Take A Peek Into Reading Group | December 2017

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Our new story Me First by Max Kornell is about a family who is learning about cooperation, and different types of games. This story takes place in a small town and the type of genre is fantasy fiction. These past few weeks the children have been working hard on session 1,and 2. In the first reading the children listened as I read the story, then they were able to share their questions about it. When students share what they wonder about it is the first step to understanding it. In our second reading we read the story aloud again, then we did a few activities that helped them think more deeply about some of the key details from the story. With this activity the children had to think about a situation that happened in the story. The purpose of rereading a selection or story helps us discover new things about a story. I have really seen such a difference in all of our friends thoughts and sharing questions these last few weeks! Super proud of them!!!

 

A Peek At Handwriting | Week of December 11th

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During the past two weeks in Handwriting, we have continued learning the Lower Case Initial Strokes. We focused on the letters r, p, u, w, and s. All of these letters begin with the same initial “swing” stroke of the pencil. I am very proud of our Kindergarten students and how hard they have worked the past couple weeks!

Peek At Our Week ** Mr. John ** Week of December 18, 2017

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Happy Birthday:

A Montessori classroom hast students aging from 2 1/2 to 6 years of age. These are my two newest six year old students.

 

Peek In Our Week:
I just wanted to say your children did a great job at the Christmas Show!!!!  Those two songs they sung were very difficult pieces to sing.  The church I attend has an extremely accomplished music program and the Men’s, Women’s, Children’s  (age 8 to voice changing for boys) sing these songs on Christmas Eve to a packed house.  Very seasoned choristers that practice five hours a week. I wanted to do something different and the set up for this year’s show gave me that opportunity.  I felt these Carols were very beautiful songs and the students would be more than qualified to pull it off.  The soloists that did Past 3 O’ Clock did a very fine job.  My daughter, niece, and nephew were all soloists for this song at age 12, my youngest son did it at age 9. I was so impressed the two 6 year old students did so well.  I do want to thank all of the staff involved from teachers practicing with the children to the office staff securing the location to mapping out EVERYTHING that needed to be done.  Of course, I wanted to thank the parents for everything you did including taking your children to the restroom before the show.  The Absorbent Minds Montessori School Family is truly a special one.

 

Peek Into The Next Work Week:

Winter Break ENDS:  Wednesday 1/3/2018  :))

Line Time:  Reintroducing Ground Rules

Letter Of The Week:  N n

Rhyming Word Of The Week:  bob

Start bringing in the family trees.

**Students will need snowpants, winter coat, gloves or mittens, hats, and boots to be able to go out for recess.**

 

 

Academic Enrichment – Cuyahoga Falls – Weeks of December 4 and December 11

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Kindergarten Lessons: Weeks of December 4th and December 11th

The first week of December found ourselves looking at five different kind of animals, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and Fish, and what make these animals, well, those animals.  See below…

Mammals: Vertebrates, warm blooded, born alive, skin has hair or fur, and babies drink mother’s milk

Reptiles:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born from hard shell eggs, skin is dry and scaly

Amphibians:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born from jelly eggs, sk8n 8s soft and moist.  Amphibian meanswer from two worlds.

Birds:  Vertebrates, warm blooded, born from hard shell eggs, feathers

Fish:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born alive or jelly eggs, skin is slimy and scaly

The students got up close and personal with many animals.

 

The Week of December 11th we discovered the ruler and started measuring things.  We learned how to line the ruler to whatever we were measuring and learned how to measure in inches (in, “) and centimeters (CM).

The kindergarten students making sure the paper in 8 1/2 by 11 inches.

 

Peek Into Next Week:
We will be starting our lesson in math!!!!!!  My favorite subject.

Peek At Our Week | Mr. John | Week Of December 11, 2017

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Line Time:
We kept practicing for The Christmas Show and learned about Christmas traditions from around the world. 

 

Peek Into The Classroom:

These students are having fun with the Trimonial Cube. As you can see they just did the outer wall of this material. This is another extension that the children can create different versions of materials.

 

This picture depicts a seasoned reader reading to a younger student. My readers have to accomplish two things before mastering a book. 1) read the story fluently and 2) give details of the story.  I start out with reading the Hooked On Phonics books then the students graduate to my “Max” books. When those are mastered I introduce chapter books such as Magic Tree House, Billy B Brown and / or Jack books.

 

This student is preparing the snack to share with the class. The student that brings snack for the week prepares her snack for week. This is a Practical Life skill. The Practical Life area enhances fine motor skills, concentration, and life skills such as pouring, folding, scooping, and excuse my sophomoric humor, cutting the cheese. hehe

 

The direct purpose of the sandpaper letters is to teach the child the sounds of the alphabet by means of auditory, muscular, and visual memory. Also, memorization of letter sounds plays a part in learning the letter sounds.

 

Peek To Next Week:

We will still be focusing on the holiday season.

December 20, Wednesday:  Pajama Day/ Show and Tell (no weapons)

December 21: Winter Break Begins  :))

January 3: Winter Break Ends  :((

Students will need snowpants, winter coats, hats, gloves, and boots to go outside for recess.

Peek In Our Week / Mr. John / Week of December 4, 2017

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Line Time:
Your children are busy little carolers practicing for the Christmas Show.  We also leaned a few fun traditions of Christmas around the world.

 

Cultural Subjects:
The Montessori classroom consists of 2 1/2 year old students to 6 year old students.  Meet our newest 5 and 6 year old students.

    

 

Peeking Into The Classroom:

This is a lunchtime scene. Every student scheduled in the morning is included with lunch. This is new this year and a great change to the schedule. Lunch is a time for socialization. Lunchtime has three main purposes which are socialization, table manners, and time management. The first two are self explanatory but time management may need an explanation. Time management includes time for socialization and eating their lunch. Also, the student has to manage eating healthy food before treats.

 

Another picture from lunch is a student opening a bag. We encourage students to be self sufficient when opening bags, bottles of water, or string cheese. If the student is unable we ask them to go to three students before a teacher. “Three before me” is what the teachers tell the students.

 

This work is a creation made from the red rods found in the sensorial area and the number rods which is found in the Math area. As you can tell the biggest rods on the bottom and the smallest towards the top to create a square based pyramid. Notice the square based pyramid that is part of the material called the geometric solids (which are three dimensional shapes) on top of this creation. The students found the relationship once again.

 

These students are working on the bead chains which the main purpose is linear counting and skip counting. In addition to linear counting, the bead cabinet provides a concrete representation of abstract mathematical concepts. While children at this age are not able to verbalize these concepts, they can represent them. Through the use of the bead chains, number squares and cubes, and numeral arrows, the bead cabinet concretely demonstrates: skip counting — 10, 20, 30, 40, . . . 1000, multiples, squared numbers: six 6s = 36 , cubed numbers: ten 100-squares = a thousand cube.

 

Peek Into Next Week:

Practicing for the Christmas Show and learning about Christmas around the world.

Christmas Show Attire: Red and/or white

December 13: Christmas Show Practice 6 pm to 8 pm at Cuyahoga Falls High School

December 15: Christmas Show 6:30 pm to 8 pm at Cuyahoga Falls High School (NO AFTERCARE)

December 21: Winter Break Begins  :))

January 3: Winter Break Ends  :((

 

 

A Peek At Handwriting | Week of November 27th

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During the past couple of weeks in Handwriting, we have been working on Lower Case and the common initial strokes used to form those letters. We have been carefully working forming the lower case letters i, t, and j in cursive. Our Kindergarten students have been working hard on carefully forming each letter and I’m so proud of their progress!

Take A Peek Into Our Reading Group | November 30, 2017

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This past week we got our new books! The children were super excited! The story we read was called The Three Wishes by Margot Zemach. Our first session we read the story together and then discussed our sharing questions as a class. Our second reading together we listened to the story again, we then read together the highlighted phrases and acted out a scene! Near the end of class the children were able to brainstorm their ideas about what they thought the wife was thinking when the sausages grew on the man’s nose? I love hearing the children listen to each other ideas and then share their own thoughts.

Take A Peek Into Our Reading Group!

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Our friends have really enjoyed reading this poem and doing the various lessons every week! This week the children had to draw what they thought Beauty looked like. We discussed the ways the stray cat was described in the poem. The children then talked about The different ways the cat might look like. The other activity was a writing experience. The children had to discuss why they would or would not let the stray in. I love listening to the children’s answers, and seeing them think on their own. I then wrote their answers on the white board and the children then were able to copy down their answers.

New books arrive next week!! They are super excited:)

Academic Enrichment | Weeks of November 20th & 27th | Cuyahoga Falls Campus

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Kindergarten Lessons:

We finished our counting money by looking at the different bills (paper money).  Paper money was fairly easy to associate and dollar amount for obvious reasons.  We did examine the different looks of these bills.  We then combined the paper money and coins.

We came from break looking at parts of the leaf, parts of the flower, and parts of the tree.  We had a discussion on what makes a living thing, a living thing.  We learned that all living things need to:

Be able to reproduce
Be able to grow
Eat or take in nutrients
Breathe or exchange gases
All living things need water

These criterion differentiates my shoe from a bird or a pencil from my students.  I posed the question “Are trees, plants, grass living things?”  we went through the above criterion and determined Plants….

Reproduce via seeds
They grow
They need water and get nutrients from the soil
They exchange gases (take in Carbon Dioxide and expel Oxygen)

 

Due to the Christmas show rehearsals we will not be learning additional languages, sight words, or synonyms.