Our Academic Enrichment time is daily from 12:00-1:00pm. This time is specifically designed for our Kindergarten students to join together as a group to work and progress through the advanced materials and lessons in the Montessori primary curriculum. Throughout the school day in their classroom they are still working individually with their classroom teacher on these and other materials at their level.
Reading Group (Junior Great Book Program):
In March we began our focused reading groups for our kindergarten students. Kindergarten students are meeting with Ms. Faith on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Ms. Faith will keep you updated, most work will be sent home on Wednesdays and will need returned the following Monday for their next lesson.
5/2: Introduction to prepositions
Rules of the prepositions
Worksheets, practicing with prepositions
5/9: Introduction to interjections
Rules of the interjections
Worksheets, practicing with interjections
5/16: Introduction to punctuation (end of a Sentence)
Rules of the punctuation
Worksheets, diagramming sentences
5/23: Introduction to capitalization
Rules of capitalization
Worksheets, practicing our capitalization
5/30: Review of the year
Telling time, landforms
Coins, paper money
Mathematical operations
Geography
Synonyms of the week
5/2: UNDER, below, beneath, underneath
5/9: QUICK, fast, swift, rapid, speedy, hasty
5/16: NEAT, tidy, clean, arranged, well-ordered
5/23: LOOK, see, glance, stare, gaze
5/30: FUNNY, silly, playful, crazy, foolish Sight Words
5/2: some
5/9: time
5/16: write
5/23: people
5/30: many
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
-Look for our words of the week when reading a story, cut out pictures beginning with the letters of the week.
-Practice using the different synonyms of the week in a sentence together.
-Practice identifying different parts of speech when reading together.
We started off the month of March talking about Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle. The children loved coming to school dressed up with their hats, silly socks, and wockets in their pockets! We enjoyed reading Green Eggs and Ham and watching the students cringe as they tried their first bite of their very own green eggs and ham.
The second week of March we learned all about insects. The children learned how to identify animals belonging in the insect category and those that do not. They learned the main parts of an insect and the preschoolers made a beautiful diagram to display in the classroom.
For the third week of March we talked about plants and flowers. The children discovered the four elements needed to grow a plant soil, seeds, sun and water. They also learned the word photosynthesis! We planted flowers to watch grow in the classroom.
The last week of March we talked about butterflies and caterpillars. Students had a blast learning about how butterflies go through stages of growth and change called a life cycle.
I hope everyone enjoyed their spring break and is ready to get back into the swing of things!
Kindergarten
The kindergartners started their grammar unit by learning their five vowels and what isn’t a vowel is a consonant. We learned a fun song to the tune of BINGO there are five letters that I know and vowel are their name O’s A,E,I,O,U A,E,I,O,U A,E,I,O,U and vowels are their name O’s. Then we looked at noun and verbs. Nouns are people, places, and things. Verbs are action words or something you can do. We also learned that there are three articles, a, an, the. We learned that “a” hooks up with consonants, “an” is very picky and only hooks up with vowels. And “the” is not picky at all and hooks up with anything!
Science
For the first week of March we made our own oobleck. Oobleck is a non-newtonian fluid; it has properties of both liquids and solids. We learned that we can slowly dip our hands into it like a liquid, but if we squeezed it it felt solid. The name oobleck comes from the Dr. Seuss book, “Bartholomew and the Oobleck.”
The second week of March we made a hoover craft using a CD, balloon and water bottle cap. The air flow created by the balloon caused a cushion of moving air between the disc and the surface of the table. This made the CD lift and reduced the friction which allowed the disc to hover freely over the table.
The last two weeks of March we talked about how in every seed there is a tiny plant and food to help it grow. Using paper towels and plastic bags we germinated bean seeds. The children learned that when a seed first starts to grow it is called germination. The kids learned that germination can be done without soil. After we germinated our bean seeds and saw the seedlings we planted them in soil.
Art
By: Ms. Faith
We continued our journey through different cultures and places this month with Ms. Michele. The students learned about India and the tradition of henna tattoos. Henna is made from a spice, turmeric, and is used to draw temporary intricate designs and patterns on the skin for celebrations and special occasions. Ms. Michele showed us a video demonstration of someone drawing a henna tattoo. The week before the students got to trace their hands into clay and cut out the shape to make a replica of their hands. After seeing the video, the students were able to use markers to draw designs and patterns on their clay hands to look like the henna tattoo in the video. After learning about this Indian tradition, the students were introduced to an American Indian tradition of weaving. Ms. Michele showed the students a video of how Navajo Indians sheer sheep and use the wool to make yarn. It then showed a lady using a loom to weave a blanket. Ms. Michele made little looms out of popsicle sticks and string for the students to weave with yarn of their choosing. I know the children will be excited to see what cultures we’ll be learning about next month leading up to our International Festival.
Music
By: Ms. Faith
To start off March, Ms. Lisa reviewed the characters and instruments of Peter and the Wolf. The students had to remember the instruments by listening to them and the got to pretend to play that specific instrument. Then, they had to remember what character the instrument represented and it’s song and got to pretend to be that character. The students enjoyed acting like the characters from the story. Ms. Lisa introduced the musical terms of staccato and legato to the class. Staccato are notes that are played short and quickly and legato are notes that are played smoothly and connected. The students got to dance to music with scarves while listening to a song that played staccato and legato notes. The group quickly picked up on what movements to use when they heard the notes being played staccato. They jumped and skipped around moving their scarves in this manner as well. When the song started playing legato, they would twirl and danced slower and moved their scarves around in a flowing motion. Another activity that Ms. Lisa shared with the students is one of their favorites, a game called Cat and Mouse. One student is the cat and the rest of the students are the mice. When Ms. Lisa plays a song on her piano using high notes, the mice have to move into the “house” to get the cheese, then when she plays the song in low notes the cat has to move into the “house” and try to tag as many mice as he/she can. When mouse is tagged, he/she becomes a mouse as well. The game continues until one mouse remains untagged. This game is a great way for the students to recognize high and low notes while having fun. We look forward to our next music lesson!
What I will learn this month (in addition to Montessori Work Time…)
4/4: Continents & Countries | International festival
The children will learn about the geography, culture, and language of North America and South America.
4/11: Continents & Countries | International festival
The children will learn about the geography, culture, and language of Europe and Africa.
4/18: Continents & Countries | International festival
The children will learn about the geography, culture, and language of Asia and Australia.
4/25: Continents & Countries | International festival
The children will learn about the geography, culture, and language of Antarctica.
We will be practicing individual lines and songs in class in preparation for the Festival, please practice your line at home too!
*For the month of April, we will be concentrating on preparing your child for the International Festival and will resume letters and rhyming words of the week in May.
The First week in February we had a blast talking about all the different types of farm animals and what each farm animal provides for us. We talked about where milk comes from and what else we can get from farms like fruits, vegetables and grains.
The second week of February the children learned about all the different types of pets and how to care for them. To wrap the week up the children made Valentine’s Day boxes and had a blast at their Valentine’s Day party. I would like to thank all of the parents who made the party possible! As always it was very successful.
The third week of February the children learned how Washington was a great man, the father of our country, who led in war and peace. They discovered that Abraham Lincoln was also known as “Honest Abe”. They also talked about what they think life is like for the Obama family in the White House.
The last week of February we did a sorting activity with different objects of foods with a dental hygienist. She explained that our teeth get sad and full of tooth decay from sweets and soda and get happy and shiny and bright from brushing and eating healthy foods.
Kindergarten
We started out the month continuing with multiplication using the golden beads. The introduction of beads shows the kindergartners a solid correspondence between the written symbol and physical quantity. We also discussed what tools could be used in the classroom to help with multiplication, such as the stamp game, multiplication bead board and dot board. We even talked about dynamic multiplication with exchanges (carry overs). We introduced fractions. We learned that we can divide anything as long as it can be divided into equal parts. Even our kindergarten class can be divided! We then learned about different shapes. We knew that a triangle has three sides but we learned that a triangle with three equal sides is called an equilateral triangle, with two equal sides is an isosceles, and with no equal sides it is called a scalene triangle. Any shape with four sides is a quadrilateral. Some examples include a square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, and a chevron. We learned all about agons like pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, and decagon.
Science
Children believe that if their hands look clean, they are clean. So we decided to do an experiment on the power of germs and the importance of hand washing. We took two slices of bread and wiped our clean hands on one slice and our dirty hands on the other slice. Mold grew on both slices, but much sooner and more abundantly on the dirty slice. This experiment helped us understand that the germs became food for the mold. Although is dangerous to have a lot of mold on your house, we recommend to call an expert like mold remediation miami to get rid of the mold.
For our second experiment in the month of February we put an egg in salt water and an egg in ordinary water to see the difference. Since the salt water was denser than the ordinary water, the egg floated in the salt water.
The last week of February we did a leak proof bag experiment with colored pencils and a Ziploc bag. We learned that we could stick a bunch of pencils right through the bag of water without spraying water everywhere. This is because when we punctured the bag with the sharpened pencils, we were essentially separating polymer chains without breaking them. The long chains of molecules squeezed in tight around the surface of the pencils preventing any sort of leak.
Art Article (By Ms. Faith)
In February, the students got to participate in some great art projects with Ms. Michele. We started off the month with a piece of art inspired by Ezra Jack Keats’ book The Snowy Day. Keats started out illustrating books and then decided to write and illustrate books with African-American and other minorities being the main character. In his book The Snowy Day, a young boy, Peter decides to explore in the snow after the first snow of the season. While he is out exploring, Peter makes tracks in the snow, makes snow angels, and many other fun things. Ms. Michele then had the students draw a picture of what they would do on a snowy day. To create the snow in their drawings, the students pulled cotton balls apart to make it look like they were playing in fluffy snow. Some of the students drew pictures of themselves sledding, having a snowball fight, and building snowmen. The next week our art teacher started off a series of projects based off of different cultures to gear the students up for our annual International Festival in the spring. We learned about the Chinese New Year and watched a traditional lion and dragon dance that are part of the celebration. The young artists got to make their own Chinese dragons or lions out of paper cups and decorations like pipe cleaners, sequins, feathers and different kinds of paper. While creating their pieces of art, the children got to practice their scissor skills by cutting paper into different shapes to decorate their dragons or lions. Our next adventure with Ms. Michele will lead us to India where we will learn about the tradition of Henna tattoos and get to create our own tattoos on clay hands.
Music Article (Ms. Faith)
To start off this months music activities, Ms. Lisa wrapped up her unit on Peter and the Wolf by having the students pretend to play the instruments that were played for each character and then they got to act like the different characters. The students absolutely loved this activity! Throughout the rest of the month, Ms. Lisa reviewed each of the notes with the students and how to sing in a high and low voice. Some of the instruments we got to use where rhythm sticks, bells, and castanets. Ms. Lisa uses a lot of movement along with the instruments in her lessons, which helps the students develop their coordination and gross motor skills. The young musicians got to march in a parade to Yankee Doodle while playing the rhythm sticks, gallop while playing either bells or castanets, and got to have a scarf dance. Music class is not only a fun experience for the students, but provides cultural experiences as well as brain and muscle development. We appreciate all the thought and love that Ms. Lisa puts into each lesson.
We kicked off January by talking about all the different polar animals. The children made a bar graph based on their favorite polar animal to see which was the most popular. The children also enjoyed waddling around the classroom like penguins.
The second week in January we learned all about ocean animals. We learned about things that exist in an ocean habitat like sand, small shells, smooth stones, seaweed, coral etc.
After having Martin Luther King Jr. Day off we talked about how he was a hero because he was brave and honest. We shared who are heroes are and who we’d like to be like someday with the most popular answers being either Mom or Dad. We discussed how MLK made a speech and worked hard toward peace because back then people were treated badly if they did not have the same color skin. Each child made a picture of what their dream was and wrote about it.
The last week in January we talked about tigers, lions, chimpanzees, kangaroos, elephants etc. Some of our friends even invited their favorite zoo stuffed animals to school to spend the day with them during work time, line time, recess, lunch and snack.
Kindergarten
The kindergartners worked hard on learning both static and dynamic addition and multiplication using the golden beads. They have even started working on more abstract materials like the stamp game and dot board to solve problems.
Science
We made waves in the bottle and discovered that on our planet waves happen when our earth spins on its axis and water is pulled by gravity across the geological formations of the ocean floor. When we moved the bottle we got to see the energy move through the water to make waves, just like out in the deep blue sea!
During the week of MLK we took two eggs one white the other brown that have not been cooked and compared their similarities and differences on the outside and took a guess as to whether they will be the same or different on the inside. We determined even though different on the outside, they were the same on the inside, just like people!
We also did a humpty dumpty experiment where we tested if we could protect a hardboiled egg from cracking. We placed six boiled eggs into Ziploc bags filled with different items to cushion the fall to see which protected the egg the best.
Music (Ms. Faith)
During the past month, the students have enjoyed the story of Peter and the Wolf with Ms. Lisa. Peter and the Wolf is a musical symphony composed by Sergei Prokofiev, a Russian composer in 1936. During the symphony a narrator, in our case Ms. Lisa, tells the story while the orchestra plays the music. Before the class heard the full story, they were introduced to the characters. Each character has a song and instruments to represent them throughout the symphony. The characters are, Peter (string instruments), Bird (flute), Duck (oboe), Cat (clarinet), Grandpa (bassoon), Hunters (tympani drums and woodwind instruments), and Wolf (French horn). The students learned what the instruments sounded like well enough to be able to identify which character was being portrayed in the symphony. It was amazing to see how well the children remembered week to week which instrument belonged to the characters. Ms. Lisa always does an amazing job bringing the story to life and engaging the students in learning this musical masterpiece. Last year she commissioned Ms. Michele, our art teacher to paint pictures for Peter and the Wolf to give a wonderful visual aspect. Thank you Ms. Lisa for sharing another piece of the world of music with our young learners!
Art (Ms. Faith)
It was time again for one of my favorite art projects with Ms. Michele, imaginary creatures! To inspire the students, Ms. Michele shows the class pictures of mythical creatures such as a Griffin and a Centaur. The young artists got to pick two different animals to combine into a new creature and draw their ideas. Some of the combinations the group made were a squirrel/fish/flamingo, a panda/butterfly, a zebra/fish, and many more. After drawing, Ms. Michele instructed the students on how to make a foil armature, which is a base to mold clay around. Once the armatures were formed, clay was used to start making their creatures come to life. The next week, after Ms. Michele baked the creations, students painted the imaginary creatures. When the creatures dried, the children sat in a circle and were able to share what their creatures’ names were, what they eat, and where they live. I love how much effort and creativity each student puts in to this project. Thank you Ms. Michele for bringing some fun and whimsy into our lives through art!
Themes of the Week (in addition to Montessori Work Time)
2/1: Farm Animals
The children will learn about different farm animals
The children will discover all of the products that come from farm animals
The children will understand all of the responsibilities of a farmer
2/8: Pets/Valentine’s Day
The children will learn about a variety of pets
The children will learn about caring for a pet
We will discuss the differences and similarities between different pets
2/15: Presidents
The children will learn how Washington was a great man, the father of our country, who led in war and peace
The children will discover that Abraham Lincoln is on the penny
The children will talk about what life is like for the Obama family in the White House
2/22: Dental Health
The children will practice teeth brushing using an egg soaked in tea
The children will see how a little hole in your teeth can get pretty unpleasant on the inside by watching how a hole in an apple rots. Having a regular checkup with dentist and teeth cleaning is essential to maintain healthy teeth and avoid discolored teeth.
The children will talk about what foods are good and bad for their teeth
Letters of the week
2/1: Qq
2/8: Rr
2/15: Ss
2/22: Tt
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
December was filled with many fun winter and Christmas activities. We started the month off with focusing on practicing our songs for the Christmas program. The students worked very hard to memorize the lyrics and to get the motions down just right.
Our students created candy canes out of their fingerprints. We also made Rudolf pictures by tracing the students’ hands for the antlers and feet for the face. Next, we added a red nose and eyes to complete the reindeer. The students also made a winter scene snow globe out of paper plates and sandwich bags. The students loved making Christmas tree ornaments out of sticks and ribbons and melted snowmen ornaments to put in their gift bags to parents.
We all enjoyed the students’ show and tell items and they enjoyed sharing with the class. The children especially had fun wearing their pajamas to school and watching classic Christmas movies like The Grinch, Frosty, and Rudolph.
The kids did an amazing job at the Christmas program and were the cutest misfit toys!
Kindergarten
The kindergarteners worked hard on their journals and have no learned how to measure in inches and centimeters using a ruler and tape measure. They have been measuring many different objects in the classroom including their teachers and recording it.
They also enjoyed the holiday season by making many holiday treats to share with their friends like rice krispy treats and sugar cookies.
Science We did a blubber science experiment by putting Crisco between two plastics bags, then putting our hand in and into freezing cold water. We learned the animals of the Arctic and Antarctic circles spend their lives surviving subfreezing air temperatures and frigid water. Their secret is blubber, a thick layer of body fat that comprises up to 50% of some marine mammals. The students were amazed at how different the water felt with and without the blubber glove.
Music By: Ms. Breanna
The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, and sing, we did! This month in music class we spent a little bit of time perfecting our songs for the Program, but after doing great work, we need some time to have fun and dance! We sang and danced with Ms. Lisa to songs such as Feliz Navidad, Dashing through the Snow, and Jingle Bells. She also brought her castinets, jingle bells, and other fun instruments to play as a band! We had a great time together playing and preparing with Ms. Lisa, and we hope you enjoyed our performance! Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Art By: Ms. Breanna
December marked the start of our figure drawing unit. We started the month off with creating foil figures and cutting shadows out of black paper for them. The next week, we got into the Christmas spirit by drawing ourselves as elfs working in Santa’s workshop. It was a short month for art, but it was filled with fun and excitement as we prepared for our Christmas Program!
Our Academic Enrichment time is daily from 12:00-1:00pm. This time is specifically designed for our Kindergarten students to join together as a group to work and progress through the advanced materials and lessons in the Montessori primary curriculum. Throughout the school day in their classroom they are still working individually with their classroom teacher on these and other materials at their level.
1/4: Introduction to 9 Tray/ 45 layout/composing numbers
Learning what is and says ( 1, 10, 100, 1000)
Reinforce by placement and identification of numbers within each decimal place
Reinforce number placement with creation of numbers
1/11: Introduction to addition
Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes
1/18: Introduction to exchanging
Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes
1/25: Introduction to multiplication
Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
Look for our words of the week when reading a story, cut out pictures beginning with the letters of the week.
Practice using the different synonyms of the week in a sentence together.
You can view this link to give you more information on how the math materials are used in the Montessori classroom http://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/index.php?title=Math
You may also google the name of the work to find more videos and information on the purpose of that material.
The children will talk about ice fishing and then do some ice fishing in the classroom.
The children will experience what it is like to be a penguin.
The children will learn about all of the different polar animals.
1/11: Ocean Animals
The children will learn about the ocean habitat.
The children will compare their length to a blue whales length.
The children will create waves in a bottle.
Friday 1/15 NO SCHOOL | Teacher In Service Day
1/18: M L King
Monday, 1/18 NO SCHOOL | MLK Day
The children will learn what a hero is.
The children will create a classroom “I Have A Dream Book”.
The children will learn that even though everyone is different on the outside, we are all the same on the inside, through an egg experiment.
1/25: Zoo Animals
Learning about different animals we find at the Zoo.
On Friday 1/29 each child is invited to bring their favorite stuffed animal. The animal should be one commonly found in a zoo. They can have snack or lunch picnic style with their stuffed animal.
The children will create zoo cookies.
Letters of the week
1/4: Mm 1/11: Nn 1/18: Oo 1/25: Pp
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
Go to the pet store.
Try and spot all the different animals outside during winter.
Have a birthday party for M L King.
Talk to your child about what his/her dream is and share yours.
