10/04/19 Enrichment fun with Mr. John’s class

Ballet

Making sure that we warm up our muscles and stretching before ballet.

 

 

Walking on our tiptoes and balancing.

 

Science

The geometric shape the cylinder is strong! How many books can our cylinder hold?

 

Still stacking the books!  Waiting for the books to fall! How many more books can our cylinder hold?

Our cylinder is still standing! In total, our cylinder was able to hold twelve books!


Peek In Our Week ::: Mr. John’s Classroom ::: Week Of September 30, 2019

Line Time:
Mammals-
This past week we learned about Mammalus.  Mammals are vertebrates (have a spine or backbone), warm blooded (their body temperature does not change), have hair or fur, live bearers, and eat/drink mother’s milk when young.  Some mammals live in the water such as dolphins and whales.  The only mammal that can fly is the bat! Cats, dogs, elephants, and rats are mammals.  Oh, and people are mammals as well. “Are we not men? We are MAMMALS………. ”

 

 

If you want to play Six Degrees Of Separation for DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh’s (front man for DEVO) brother does the confirmation classes for my church.  Also, I do childcare at the church and I have cared for his niece’s children.  I know useless but interesting information.  Bonus trivia: Mark Mothersbaugh went to Woodridge High School.

 

Did you know?
Since football season is upon us it would be apropos to share this knowledge of the defensive term of “Blitz”.  The term “Blitz” comes from the German word blitzkrieg, which means, “lightning war.” In World War II, the Germans employed this tactic which emphasized mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise.

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 10 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian).

 

October Birthdays:
In the Montessori classroom we have students ranging from 2.5 to 6 years old.  Here are our newest 3, 4, 5 year old students. 

           

 

          

 

 

Peek In The Classroom:

These proud girls are doing equations (addition) with the golden beads. Montessori math uses the golden bead material; first to build numbers into the thousands. Once a child is able to build a visual representation of a number, the beads are used to teach basic operations. Young children are able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers into the thousands using this material.

 

These girls are working on the Knobbed Cylinders. The Knobbed Cylinders are a Montessori sensorial material, designed to assist children in making distinctions in their immediate environment. This material primarily engages the senses of touch and sight. The material is comprised of 10 different cylinders with ‘knobs’ used to hold each object using the pincer grip. I like how they are working together and how focused they are.

 

This student is working on the Brown Stair found in the Sensorial area. The Brown Stair helps us see relationship and a visual understanding of objects getting incrementally thinner and thicker. Another purpose for this material is called “materialized abstractions” – the sensorial materials help bring concepts that were abstract into the concrete.  I especially love the focused expression!

 

These boys are working on a pre-cursive handwriting material using a dry erase marker on a wipe board. In the classroom we teach cursive to children as young as three years old. The letters flow together because it’s easier and quicker. It is our unique hand writing. Cursive means “running”, and is simply quicker than picking up and putting down the pen for each letter. Visually, in cursive, all the letters that compose one word are touching, the same way we say them.

 

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Reptiles

Letter Of The Week- G g

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bid

Next Language is Russian

Person bringing snack for week of 10/7/2018 is Chase

 

Upcoming Events:
Picture Day- Wednesday, October, 16th

Grandparents Day- Tuesday, Novemeber 5

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Frolic, Friends, and Fun:

Fashion, fashion, fashion is everywhere in my classroom.

 

Ms. Kelley is giving a morning pep talk.

 

They are comparing hair buns.

 

I am keeping my co workers happy by feeding them gyros (pronounced year-o)!

 

 

 

 

 


Academic Enrichment ::: Cuyahoga Falls Campus ::: Week Of 9/30/2019

Weekly Theme:
Biggest to smallest where we live- We discovered we live in the vast galaxy of the Milky Way (not the candy bar), then we are still in space and live in a group of planets called The Solar System. Then the planet we live is the planet Earth.  Once we touched down we found we live in the Northwestern Hemisphere and live on the continent of North America.  Once we found land we live in the country of The United States Of America and live in the great state of Ohio (Go Buckeyes).  We all live in Summit County but live in different cities and have different addresses and phone numbers. What a journey it was!

 

Handwriting:
We practiced writing  in cursive Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz

A few of the kindergarten students practicing cursive handwriting. The one on the left may be having too much fun.

 

Cultural Subjects:
We now can count to ten in 10 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian).

 

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Landforms

Synonym Of The Week:  Calm:  peaceful, quiet, inactive, serene, slow

Sight Words Of The Week:  you his

Adding Swedish to the languages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


9/27/2019 Enrichment Spotlight – Art

Enrichment Spotlight – ART!

Miss Dayna introduced us to centers this week! We discussed primary colors, the color wheel, shapes, and drawing textures. We really enjoyed all of our art exploration!

We started with the three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. Then we had the opportunity to mix our primary colors to see what would happen next!

This child is using the color wheel and colored rocks to experiment with the color order of a rainbow.

We were hands on with our play doh and created shapes and animals.

We learned that making small circles, lines, and zig zags could add textures and patterns to our art.


Peek In Our Week — Mr. John’s Class — Week Of September 23, 2019

Line Time:
Living and Non-Living-  This week we talked about living and non-living things. Your children now know what makes a living thing.  All living things reproduce, grow, eat or take in nutrients, breathe or exchange gases, and need water. We are all in agreement that plants, animals, trees, grass, are living things!  My shoe is not a living thing nor am I at 4:30 am . My youngest son’s shoes may or may not be living.  I do not get close enough to tell due to the smell and I may have seen them move on their own….  Boys that are 13 1/2 years old, SMH.

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 9 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect)

 

Radio Radio:
The past six months my radio in my car has been acting up and was on it’s last leg.  It started with a big pop sound and the volume would cut out.  The only way to get it back to normal was to turn off the radio and turn off the car.  This was very tricky while on the highway.  I’d put the car in neutral, turn off the car for ten seconds, then turn the car back on, and gently put it back in gear (not sure what that was doing to my transmission).  Then it happened… my “AUX” button stopped working leaving me with commercial radio.  I was ready to pull my hair out.  Even pounding on the radio did not work.

I finally bit the proverbial bullet and purchased a new radio with everything needed to install it. As I side note everything needed to install the radio cost more than the radio itself.  One of the parents offered to install it.  I was greeted by a very active Rotty and and had a good nap in the backyard. Two hours later I had a new radio.  I plugged in my AUX cord and used my Spotify account (again). Now the journey begins.  I was able to set the time but the rest is fuzzy.  Programming, yes I used the word programming the rest of the features, yikes.  I could change the color of my display.  I had a nice red “scarlet” but my youngest changes it to pink, he said purple, we agreed on magenta.  My son pokes around and “programs” the colors to change on their own and the colors blink with the beat of the music.  If I wasn’t susceptible to seizures before I am now.  Also, I couldn’t take my eyes of the darn thing and ran a red light. I am begrudgingly waiting for that ticket to come in the mail. I have no idea what the USB port is for.  I got the blue tooth to work with playing music.  I dare not make a call on blue tooth, yet….  below is my new

JVC KD-X360BTS 1-DIN Bluetooth In-Dash Mechless AM/FM/Digital Media Car Radio

 

 

 

Peek In The Classroom:

This boy is working on the Pink Tower which the main aim is visual discrimination but if you look closely he is making a “creation” which we call an extension (of the material). The Montessori extension lessons help the child to have further experience with the concepts of the materials. Often times the extension activity draws the child towards a more abstracted view of the original concrete concept that was introduced.

 

These students are working on a matching exercise. Matching materials improve concentration, train visual memory, increase short term memory, increase attention to detail, improve the ability to find similarities and differences in objects,help to classify objects that are grouped by similar traits, and improve vocabulary.

 

Students are helping to make rat toys for the rats. They are using their fine motor skills as well as creating these toys with little help from teachers and using their imagination.

 

This girl has mastered her colors and the material called Color Box II. The aim for color boxes The main purpose of the Color Box is to develop a child’s visual sense of color. Primary colors (Red, Yellow and Blue) are introduced in Color Box 1, which is first presented to a child at 2.5 to 3 years of age. Color Boxes 2 add more tablets to the mix, expanding a child’s color knowledge. She also had another child observe her work.

 

This work called The Vowel Tree is a pre-reading exercise. All the vowels are written vertically on the tree trunk and there are cards with two consonants and a open spot in the middle. Then the child slides the letters down to the next vowel and say the word. They continue all the way down the tree. For the purposes of this work, they can say a word even if it’s a “nonsense” word, just for the practice of saying the vowel sounds.

 

This girl is working on a construction box (Small Hexagon). This material helps the student create and identify shapes. For example….. Six small equilateral triangles makes makes a hexagon (gray shape). She discovered that half of the hexagon is a trapezoid (green shape). Again notice the student watching her do her work.

 

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Mammals

Letter Of The Week- F f

Rhyming Word Of The Week- big

Next Language is Italian

Person bringing snack for week of 9/30/2018 is Jonathan

 

Upcoming Events:

Picture Day- Wednesday October, 16th

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Frolic, Friends, and Fun:

Our “pop star” in shades

 

He really was trying to smile. Really!

 

She was forced to take this pic, hehe.  This was the best “smile” I could get.

 

Building my animal collection! A stretching frog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Academic Enrichment — Cuyahoga Falls Campus — week of 9/23/2019

Weekly Theme:
Since we live in the great state of Ohio I felt it was needed to become familiar with the states that surround our home state. We started with Ohio which is the Buckeye State and the abbreviation is OH.  We then looked at the state to the east of us named Pennsylvania (not Transylvania) which is called the Keystone State and the abbreviation is PA. We traveled south and discovered West Virginia which is the Mountain State and the abbreviation is WV. Moving to the west we ran into Kentucky which is the Blue Grass State and the abbreviation is KY.  Moving more westward is Indiana or the Hoosier State (what is a Hoosier anyway?) and the abbreviation is IN.  To my chagrin I introduced the students to TSUN.  I can not bring myself to even say the name….  xichigan  wolverine state.  

 

Let us end not on a low note like the last sentence in the previous paragraph and present the “official” things for the state of Ohio…

Mammal: White Tail Deer
Fossil: Trilobite
Tree: Buckeye
Bird: Cardinal
Flower: Red Carnation
Drink: Tomato Juice
Rock Song: Hang On Sloopy

*****  Notice how most of these things refer to Buckeye Football/ being red or scarlet.  Also, why does Hang On Sloopy have importance to Buckeye Football?  *****

 

O-H….. I-O

 

Handwriting:
We practiced writing  in cursive Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu

 

Cultural Subjects:
We now can count to ten in 10 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian).  We are implementing intensive learning programs.

 

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: From biggest to smallest and smallest to biggest (Milky Way to your street address).

Synonym Of The Week:  Active:  lively, energetic, dynamic, vigorous

Sight Words Of The Week: from he

Adding Romanian to the languages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


9/20/19 Enrichment Spotlight – Music & Science

   

Learning to use Rhythm  Sticks with Ms. Lisa.  We followed the rhythm  of our music.

Here go our ants marching one by one while we practice following rhythms.

Exploring the differences between  fresh water and salt water in our egg experiment!

Sink or float?  Amazed that our egg floated to the top in salt water !


Academic Enrichment *** Cuyahoga Falls Campus *** Week Of 9/16/2019

Weekly Theme:
North America-  Since we live on the continent of North America I thought it would be a great idea to identify some of the larger countries (Canada, Mexico) that border the U.S.A.  Also, we identified bodies of water (Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay, Gulf Of Mexico, and The Great Lakes {H.O.M.E.S.}) that “touch” and are in our continent. We also reviewed the Cardinal Directions of North, East, South, West (Never Eat Soggy Worms).

 

 

 Handwriting:
We practiced writing  in cursive L l, M m, N n, O o

 

Cultural Subjects:
We now can count to ten in 10 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian).

 

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Ohio and surrounding states

Synonym Of The Week:  BORING: drab, dull, lifeless, mundane, monotonous

Sight Words Of The Week: are was

Adding Russian to the languages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Peek In Our Week *** Mr. John’s Class *** Week Of September 16, 2019

Line Time:
Food Groups,
This week we had fun learning about the food groups in our class. Grains and Cereals (pasta, rice, bread, cereal, crackers), Fruit (apples, grapes, kiwi, mango which is my favorite), Vegetables (cucumbers, carrots, potato, broccoli, eggplant, which is my favorite) Dairy (my favorite… milk, cheese, yogurt), meats (beef, pork, chicken), and proteins, fats and sugars and how many servings we should have per day.

 

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 8 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese)

 

Fun Fact:
Did you know Fruit Loops are all the same flavor?  No need eating one color before the others.  I guess I was misled my whole life and I am bitter! Toucan Sam you disappoint me.  hehe

 

 

 

Peek In The Classroom:

This is not a pained look on this child’s face but actually an expression of enjoyment. He is doing one of our new Practical Life works of scrubbing apples. Children at this age like to do real work and this work accommodates this need. In doing so he learns to focus his mind for the purpose of mastering a new skill. This is the start of a child’s attachment to the many Montessori materials, which build in complexity to help build concentration. To develop fine and gross-motor skills.

 

These two girls are working on their cursive writing skills. The uninterrupted movements of the hand may make cursive letters easier for children to form, and for this reason, Montessori primary classrooms introduce children to cursive writing first.

 

These children are working on the sand tray which is a pre-cursive handwriting material. The Montessori sand tray is simply a tray filled with sand. Its purpose is to help a child learn how to trace letters and numbers on his own, while allowing for the same tactile and sensorial experience as the sandpaper letters and numerals.

 

This student is using the Trinomial Cube which is a staple work found in the sensorial area of the Montessori classroom. The blocks are color coded and are different sizes to represent the algebraic Binomial and Trinomial formulas. The purpose is not to teach math but to challenge the child to find patterns and spatial relationships. In further issues I will reveal the algebraic formula.

 

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Living and Non-Living Things

Letter Of The Week- E e

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bad

Next Language is Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect

Person bringing snack for week of 9/23/2018 is Amelia

 

Upcoming Events:

Picture Day- Wednesday October, 16th

 

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Frolic, Friends, and Fun:

Hugs run rampant in Mr. John’s classroom and that is OK.

 

This one certainly knows what to do when a camera is pointed her way.

 

These two are sharing some “girl time” over snack.

 

Just chillin’ and posin’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Academic Enrichment .. Cuyahoga Falls Campus .. Week of 9/9/2019

Weekly Theme:
Hemispheres- We learned a few weeks ago the Earth is the shape of a sphere.  We are going beyond that and learning the Earth is divided into hemispheres.  Hemi means half or divided and sphere states the obvious. We have an imaginary line that runs east/west called the equator and an imaginary line the runs north/south called the Prime Meridian.  These lines divide the Earth into Hemispheres (northern hemisphere, eastern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, and western hemisphere).  we went further and identified the N.W. hemisphere, S.W. hemisphere, N.E. hemisphere, and N.W. hemisphere.

This student is being quized on the hemisperes.

 

Handwriting:
We practiced writing  in cursive H h, I i, J j, K k.

Cultural Subjects:
We now can count to ten in 5 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect).

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: North America, countries and bodies of water

Synonym Of The Week:  Slow: unhurried, gradual, sluggish, stagnant, lethargic

Sight Words Of The Week: see her

Adding Italian to the languages