Themes of the Week (in addition to Montessori Work time)
1/05: Review of Ground Rules
Ringing of the bell, circle walk, line time
Process of working with a materials, rolling mats, carrying trays & work areas
Respecting teachers, classmates and the materials
Grace and Courtesy lessons
1/12: Martin Luther King Jr./ Similarities and Differences
History of MLK, Rosa Parks.
Our similarities and differences (eyes, hair, gender and skin color)
MLK/ Rosa Parks skit
1/19: Five Senses
Monday 1/19- NO SCHOOL (MLK Day)
Introduction to the Senses
Focus on each Sense throughout the week
Activities and experiments to support our knowledge of the senses
1/26: Skeletal System
Arms, Hands and Fingers
Ribs, Pelvis
Legs, Feet and Toes
Letters of the Week: Try to find objects that begin with each letter wherever you go with your child.
1/05: Nn
1/12: Oo
1/19: Pp
1/26: Qq
Rhyming Words of the Week: Try to find each word in books as you read to your child.
1/05: BOB, fob, gob, job, lob, mob, rob
1/12: BUG, dug, hug, jug, mug, tug
1/29: BUN, fun, nun, run, sun
1/26: BUB, cub, hub, pub, rub, sub
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.
Play “I Spy” with items beginning with the letter of the week, or find things around your home that begin with the letter of the week.
Talk about what makes you the same and different from your child. Do you have the same hair and eye color? If not, where did they get their eye color from?
Take turns trying to write your name on a piece of paper blindfolded. Wow! We appreciate the sense of sight!
Quiz your child about the different bones of the body, see if they can point to where their Femur is or tell you what their Phalanges are.
Themes of the Week (in addition to Montessori Work time)
12/1—12/19 Christmas Show Practice
We will be taking time in the morning and afternoon to practice for our Christmas Show!
We have fun Christmas themed crafts and activities planned for our students!
Christmas Show Rehearsal (not a dress rehearsal) December 17th 6:00– 7:00pm Cuyahoga Falls High School 431 Stow Ave. Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221
Christmas Show December 19th 6:30pm Cuyahoga Falls High School 431 Stow Ave. Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221
** All students arrive by 6:00pm ** Doors will open at 6:00pm
12/22—1/4 Christmas Break—School Resumes Monday January 5th
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
Help prepare your child by talking with them about being on stage, how excited you will be to see them, and what to expect. Invite your family and friends, there will be plenty of seats! You won’t want to miss this event, see you there!
It is so quiet in here. It is so calm. This is what I have been hearing from past teachers, parents, and current teachers about my room. Usually it takes a good 3-4 months for my room to become normalized but this year it is on its way to being normalized in about a month. I credit those around me for the earlier than usual success. Miss Kathleen and Miss Dana are wonderful teachers andwork well with the students. They are fun yet firm and know how to handle difficult situations well. When I mentioned “those around me” I didn’t only mean the teachers but I want to give credit to the older students, the leaders of the room. They are showing the newer/younger students how to work with materials and are guiding them through the classroom. Ms. Kelly has been spending a lot more time in the classroom to fulfill her requirement s to complete her Montessori training/certification. It is great to have her in my room.
Children love animals and I enjoy teaching the children about different types of animals. This month we started discussing mammals. I chose mammals because we are mammals. We learned that mammals have hair or fur, are born alive, and drink mother’s milk when first born. We learned that mammals are warm blooded (their body temperature remains constant) and that they are vertebrates (have spines). We learned that dolphins and whales are mammals and that the bat is the only mammal that can fly.
Then we slithered our way into discussing reptiles. We came to the conclusion that the snake is the most popular reptile. We learned reptiles are cold blooded, vertebrates, lay hard shelled eggs, and have dry scales. The children enjoyed feeling our own corn snake. The geckos were just as appreciated.
We hopped into our discussion of amphibians. We all agreed that the frog was the most popular amphibian and that amphibians are cold blooded and vertebrates. We also learned that their skin is moist and soft and that they can live on BOTH land and water. Amphibians lay eggs but the eggs have no shell but are like jelly. The children were encouraged to look for our Pac Man Frog and our Eastern Toads in our nature center.
We swam to our friends called fish. We learned that fish are cold blooded (their body temperature changes to the temperature in their environment) and are vertebrates. We learned that most fish have scales, gills and fins, and some fish lay eggs and some fish are liver bearers (babies are born alive). We introduced a new word, “habitat”. This is where something lives and the fish’s habitat is the water. The children were thrilled to learn that the shark is a fish.
We then flew with the animals called birds. Birds have feathers, are warm blooded, and are vertebrates. All birds lay hard shelled eggs and have wings. All birds have wings but some birds are flightless (cannot fly) such as the penguin, ostrich, and emu.
At circle time we count to ten in different languages. We now know how to count to 10 in English, Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, and Russia.
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Kindergarten:
The kindergarten class started the month by learning a little more about the world around us. We learned the vastness of the galaxy in which we live, the Milky Way, the solar system, our planet, Earth, the hemisphere, nothrthwestern, the continent, North America, the country,USA, state, Ohio, county,Summit/Portage city,Cuyahoga Falls, Akron, Tallmadge, and Kent, and finally our address. Then my kindergarten students learned about landforms. Ask them what the definition of a lake, island, bay, peninsula, gulf (not the game), harbor, cape, isthmus, straight, chain of lakes, and archipelago. We went over telling time to the hour, half past, quarter after, and quarter til. Time waits for no one, hehe. Your kindergarteners now know how to count to ten in, English, Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Japanese, and Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, and Tagalog.
Music:
Ms. Lisa had several new friends join us in music class this month, Jerry giraffe, Freda the frog, and Mike the monkey. The children had a great time welcoming Autumn with Ms. Lisa and her friends. They sang songs and were transformed into autumn leaves with colorful scarves. Freda the frog helped us to use our listening ears when we danced the freeze dance song and used Ms Lisa’s colorful castanets. Another new song and dance combo that was introduced was the jack in the box, and the hokey pokey. Can’t wait to see what great songs are coming for November!
Science:
In science class, Mr. John taught the concept of density. students learned that oil and water do not mix because oil is less dense than water. It didn’t matter how may times they shook the bottle with oil and water every time the oil floated to the top! We knew that the oil and water did not mix because the oil was a lighter color than the water with food coloring. To explore more about the concept of density, the students tried to get a ketchup packet to sink. When the bottle was squeezed an air bubble in the ketchup packet got smaller. This made the ketchup packet more dense so it sank.Students loved this experiment with the “ketchup submarine” floating up and down the bottle. Lastly, Mr. John taught another lesson on the strength of a cylinder. Cylinders are the most structurally sound, strongest geometrical shape. It disperses stress throughout the entire shape. We learned alot in Science Class and had a ton of Fun!
Art:
We began our October in Art with a project using recyclables from home! During the first week, the students glued down their miscellaneous items to popsicle sticks. Then, the second week the students painted these works of art one primary color. To learn the complimentary colors, the students then added objects that were the complimentary color to the color they originally painted with. This was a great way to learn primary and complimentary colors at the same time! Ms. Michelle also focused on artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Georgia O’Keeffe is known for painting close ups of flowers. The students drew and painted flowers using oil pastels, markers, and water. Lastly, Ms. Michele introduced the students to still life art. The students brought in their favorite toys or objects and set them together in the middle of the room, some even brought the best hoverboards for kids, they had so much fun. The students sat around these toys and were told to draw what they saw. Not only did they draw their own personal toys but other toys as well! It was another fun month of Art!
Where the Dinosaurs lived and how long ago they lived
Fossils and Extinction
Afternoon Group Lesson: On the Farm
11/17: Thanksgiving/ Native Americans
Mayflower, Native Americans
When the Pilgrims came to America
Who the Pilgrims were and why they came
The Mayflower
Native American shelters, nomadic, settlers
Afternoon Group Lesson: Pilgrims/The First thanksgiving
11/24: Family
Members of a family, family traditions and holidays
Family birthdays, vacations
Family pets
Afternoon Group Lesson: Thanksgiving Crafts
Letters of the Week: Try to find objects that begin with each letter wherever you go with your child.
11/03: Kk 11/10: Ll 11/17: Mm
Rhyming Words of the Week: Try to find each word in books as you read to your child. 11/03: OX, box, fox, lox, pox, sox 11/10: BOT, cot, dot, got, hot, lot, not, pot, tot 11/17: BOP, cop, hop, mop, pop, top
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.
Play “I Spy” with items beginning with the letter of the week, or find things around your home that begin with the letter of the week.
Explore your neighborhood. See if you can find any fossil plant prints on rocks in your yard or neighborhood.
Make fall crafts together to help decorate your family Thanksgiving table.
Look through family photo albums together and talk about your family. What does each family member do for a job? Where did you grow up? What unique traditions does your family have?
Summer flew by and this school year feels like it is flying by since September has come and gone. The beginning of the school year is always exciting. I love seeing old faces and welcoming new students and their families. This year’s starts with many new students and many young students but I am pleasantly surprised that the classroom is full of well behaved and eager learners. Line time is running smoothly. After the students walk the line and sit for line time I see “criss cross applesauce” (legs folded in a pretzel), doopas on the line, safe hands and bubbles (hands folded in laps and ready to listen). I usually say in a “fake” mean voice “What is wrong with this picture!” And the children delightfully reply “NOTHING!” What a joy to see that in the first month of school. I want to thank Dana and Kathleen for everything they do. The first two weeks we went over ground rules such as walking in the classroom, having listening ears, keeping our hands and bodies to ourselves and treating the classroom (children, teachers and materials) with respect. We then delved into healthy habits. We now know why it is important to wash our hands and body, brush our teeth, exercise, and get enough sleep, and, eat right. Healthy eating was a good segway into the next week lesson which was food groups. We learned about grains and cereals, fruits and veggies, meat and protein, dairy and fats and sugars. We identified what foods were in each food group and how many servings to eat each day. We capped the month with learning the characteristics of and determining what is living. All living things reproduce or have babies, eat or take in nourishment, breathe or exchange gas, and grow. The students determined that I am living but my shoe is non living. Also, Kathleen and Dana are living but their walky talkies were non living. Our student teacher from the University of Akron presented a lesson of living and non living which kept the children engaged and happy. We determined that plants were living things since they met all the criterion. Cultural Subjects We now can count 1 to 10 in eight different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, German, and Greek). I wanted to add I do not make it to many concerts but I had the pleasure of seeing “Wilco” this month. A few reasons why I mention this is that the front man, Jeff Tweedy, lives across the street from my sister in Chicago. I talk to him every chance I get and he is a pretty cool guy. So if you ever want to play six degrees of separation from Jeff Tweedy I am your in. Also, he sent all of his children to Montessori school. Academic Enrichment Class: The elders of the school got a blast of geography this month. We learned what the seven continents were, where they are located, a few fun facts about each, and a few counties that are located in each continent. We moved on to the cardinal directions, identifying where the equator and prime meridian are located. The k-students learned the equator and prime meridian create sections called hemispheres. Of course we discovered what continents are in what hemispheres. Ending the month was learning what states are adjacent to our home state of Ohio. We learned where the states are located, what their nicknames are, and their abbreviation. We researched further the facts of Ohio. The “official” things. They are as follows The official Tree: buckeye, Bird: cardinal, Insect: lady bug, Flower: scarlet carnation, Fossil: trilobite, Drink: tomato juice, Rock and Roll song: Hang On Sloopy… O-H-I-O! We can count to ten in 10 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, German, Greek, Japanese, and Arabic w/ Lebanese dialect) Enrichment Corner: Welcome back Ms. Lisa! The school year is officially in full swing and the children here are Absorbent Minds are so happy to be in music class again. Ms. Lisa brought her friend Wilma the whale to help us remember musical terms for fast and slow. Lots of our returning friends remembered right away and our new friends caught on quickly. We learned how to work as a team playing five little monkeys, the hokey pokey, and I’m a little tea pot. Looking forward to a year of great music and fun times. In science class, we first learned that scientists ask questions all the time. They try to answer their questions by making hypotheses. A hypothesis is a guess of what will happen during an experiment. Sometimes scientists guess right but sometimes they are wrong. Our first science experiment included a bottle filled with vinegar and balloons filled with baking soda. We wanted to know what would happen if we mixed the baking soda and the vinegar. Many of the children thought that the bottle or the balloon would explode! Each child took a balloon filled with baking soda and put it on top of the bottle filled with vinegar. When the baking soda shook out of the balloon and mixed with the vinegar the balloon inflated. How did this happen? Mr. John explained that when the baking soda and vinegar mixed a gas called carbon dioxide was made. This gas filled up the balloon. Our next experiment included eggs, salt water, and fresh water. We wanted to find out what would happen to an egg put in salt water and an egg put in fresh water. Would the egg float or sink? Many of the children guessed that either the eggs would float or sink. The children took turns placing eggs into each water. Each time, the egg placed in salt water floated, and the egg placed in fresh water sank. Mr. John explained the concept of density. The salt water was more dense so the egg was pushed to the top. The fresh water was less dense so the egg sank. There was nothing to push the egg to the top. In art class, we first learned what an artist was and what they do. Ms. Michele asked if certain things in the classroom were types of art. Our first artist we learned about was Eric Carle. The children learned that Eric Carle is an author who illustrates his books by making tissue paper collages. What is a collage? A collage is a picture made up of other pieces of paper and other pictures. Ms. Michele showed the children different textures and how to rub them onto tissue paper to make different designs. Once the children had their textured tissue paper, they glued them down to make an animal like Eric Carle. We also learned all about primary colors. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. If you mix two primary colors together you get a different color! The artist Piet Mondrian painted with primary colors to fill in different shapes. The children first glued down popsicle sticks to make shapes like rectangles, squares, and triangles. Then, they used primary colors to paint in their shapes like Mondrian. We are looking forward to the month ahead in Art class!
We started May with food chains, yum yum eat ’em up……we went over 2, 3, 4, 5 part food chains. We learned terms such as predator and prey, and top and bottom of the food chain.
We then went over the seasons and the typical characteristics of those seasons. Spring usually rains a lot and starts getting warmer as we leave winter. We see greener plants and leaves on the trees. Flowers also start to bloom. Summer gets much warmer, flowers are in full bloom and most babies in the wild are born. As the year gets older we move into fall or autumn.
The temperature starts to get colder and leaves change colors and fall to the ground. Winter brings us very cold temperatures and snow. Many animals hibernate or go to warmer climates.
Our little astronauts explored the solar system. We learned Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, Venus is the second planet and is the hottest, Earth is very special to us, Mars is called the Red Planet, Jupiter is the largest planet, Saturn has beautiful rings, Neptune and Uranus are the furthest planets in our solar system.
We learned about safety our last week and I STRESSED to stay by their safe side adult!!!!!!! I mentioned to the students that I told my own children “If I cannot see you…. YOU are in the wrong place!!!”
Kindergarten In kindergarten lesson we finished our work with grammar. We went over the preposition which is a ‘where’ word not a ‘where’ wolf. Interjections help a sentence show more emotions, and we went over when to use a . ? ! We then reviewed when we capitalize words in a sentence. We capitalize the beginning word of a sentence, proper nouns and “I”.
Cultural Subjects
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 26 different languages (English, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano, Latin, and Hindi)!
The Continent Song, Che Che Kule, It’s a Small World. Those songs are still ringing in my ears and I still find myself whistling these tunes. As you know these were the songs sung at the International Festival. Throughout the month we learned about all the continents and some of the individual countries within the continents. The students had fun learning about the climates, foods, clothes, and differences of how children attend school.
I wanted to thank all of those who came in and talked about different countries. This adds so much to International Festival month. All the presentations are fun, informative, and the children learn a lot and teachers enjoy it.
It never ceases to amaze me how much our students can learn in a short amount of time. They did a fabulous job with their lines and performing the songs. Not to mention how colorful the stage was with their costumes. I cannot give enough thanks to the people who prepared the food! I ended up in a food coma that night!
Kindergarten
In the kindergarten lesson we continued our work with grammar. We studied 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! We know a pronoun replaces a noun. We looked at the adjective which describes nouns and pronouns, the adverb which describes the verb and usually ends in “ly”, the conjunction which connects two sentences or thoughts and acts like a bridge and the three words we learned that do this are and, but, or.
Cultural Subjects
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 27 different languages (English, Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano, Kiswahili and Hindi.)
Ms. Dana and Ms. Kathleen have never missed a beat and are a great support to me in the classroom; we can’t believe we are heading into the home stretch! It has been a great year together and with your children!
To begin this month, we visited the Ancient Romans and found they wore the toga, built the coliseum, and their most famous person was Julius Caesar. Our students had fun one afternoon building their own Roman Arches from sugar cubes. Our students were very fascinated by Roman Mythology. We learned the Greeks Gods had Roman counterparts.
Jupiter was the king of all Gods. The God of the sea was named Neptune and the God of the Underworld was known as Pluto. The God of War was named Mars. Goddesses existed as well. Juno was the queen of all Goddesses. Venus was the Goddess of Love. Minerva was the Goddess of Wisdom. Many students noticed that many of the Gods were named after planets or the planets were named after the Gods. Mythical creatures existed such as the faun. The faun was a creature that was half man/ half goat. The griffin was the most interesting to the students. It was a creature that had a head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It was known to guard treasures and built their nests out of gold.
We then learned a little about pollution. Pollution is something that is harmful to our environment. Some students used the word “toxic” to the environment. We learned that “ground pollution” was known as litter. We know not just to toss a plastic bottle or a candy wrapper on the ground but instead put it in a trash can or recycle. Water pollution can come from oil spills or factories dumping their toxic waste into the water. Fish and other water creatures such as ducks do not like this. Air pollution is caused by factories and cars. We all agreed any kind of pollution is gross, disgusting, and probably smells. And no one thought noise pollution was good for the environment.
Students have also been talking about what it means to be a friend with Ms. Dana and Ms. Kathleen in the afternoon and enjoyed working together to build a friendship web. This is a group activity that teaches our students how to communicate their feelings, and pick out positive characteristics in people.We then dove into the ocean and found the oceans are all salt water and have some pretty cool animals. We all knew there were water mammals such as dolphins, and whales. There are also some invertebrates such as the octopus, squid and seahorse. We know that the oceans and any water forms are very important to the Earth. We get our water, food and oxygen from our water forms.
We also took a field trip to the Art Museum this month! Thank you to all of our parents who volunteered to drive and help us at our visit. It was a great trip!
Our classroom was visited this month by some very mischievous leprechauns. We were greeted by tipped tables, stacked chairs, and paper strewn across the room. Although the room was a mess the cheeky little leprechauns did leave gold coin candy for the children to take home! Cultural Subjects
The class has been counting to 10 in twenty-eight different languages, English (that is our native language), Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic w/Lebanese dialect, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Hebrew, Swedish, Korean, Polish, Hungarian, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemish, Serbo-Croatian, Cebuano, Malay, and Hindi.Kindergarten Lesson
We ended our math unit by learning more shapes such as the quatrefoil, oval, and ellipse. We looked at some three dimensional shapes such as the ovoid, ellipsoid, rectangular and triangular prisms, square and triangle based pyramids.We began our grammar unit by learning our five vowels and what isn’t a vowel is a consonant. Then we looked at the noun and verb. Nouns are people, places, and things. Verbs are action words or something you can do. Even if you sleep….. Sleep is a verb!
The Kindergartners now can count to 10 in twenty-eight languages…English (that is our native language), Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic w/Lebanese dialect, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Hebrew, Swedish, Korean, Polish, Hungarian, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemish, Serbo-Croatian, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi.
er gets much warmer, flowers are in full bloom and most babies in the wild are born. As the year gets older we move into fall or autumn.
Jupiter was the king of all Gods. The God of the sea was named Neptune and the God of the Underworld was known as Pluto. The God of War was named Mars. Goddesses existed as well. Juno was the queen of all Goddesses. Venus was the Goddess of Love. Minerva was the Goddess of Wisdom. Many students noticed that many of the Gods were named after planets or the planets were named after the Gods. Mythical creatures existed such as the faun. The faun was a creature that was half man/ half goat. The griffin was the most interesting to the students. It was a creature that had a head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It was known to guard treasures and built their nests out of gold.
