Wednesday, August 26, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Montessori preschool launched
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
Parents who want an
engaging educational experi-
ence for their preschool-aged
children have a new option in
Sisters.
Becky Mallon is opening
Mountain Montessori at 104
E. Adams Ave. in Sisters, part
of the former site of A Joyful
Noise.
The school has open-
ings for children ages 3
through 6. As is common in
the Montessori model, the
mixed-age school provides
lots of opportunities for
hands-on, active learning in
different, well-designed areas
of the school.
“We don’t all sit down
and do math together, or lan-
guage together,” says Mallon.
“It’s all about individual
learning.”
At the start of the day, the
children have responsibilities
to take care of.
“They have jobs to do, so
every morning they come in
and they’re responsible for
something,” Mallon says.
That could be watering
plants or getting a space orga-
nized — something to get the
students active and engaged.
“It’s very organized …
everything has a purpose
and a reasoning behind it,”
Mallon says.
Mallon says there is a
conscious effort made to
prepare the young ones for
kindergarten, with an empha-
sis on learning sounds that
will become necessary for
reading.
“They take off reading
when they know the sounds
the letters make,” Mallon
says. “It’s nice that some of
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British firefighters
visit Sisters
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
photo by JiM coRnelius
Becky Mallon has years of experience teaching in the Montessori method.
them are reading and writing
sentences before they leave,
which gives them a lot of
confidence.”
The school also encour-
ages a strong learning/teach-
ing dynamic among the stu-
dents, with kids teaching kids
how to do things and learning
to lead.
“The 3-year-olds look up
to the 6-year-olds and the
6-year-olds help the 3-year-
olds,” Mallon explains.
Mallon has 16 years of
experience with Montessori
education, 13 of those
years in Bend. Her direct
experience with success in
Montessori school drew her
into a career in the field. She
was the nanny of two boys
in Seattle, who were having
a tough time in a traditional
environment.
“We found a Montessori
school and they did awe-
some,” Mallon recalled.
She received her certifi-
cation through University of
Puget Sound and taught in
Washington before moving
to Bend.
Now Mallon, her husband,
Desmond, and her three chil-
dren have chosen to come to
Sisters.
“We lived in Bend, and
Bend was getting a little too
big,” she says. “We wanted to
live in a small town.”
Registration is underway
now. School starts September
1. Schedule an observation
at Mountain Montessori at
www.mountainmontessori
sisters.com. For more infor-
mation call 541-549-0000.
A contingent of firefight-
ers from the United Kingdom
are in Sisters to study wild-
fire firefighting organization,
infrastructure and tactics.
Five firefighters from
Hampshire Fire & Rescue
Service arrived here last
Friday and participated in
emergency calls on Saturday.
Three of them rolled out with
a Sisters task force to pro-
vide structure protection on
the still-raging wildfire near
John Day.
Station Manager David
Hodge (roughly equivalent to
a Battalion Chief in American
Parlance) explained why the
British firefighters are here:
“We want to be one of the
best fire services in the UK,”
he said.
To do that, officials from
Hampshire Fire & Rescue are
traveling to different areas
of the globe to tap specific
expertise and experience.
“We appreciate that the
West Coast would lead in
wildfire,” he told The Nugget.
Hampshire, located on
the central south coast of
England, may not have vast
forests nor the dry climate
that makes Sisters Country
so vulnerable, but they have
experienced serious wildfire
incidents.
We want to be
one of the best fire
services in the uK.
— david hodge
“We appreciate that we
don’t have wildfire on your
scale,” Hodge said. However,
“the skills we’re learning
here should be easily trans-
ferable to an incident of that
scale” as would be found in
Hampshire.
Another contingent is set
to travel to Hong Kong to tap
their world-leading expertise
in fighting high-rise fires.
Hodge explained that
Sisters was chosen through
a personal connection: his
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