Peek At Our Week| Mr. John’s Classroom| Week Of November 06, 2017

Written by

 

Line Time Lesson:
This week we creeped and crawled and learned about insects, arachnids, and invertebrates.  We first looked at insects.  The characteristics of an insect are they have three body parts, head, thorax, abdomen.  The also have six legs and two antennae.  We sang the song “Head, Thorax, Abdomen” to the tune of Head , Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Some examples of insects were ants and crickets which can be found, enclosed not free, in the classroom.  Also, the mantis, bees, butterflies, and dragonflies.  Arachnids are eight legged creatures that have a head and a thorax.  Some creatures that are arachnids are spiders (tarantula named Charlotte) that is in the classroom, scorpions, and the tick.  Both creepy crawlers are invertebrates which means they do not have a backbone or a spine or a bony skeleton but actually have an exoskeleton.  An exoskeleton is is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal’s body. Other invertebrates are earthworms, jellyfish, and crawfish.

Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 13 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, and Swedish).

Bees… bzzzzzz:

Pastor Kirk has several bee hives and talked about bees and brought in his equipment. The children tried on a protective mask, touched (an empty) hive with wax, and saw real live bees (in an enclosed hive).

 

 

A Peek In The Classroom:

We’re a happy family. The babies are growing, mom is doing well, and the aunties are accepting the litter. Anyone want pet rats????
The old colored water with with flower experiment. As you can see we chose dark purple (which did nothing to the flower), green (which turned the flower yellow), and blue (which turned the flower blue).
My kindergarten students tracked the color changes in their personal binders. We came up with possible reasons why the purple did nothing. We thought maybe too much coloring couldn’t get up the stem. The yellow maybe had more yellow in the coloring.
Line Time… The aim is to increase body control and concentration. The child sits criss cross, hands to themselves, and are quiet. This is an exaggerated picture of catching a bubble (no talking), safe hands (hands to ourselves), and sitting on the line calmly. My morning line time can last up to thirty minutes and your child sit nicely for the duration of this line time.  At line time I present information about days of the week, months of the year, the date, the weather, we count to ten in different languages, my weekly theme, and announcements. Also, as a bonus they get to hear my morning banter.
The child needs to practice, perfect, and consolidate the body’s movements. For this reason, Dr. Montessori began using the “Walking on the Line” as a Practical Life exercise. This exercise helps the child control his body, develop balance and perfect equilibrium, as well as to strengthen the mind’s control of its body’s movements. No pushing, no cutting, and no running across to the other side of the line. We play a classical piece of music, Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor, which is exactly five minutes (4:57). After I ring the bell and the children stop, look, and listen, they proceed to clean, and walk the line. After the music ends the children sit nicely on the line.

 

A Peek Into Next Week: 

Line Time Lesson:
Dinosaurs and the unique things of select dinos.

Letter Of The Week:
L l

Rhyming Word Of The Week:
bot

Upcoming Events:
11/16/17 (Thursday): Progress Reports emailed

11/17/17 (Friday): Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN)
Follow the link to sign up.   http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-2017

11/21/17 (Tuesday): Harvest Party

11/22-11/26/17: Thanksgiving Break

11/25/2017  Noon:  The Game!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic Enrichment | week of November 6th | Tallmadge

Written by

The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning both static and dynamic addition using the golden beads. They have even started working on more abstract materials like the stamp game and dot board to solve problems.

Equivalence: The students are learning that the word equivalence means to be equal or equivalent in value . They are discovering that 10 units are equivalent to 1 ten, 10 tens are equivalent to 1 hundred and that 10 hundreds are equivalent to 1 thousand.
Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition  except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.
Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition  except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.
Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition  except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.

A Look Into Next Week: Continue Dynamic Addition (exchanging)

  • Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes

A Peek At Our Week| Mr. John’s Classroom| Week Of October 30, 2017

Written by

 

Cultural Subjects:
We have been counting to Ten in 11 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, and Romanian).

 

Peeking Into The Classroom:

This is an action shot of a student sorting. Inevitably, our reading books get mixed and become out of order but this student is assigned every day to put them in order. This set of books has four sets of ten and she enjoys the responsibility of doing and completing this task.

 

Rolling a mat develops O.C.C.I (order, concentration, coordination, independence) and development of muscles. The mat is to be rolled tightly and with even ends. Also, the purpose of the mat is to give the child his / her own personal work space while working on the floor.

 

The reason for this picture is not the material but how a student who is four years old is presenting and showing his peers how to use this work. Kindergarten students are not the only ones that present materials to others. All students have the potential to show others how the work with materials.

 

Did you ever wonder how the teachers keep track of all our students with all those materials on the shelf? The answer is a Montessori tracking program called MRX (Montessori Records Express). It tracks the individual student with the materials they are working on and mastered. It also exports that information to our progress reports and tracks attendance. We use MRX with our tablets.

 

This assessment this student is working on is called the Albanesi Assessment. This test is a bridge between the Montessori works and a traditional test. We give these tests to our kindergarten students and old preschool students.


Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we will learn about insects, arachnids, and invertebrates.

Letter of the week:  K k

Rhyming word of the week: ox

 

Upcoming Events:
11/16/17 (Thursday): Progress Reports emailed

11/17/17 (Friday): Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN)

11/21/17 (Tuesday): Harvest Party

11/22-11/26/17: Thanksgiving Break

 

Academic Enrichment | week of October 30th | Tallmadge

Written by

During academic enrichment this week the kindergarten students were hard at work learning how to not only compose and retrieve numbers, but how to do static (no exchanging or carrying when adding)  addition using both the golden beads and the stamp game.

Composing Quantities: This child is practicing the sequence of numbers in the decimal system units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and recognizing what different quantities look like.
Addition: These children are using the golden beads to discover that when you put two small numbers together to get a larger number it is called addition.
Stamp Game: This child is using  the stamp game to do addition. It works like the golden beads but instead of unit beads there are unit stamps. Instead of ten bars there are ten stamps. Instead of hundred squares there are hundred stamps. Instead of thousand cubes there are thousand stamps.

A look into next week: Introduction to exchanging

  • Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes

 

Junior Great Books Reading Club | Kindergarten | Week of October 16th-23rd

Written by

This week we finished up with Jamaica’s Blue Marker. I really loved these last few classes because the children were really engaged in telling me how they would feel if they were Jamaica and their friend was moving away. I always like to start the class by telling them that we are a little family and they should never be nervous to raise their hand and to say how they feel. I want them to able to speak their mind and to think on their own without being judged.
At the end of each story the children have to rate on how well they shared throughout our meetings. They also have to come together and talk about what they all could do differently during our next reading. I like to write down all of their answers  they give me on our white board so that they are able to copy write in their own booklets.

A Peek Into Handwriting | Week of October 23rd

Written by

The past two weeks have taken us all the way to the letter Z in Handwriting! We also started answering a couple of journal questions, putting into practice what we have learned thus far. Our two journal questions so far have been “What is your favorite color?” and “What will you be for Halloween?” The goal is to have the children begin to expressively write on their own and to practice their letter formation on paper. I’m so proud of their progress so far!

I would encourage you to help your child practice their handwriting at home by phonetically spelling words on their own. Why not have them help you write the grocery list this week?

 

Academic Enrichment | week of October 23rd | Tallmadge

Written by

This past week in academic enrichment the children were introduced to numerals and quantities of the decimal system using our golden bead materials. They discovered what the numerals look like for different quantities from 1 to 9000.

 

Introduction Tray: This child is learning the names of each category: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and learning to identify the quantity and symbol.
Nine Tray: These children are learning equivalences i.e. ten units is the same as a ten bar. They are discovering that when they have a ten bar they have to move to a new place and can’t stay in the unit’s place anymore.
45 Layout: These children are visually able to see the association between quantities with the written symbols using the numerals and golden bead materials.

A look into next week: Introduction to addition

  • Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes

A Peek Into Our Week| Academic Enrichment, Cuyahoga Falls | Weeks of October 16th-October 30th

Written by

The Kindergarten Students, as promised, are learning how to tell time old school!  We identified what the minute hand and the hour hand are.  We first learned how to tell time to the hour/O’ clock/ :00.   We then learned how to tell time to the half hour/ half past/ :30.  Next we looked at telling time to the quarter hour/ quarter past, :15 and of course we looked at quarter til/ :45.

These students are writing the hands on the clock and writing the time in numbers that I assigned. One student had an ” O clock” :00, half past :30, quarter past :15

 

 

This kindergarten student is practicing telling time to the quarter after/ :15.
The Kindergarten Students telling time with their “hands”. Get it? Hehe

 

Cultural Subjects:
The kindergarten students can now count to ten in 13 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Itlaian, Russian, Romanian, and Swedish). 

A Peek Into The Next Few Weeks:
Telling time to the minute
Money/Coins

Synonyms of the Week:
old
big

Sight Words of the Week:
how each
said by

 

A Peek At Our Week: Mr. John’s Class: Week Of October 23, 2017

Written by

Line Time Lessons:
This week we swam the waters and learned about fish.  We learned that fish are vertebrates,  cold blooded, they have slimy, scaly skin, and some are born with jelly eggs and some are born alive.  Some examples of fish were tuna, eel, and the ever popular shark.  We know that all fish live in water.  

 

Culture Subjects:
We have been counting to Ten in 11 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, and Russian).

 

The Primary Montessori Classroom has students ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 6 years. Here are two of my newest five year old children.

 

 

Views To The Classroom:

This student combined five different works (knobed cylinders, knobless cylinders, pink tower, brown stairs, and the bead cabinet). She found the correlation between all five of these works. Involved purposes are visual discrimination, fine motor skills, critical thinking, O.C.C.I ( order, concentration, coordination, independence). It took her over 40 minutes to complete this work(s) and that did not include clean up/putting it away.

 

This student is working on an activity that is found in the Language area. It contains three part cards and focuses on the short vowel sounds. It utilizes three letter words so the child puts together the letter sounds to make a word.

 

The Knobbed Cylinders are found in the Sensorial area and the purpose of this material is visual discrimination of dimensions. Preparation for writing; coordination of the fingers used to hold the pencil. Refinement of voluntary movement. The child will be able to fit the cylinders with one precise movement. Preparation for mathematics.

 

***** Look at the look of concentration *****The aim of the Knobless Cylinders in the Sensorial area is to observe and compare the different series with each other. Getting a clearer understanding for the different dimensions and their correlation.

 

Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Birds and the characteristics of.

Letter Of The Week:
Jj

Rhyming Word Of The Week:
bip

 

 

A Peek into Reading Group-Tallmadge

Written by

With Ms. Faith

The last two weeks the kindergartners listened to a story called, Jamaica’s Blue Marker. This is a story about a little girl who has a classmate bother her. In the end, she finds out the little boy is going to move and is upset about it. She gives him her blue marker as a going away present since he didn’t have any art supplies of his own. The students completed writing and drawing activities such as, if they were Jamaica, would they be happy or sad about giving Russell the blue marker, and they had to draw a picture of what Jmaica’s face looked like when she yelled at Russell to stop.

This kindergartner is sharing what she was wondering about after hearing the story for the first time.
These students are acting out a scene from the story where Jamaica gives Russell her blue marker.
At the end of the story the students evaluate how they did with different skills during the story. For this story we learned about sharing ideas. The group came up with the idea that they would work harder on sharing questions during the next story.

A peek into the next two weeks

-The students will listen to a poem about a cat who has no home.

-The students will learn what a poem is.

-The students will continue to practice choral reading.