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About Missoula Community School
Community at MCS
Classroom and school community: From the youngest ages at MCS, children are part of their classroom communities and important contributors to classroom life. Teachers help children develop understandings of their responsibilities to the community through conversation, role play, stories that highlight or demonstrate issues, community meetings to handle issues, pointing out community-building actions and words when they occur, and modeling these behaviors themselves. At all times, teachers provide guidance as needed, with watchful and loving attunement to the well-being of each child and the development of a healthy, inclusive, and warm classroom community. The concept of classroom community grows throughout the year, as children are invited to participate in “open school” sessions, where they can explore other classrooms. Twice-annual school-wide pot-lucks and picnics bring families together for fun and mutual support, building a web of community within which children feel nurtured and supported.
Missoula community: The city is truly our jungle gym, and MCS strives to provide children with consistent and varied opportunities to explore the natural and cultural richness of our extended community. For example, MCS children learn throughout the year about where food is grown and how it gets to our tables here in Missoula. This unit includes fieldtrips to local gardens, food preparation in the classroom, fall “apple days” activities, and shared monthly “pizza day” meals, in which every child has a role in preparing for and sharing the community meal. In conjunction with this exploration of food, children are introduced to the Missoula Food Bank, just three blocks from MCS, and learn about children in homes where food is scarce and about how our community is responding to their needs. MCS sponsors an annual food drive, and the children deliver the resulting food to the Missoula Food Bank via wagon. Past community-service projects have included packing birthday boxes for the Food Bank, painting the water spray turtles at nearby Sacajawea Park, picking up trash around the neighborhood, and collecting pennies to help a MCS family. Through developmentally appropriate community-service projects, children discover their ability to make a meaningful contribution to the well-being of their extended community, thus fostering empathy, kindness, and a sense of interconnectivity within the community.
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