A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of April 8

Written by

This week our “Peek” was written by a few of our students! These students read our previous blogs, took pictures around the room, and filled in a blog template. The students did some editing together, and with a teacher, so what you will read below is their final product. There are still some misspelled words in their final product, but in a Montessori classroom we focus on the process, instead of the end result. Dr. Montessori believed when we put all of the emphasis on the final product, we devalue everything leading up to that point. This can discourage repetition which will make mastery of a skill difficult. The purpose of the students writing the blog is to provide you with a glimpse into the room through their eyes, to provide them with practice of real world skills, and to give them a deeper understanding of the materials in the room. We hope you enjoy their work!

“A Peek at Our Week” by the Ellie and Reese

This week the first graders learned about adding and subtracting on a number line. The second years learned about larg bead fram multiplicashun. The third years learned about Pythagorean Theorem. Upper Elementary learned about how to bisect the base.

The two first graders are learning adout Asia animals. Their learning about a Golden Cat and the Komodo Dragon.
They were working together to complete a Lattice Multiplication ekwation.
These two first graders are tracing and coloring the Europe mape.
The secont grader was using the story starter to write her own story.

“A Peek at Our Field Trip and Next Week” by Ms. Ashley

We loved our visit to the McKinley Museum! While there, we visited “Discovery World,” the planetarium, and the McKinley Monument. In “Discovery World,” we were introduced to Alice the Allosaurus, saw the fossils of a triceratops, mosasaur, and some animals from the Pleistocene Ice Age! We were also able to see animals from North America like another corn snake named Kernel, catfish, bees, and a tarantula! Once we visited with the live animals, we went to the science area. Students were able to try different experiments, which you will see below. We enjoyed the planetarium and learned a lot about the construction of the Memorial after climbing all the stairs!

Reading about how the McKinley Memorial was built.
Making an elongated penny was harder than she thought!
Beating a robot in Tic-Tac-Toe!
Two newscasters are trying to prepare and inform the public on how to be safe during a tornado while the third is getting out of there!
These students loved seeing the triceratops fossils!
Here is a mastodon tusk that was found under what is now Belden Village!

Next week, we will continue working on our models and songs for the International Festival. Please refer to the previous email for what your child needs to wear and what food you can bring. Our first year students will find the commutative pairs in our Decanomial, will review parts of speech and discuss the conjunction, will begin studying energy transformations, and will be introduced to the echinoderms! Our second year students will solve length word problems, will review conjunctions, will find the height and orthocenter of a triangle, and will experiment with oily feathers to learn about oil spills. Our third year students will multiply fractions by a whole number, will review how to use quotation marks, and will classify phyla of plants. Our fourth year students will add integers, will discuss the old world Homo sapiens, will learn about gerunds, and will classify fungi. Our fifth year students will multiply on the decimal checkerboard, find the area of a circle, and will study glaciers.

REMINDERS:

  • NO SCHOOL – Monday, April 22 – Easter Monday
  • Wednesday, May 1 – International Festival Practice
  • Friday, May 3 – International Festival
  • We still need parent volunteers to monitor our typing lessons. Sign up here. 
  • Mark your calendars – Optional Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held the week of May 13-17, before and after school. A link to sign up will be sent through Remind and the blog soon.
  • FINAL Parent Work Time in May – Sign up here.

Peek In Our Week — Mr. John’s Class — Week Of April 8th, 2019

Written by

Line Time:
This week we got a big jump on learning our song for the International Festival and learning our lines for the show. 

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 25 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, and Malay).

 

Random Thought:
There were a few things that disappointed me as a child and one thing was the misrepresentation or false marketing of cereal.  For instance Grape Nuts.  I expected a sweet grape flavored cereal and all I got was cereal that was hard as rocks and without flavor.  Grape Nuts, right!  More like Gravel Nuts.  In the 1970’s Ralston create the Chex Mix line (Rice, Wheat, and Corn). They were marketed beautifully with vibrant blue, red and yellow colored boxes and pictures of plump blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. Then you tasted the cereal and it tasted similar to what the box they were stored in or what I imagined the box would taste like. The only remedy to stomach these cereals was to pour a half of a cup of sugar on the cereal.  #tooth decay

See the below picture ant tell me what a six year old kid is expecting.

 

 

 

Peek In Our Classroom:

This student is working on the color bead bars that is found in the math area The direct aim for this work is the color bead stair clearly distinguishes each number up to 9 as separate entities of differing quantities. The bead bars that compose it facilitate the construction of the numbers from 11 to 19 and show respectively their relation to the quantity of 10.

 

She is working on the metal insets and found in the language area. The metal insets have many purposes. these aims are but not limited to…. **Grip and hold the pencil (and hold the pencil upright) **Refine hand control to steady the pencil **Develop movements of straight and curved lines, in preparation for letter formation or a continual line which can assist with cursive **Develop hand-eye coordination, to make small coordinated movements Experience the result of pressure on the pencil (light and dark) **Experience graduation of color **Develop fine muscles in the hand but also the larger muscles required for sitting and maintaining posture for writing Focus the mind, **Develop and strengthen the child’s concentration **Make movements up and down and left to right (when filling in or shading), this is significant when reading and writing Practice order **Repetition, and memory recall **Develop geometric sense including the name of each shape, how it is constructed, how it looks when turned or moved, how it relates to other shapes **Develop the ability to plan and carry out artistic designs. #WeReally Got Our Money Worth

 

This scene depicts an older student helping a younger student put on their shoes. In a Montessori classroom the older children naturally have the need to help others.

 

This scene captures students working on a variety of materials. The back upper right a student is working on the continent puzzle map which teaches the location of the seven continents. In the upper left two students help each other with a United States puzzle. In the foreground this student is working with a rhyming work that focuses consonant blends such as BLOCK, clock.. TRUCK, stuck. Children learn the phonic sounds of each letter and then begin reading words within word families. Children that have been exposed to rhyming can hear the similarities in words which aids them in early reading and spelling skills!  And my big ole knee is present in this pic.

 

Next Week:
Line Time- International Festival Preparation

Letter Of The Week- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Rhyming Word Of The Week- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Next Language will be- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Snack will be brought to you by Katie

 

Upcoming Events:

((((((((((  Easter Monday NO SCHOOL  Monday 4/22/2019 ))))))))))

International Festival Practice Wednesday, May 1st | Cuyahoga Falls High School, 6pm-7pm

International Festival Friday, May 3rd | Cuyahoga Falls High School, 5:30pm | Early Dismissal 12 Noon

—Moms and Muffins, Friday May 10th, 7am to 7:45am—

 

 

Fun, Frolic, and Friends:

You should the other guy.

 

What’s a little chocolate pudding on your face among friends.

 

Just some happy students in Mr.John’s classroom!

 

Frazzled at the end of the day. We really work our students.

 

 

 

 

Academic Enrichment — Cuyahoga Falls Campus — Week Of 4/8/2019

Written by

Lessons:
Adjectives-  We learned that a adjectives describe nouns and since pronouns takes the place of a noun adjectives can describe pronouns as well. 

 

Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 28 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh,  Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi, Farsi, Turkish).

 

Next Week:

Line Time: Adverbs (describes verbs, adjectives and other pronouns)

Sight Words of the Week: None planned due to International Festival practice

Synonym of the Week: None planned due to International Festival practice

Adding Language of None planned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of April 1st

Written by

Butterflies and Caterpillars: The students learned that butterflies are insects. They also discovered that a butterfly’s life cycle is made up of four parts, egg, larva (caterpillars), pupa (chrysalis) and adult. We talked about how an adult butterfly will eventually emerge from the chrysalis where it will wait a few hours for its wings to fill with blood and dry, before flying for the first time. The students learned that butterflies often have brightly colored wings with unique patterns (symmetric). We read about how most butterflies feed on nectar from flowers and have taste receptors on their feet.

Work Time:

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.
Triangle Box: This child is developing an understanding that an equilateral triangle can be subdivided into other types of triangles.
Cursive Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing her first name in cursive on a chalkboard. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.
Addition: These children are using the bead bar box to discover that when you put two small numbers together you get a larger number and that this process is called addition.

Reminders:

April 22 | Easter Monday | No School

April 26 | Bring Your Parent to Work Time

May 1 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm | International Festival Rehearsal | Cuyahoga Falls High School

May 3 | Early Dismissal 12:00pm | No Afterschool care available

May 3 @ 5:30 pm – 9:00 pm | International Festival Show| Cuyahoga Falls High School

A peek into next week: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of April 1

Written by

“Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.” – Jane Goodall

What a great week back to school. We were so excited for our “Skype in the Classroom” event with Dr. Jane Goodall. Children from schools all around the word tuned in to hear about her first work in Africa and her current work now to protect humans and animals. We submitted a few questions which were answered by Jane and Jane Goodall Institute members. We are patiently waiting to receive a copy of the talk and our answers. In the meantime, students have been looking into her “Roots and Shoots” initiative to help students learn more about the needs of animals and the planet to prove that every child can make a difference. Once we gather all of our information, we are going to vote to see if we would like to join one of the projects to do service for people and animals in our area.

This first year student is working with our bead bars to form a decanomial. He has built the multiplication table of ones and is working on building the two times table. Once he has mastered this work, we will go through the decanomial and replace the bars with their commutative property pairs. We will then go through and find the squares of numbers. All of the practice with these bead bars will give him and our other students a metal picture of the multiplication equations they will solve throughout their time with us and as adults.
This fourth year student is working to complete his Early Humans Timeline. After completing his study of early humans from Australopithecines to the Cro-Magnon Homo sapiens, he created a timeline to show the periods when these humans walked the Earth, then wrote summaries of each species to add to his timeline with drawings. Check out his work next week in the hall!
This second year student is reviewing types of triangles with Ms. Marlee. He is forming and naming triangles based on the length of their sides and the types of angles they contain. Here he has an equiangular equilateral triangle and a right-angled isosceles triangle. This month our second year students will continue to study triangles before moving on to writing simple proofs about quadrilaterals!
These students have created a plan for researching the United States of America. They have traced many of the states and are recording important information like the date each state entered statehood, the state nickname, the state bird, and many other interesting facts. Working in pairs or groups requires a lot of communication and problem solving that is even more important than the great academic work they have independently chosen to complete.
What a bittersweet moment! Our third year students have finished their study of equivalence with our Constructive Triangles and Metal Insets. Here they are working together to find a relationship between the apothem and perimeter of a decagon and the height and base of a rectangle. I have been so impressed by the ability of this group to work together with these challenging materials (remember last year when many of our parents could not figure them out?!) to communicate, give chances, and give encouragement to each other. They have been comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas, even if they end up being wrong, which is something we could all probably learn from them! Next stop – PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM!

“A Peek at Next Week”

Next week, we will continue to study and research Great Zimbabwe. Our first year students will add and subtract on a number line, will continue to study whole and straight angles, will discuss the parts of a leaf, and will begin studying Australia. Our second year students will begin compound multiplication by discussing standard and expanded notation on the Large Bead Frame, will continue studying triangles with the “Seven Triangles of Reality” lesson, and will find symmetry in flowers. Our third year students will record partial products on the Flat Golden Bead Frame, will move on to Pythagorean Theorem, and will study the main characteristics of mollusks. Our fourth year students will create a line graph on our Pegboard, will bisect the base of a triangle to find the area, will be introduced to fungi, and will complete a lab about properties of matter. Our fifth year students will build a cube to its successive cube, will be introduced to the Ancient Civilizations Timeline, and will study ocean currents.

REMINDERS:

  • McKinley Museum Field Trip – Tuesday, April 9 – This is a bus field trip. We will be learning about Ohio history, dinosaurs, and will visit their planetarium. Please pack a disposable lunch for this day and be sure your child wears comfortable shoes. We will be walking up many steps to the McKinley Memorial.
  • Monday, April 22 – NO SCHOOL – Easter Monday
  • Please help us continue to offer typing classes by signing up here to supervise our students: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-typing

Academic Enrichment *** Cuyahoga Falls Campus *** Week Of 4/1/2019

Written by

Lessons:
Pronouns-  We learned that a pronouns take the place of a noun and sometimes makes our lives easier.  The pronouns we we went over were he, she, it, they, we, you.

Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 28 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh,  Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi, Farsi, Turkish).

 

Next Week:

Line Time: Adjectives (describes a noun)

Sight Words of the Week: None planned due to International Festival practice

Synonym of the Week: None planned due to International Festival practice

Adding Language of None planned

Peek In Our Week *** Mr. John’s Class *** Week Of April 1, 2019

Written by

Line Time:
This week we started our International Festival blitz by looking at landmarks close to home and learning a little bit about our home state.  Ohio has a lot of official “things”.  For instance:  The official…

Tree- Buckeye

Nickname- Buckeye State

Flower- Scarlet Carnation

Insect- Lady Bug

Drink- Tomato Juice

Rock and Roll Song- Hang On Sloopy

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 25 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, and Malay).

 

April Birthdays:
The Montessori classroom is made up of 2 1/2 to 6 year olds.  Here are the newest 4 and 5 year old students.

 

Peek In Our Classroom:

These two boys are working with one of the science bins. This bin is the bone bin that includes a cow femure and a small nocturnal skull (not sure of the animal).

 

This student is putting away her work/material. Notice her concentration and how particular she is placing the materials exactly how she found them.

 

This student is working on the 9 tray that is a math work. She is identifying the symbols/numbers,

 

These two girls are working on the United States Puzzle Map. The purpose is to identify the shape and location of the states. Also, the small white knobs help with fine motor skills.

 

Next Week:
Line Time- International Festival Preparation

Letter Of The Week- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Rhyming Word Of The Week- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Next Language will be- None scheduled due to International Festival Practice

Snack will be brought to you by Lily B.

 

Upcoming Events:

International Festival Practice Wednesday, May 1st

International Festival Friday, May 3rd

((((((((((  Easter Monday NO SCHOOL  Monday 4/22/2019 ))))))))))

 

 

Fun, Frolic, and Friends:

I love these shirts . She decided to do half yellow and half silver.

 

Same color outfits and forced to take a picture.

 

The two boys with glasses. I tell them to smile and see what I get?

 

I absolutely love when students celebrate science day!

 

I absolutely love when students celebrate donut day!

 

She begged me to take her picture. How could I refuse?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A peek into Tae Kwon Do | Session 3

Written by

This is the group from the second trial day. Each class has a chance to come and try a Tae Kwon Do class. These instructors were awesome substitutes while Master Barnick was recovering from surgery.

Session three begins!

At the start of each class the students warm up with some exercise. Time for some jumping jacks!
Here the class is running some warm up drills.

 

Running over the ladder. This activity requires each student to wait their turn patiently, get some exercise while running over the ladder and following the specific instructions on how to go through the ladder.

 

This young martial artist is practicing his punching.
Our girl ninjas are great punchers!
Our most seasoned Tae Kwon Do student practices her punching with Master Turley.
This student is practicing his punching and balance.

 

This young Ninja is working on his balance while blocking the sword.
This little Ninja is practicing his punching while balancing. Check out the cool golden paddle!

 

This is the bubble wrap game. The students first practice walking across the bubble wrap so carefully that no bubbles are popped. Then, each student gets to stomp as hard as they can to try and pop as many bubbles as they can while their instructor gives them a count down. You and your kids can learn these techniques on this https://trifudojo.com.au/ professional dojo. 
Practicing forms.

 

 

Get ready to push that ball away!

 

Here, this student is practicing punching the ball away from him back to the instructor.

Belt Testing!

This student is about to break her board!

 

Time for a belt upgrade!

 

Congrats To all our Tae Kwon Do students! Session 3 is a wrap!

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | March 11 – March 20

Written by

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

We are down to only eight more weeks of school! I cannot believe it! Our first years are beginning to build their own Simple Machines with a partner. Our second years are completing their study of polygons with five or more sides and are beginning to look at triangles. Our third years getting ready to move on to the Pythagorean Theorem. Our fourth year students are wrapping up their study of early humans. Our fifth years are continuing to study Ancient Civilizations. Take a peek at the wonderful work we have been doing these last two weeks.

The fourth year students are finishing up their study of early humans. After taking notes, drawing sketches, and creating their own timeline of groups of early humans, they were presented the early human family tree. We separated all of the early humans into the groups of Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo. They loved comparing the skull shapes!
Our first year students were recently introduced to Simple Machines. They learned about an inclined plane, a screw, a pulley, a wheel and axle, a wedge, and a lever. They chose partners to research and build their machine together!
Our second year students are studying the polygon family. They have discussed names of polygons and regular and irregular polygons. These students are discovering why the triangle is called “The Constructor!”
These students built half of a cube with our cubing material and took two days to write and solve the equation. They were introduced to a lesson about finding the square root of a number, but CHOSE to do this as follow-up work instead! Check under the next photo to see what they came up with!

2[12(9^2) + 13(8^2) + 12(7^2) + 13(6^2) + 8(5^2) + 9(4^2) + 8(3^2) + 24(2^2) + 82(1^2) + 12(1^2 x 10) + 20(1^2 x 9) + 20(1^2 x 8) + 12(1^2 x 7) + 20(1^2 x 6) +20(1^2 x 5) + 20(1^2 x 4) + 20(1^2 x 3) + 20(1^2 x 2)]
Wax Museum

Our students worked so hard over the course of two months to prepare for the Wax Museum. Please refer to the previous blog (below this post) to read all of the details! Here are some photos of their great work! Thank you to all parents and family members that came to show your support and that donated to our Bake Sale for the Upper Elementary Trip this August!