepts. These tools help students see how parts relate to wholes, how numbers can be grouped or divided, and how patterns support problem-solving.

From Detail to Connection
As Maria Montessori so beautifully expressed, “To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.” This has been our guiding thread — ensuring children are not simply memorising answers, but making sense of how mathematical ideas connect across operations and real-life applications.

Collaboration and Conversation
Mathematical learning in Aikya often happens in pairs and is supported through a strong Study Buddy culture. Students coach one another through flashcard games, check each other’s work using control charts, and engage in thoughtful conversations about strategies and reasoning. These social experiences reinforce conceptual understanding and nurture growing confidence.

Real-World Applications
We’ve also seen students apply mathematical thinking in meaningful, real-world contexts. Cooking and measurement activities supported learning around proportion and quantity, while money work helps connect mathematics to everyday financial literacy. In mapping, children use scale, direction, and spatial reasoning to understand geography, and graphing activities such as temperature logs and class data charts bring statistical thinking into the everyday classroom routine.

As Term 2 draws to a close, we are proud of the mathematical confidence growing in each child. Through guided discovery, purposeful repetition, and meaningful context, our students are developing not only skills but also insight.

Warm regards,

—The Aikya Team – Toby & Chris.

This term, Yani students have been busy making sense of big mathematical ideas through hands-on exploration and independent discovery. We’ve been building cubes (with no Minecraft in sight) and investigating exponents, giving students a concrete way to visualise and understand the power of numbers. The pegboard has been a popular choice, helping students confidently square 3-digit numbers and reveal two-period answers – all while enjoying the satisfying click of pegs being placed just right.

Meanwhile, the younger students in the classroom have taken on the challenge of recording long division abstractly, using a variety of methods to solve and check their answers. They’ve also been working with improper fractions – adding them, converting them into mixed numbers, and using the fraction insets to see exactly what those conversions look like. Whether tackling fractions or division, students are building confidence in their strategies and discovering that, in the Montessori environment, maths is not only logical – it’s pretty fun.

— Thomas, Ella & Bruno.