Category Archive for "Classroom Corners" | Absorbent Minds Montessori School

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of March 4

Posted on March 9, 2019 at 12:43 am.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” -Benjamin Franklin

This week we completed our Wax Museum research! We have been working hard on this project since our first day back in January! Whenever we begin a large project like this, we spend a lot of time sharing tips and tricks with newer students to get them started on the right path. We discuss how to plan our time and how much work to complete each day in order to stay on top of things and to remain successful. It is a great learning experience for all when older students share what they did that was successful last year and what they did in the past that led them to fall behind or to have to redo a portion of a large project. We give each student an outline of due dates and also display those dates on a classroom calendar for students to review whenever necessary. Our newer students have benefited from the examples of research cards that we displayed each week with each new topic. We invited students each day to a “Wax Museum Workshop” to work with teachers and peers to focus on a specific part of our project. I have included a little sneak peek into some backdrops, but you are going to be so impressed with the hard work your child has accomplished over these last two months! We can’t wait for you to join us on Monday, March 18, at 6 pm!

These third year students are using the dictionary to find the difference between two homographs. During our lesson they realized homographs are spelled the same, but have different pronunciations and different definitions! Learning homographs helps these students with their narrative writing and spelling!

Our third year students have been working for a few months to study equivalence, congruence, and similarity between shapes. After introducing these concepts, we studied the relationships between our Constructive Triangle Boxes. Now, we are continuing to study the relationships between our shapes in our Metal Insets Cabinet. This student is proving how a trapezoid can be equivalent to a rectangle. We found that the rectangle was half the height of the trapezoid and its base was the same length as the major base of the trapezoid added to its minor base!

These first year students were traced by friends and have drawn the skeleton of the human body. They have worked hard to correctly label each part of the skeleton and to draw the bones to fit inside their traced body! In third grade, we spend the entire year studying the human anatomy and the students always recall their first year skeleton lessons!

Here is your sneak peek into our Wax Museum backdrops! Cleopatra and her friends are excited to meet you!

“A Peek into Next Week”

Next week, we will be practicing our speeches daily to memorize them by March 18. Many students have already been practicing. Each student that completed their speech should have brought home a copy already within the last few weeks. If they did not, please remind your child to bring their home copy Monday at dismissal. Next week, our first years will be introduced to the history of metric measurement, will learn about synonyms, will continue studying straight lines on the same plane, and will begin their research of simple machines! Our second year students will add decimals, will practice comma rules, will begin studying polygons, and will review flower completeness. Our third year students will learn to cross multiply, will link history to language with a study of pronouns and verbs in different tenses, will continue studying the equivalence of our Metal Insets, and will study arthropods. Our fourth year students will study puns (my favorite), will continue subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and will bisect the height of triangles to find the area. Our fifth year students will study cause and effect in writing, will discuss the imperative mood of verbs, and will continue studying square roots!

REMINDERS:

If you are able, please sign up to donate something for our Wax Museum Bake Sale here!
WAX MUSEUM – Monday, March 18 – 6 pm! Please invite your family and friends!
SPRING BREAK – Thursday, March 21 – Friday, March 29
We are in need of some parent volunteers to teach typing. We need parents each Friday that we have school from 8:45 – 11:00. We set up two laptops in the Enrichment Room and send two students at a time to practice typing. If you are interested in volunteering, you would need to help students log in to their account on Typing.com and make sure they are using proper hand placement on the keyboard. Our students have been doing this for a few months and are very used to the procedure so they can offer any tips if you need them! Please sign up here if you are interested!

Peek In Our Week * Mr. John’s Class * Week Of March 4, 2019

Posted on March 8, 2019 at 7:07 pm.

Written by John Kotradi

Line Time:
The month started off by going back in time and studying the Ancient Romans. The Ancient Romans had similar Gods as the Ancient Greeks. The king of all Gods in Rome was Jupiter and his wife Juno who was the Goddess of Marriage and childbirth. Pluto was the God of the Underworld, Neptune was the God of the Seas, and finally we came across the God of War, Mars. Did you notice that a lot of these Gods had planets named after them?

Pastor Kirk reading The Kissing Hand where a mother’s kiss sticks to her son’s hand and he gets a kiss from that kiss on his hand when he is lonely.

A Peek Into Reading Group

Posted on March 4, 2019 at 1:19 pm.

Written by Faith Weihe

The last story we read was called Down The Road. It is about a girl who gets to walk to the store by herself for the first time. Her parents give her money to buy eggs and told her not to dilly dally and come straight home. She gets the eggs and starts walking home when she comes to an apple tree and decides to pick apples for her parents. She ends up dropping the eggs and breaking them. Her parents find her in the apple tree and talk it over, and end up deciding to make apple pie for breakfast instead.

During the readings, the students participated in different activities such as, discussions, vocabulary exercises, drawing and writing activities.

The kindergartners are writing about whether they would have gone straight home or have climbed up in the tree after breaking the eggs:

A Peek Into the Next Two Weeks

– The students will be listening to a story called The Tin Forest

– The students will be learning the vocabulary words: emerged, shoot, and rustle.

– The students will be participating in acting out a scene from the story, group discussions, and choral reading.

Academic Enrichment | Week of February 25th | Tallmadge

Posted on March 3, 2019 at 11:54 pm.

Written by Courtney Owens

Fractions: This past week the kindergarten students have been learning how to identify fractions from whole to eighths. We have been talking about what the numerator and denominator are and why they are important. The students have been having fun figuring out equivalences and sensorially adding fractions together.

Cursive Handwriting: The students practiced writing the lowercase cursive letters l, b, f, e, h, k, a, g, o, qu, c and p.

A peek into next week: Measuring to the nearest forth of an inch.

A Peek into Science | 2/18 and 2/25 | Tallmadge Campus

Posted on March 3, 2019 at 11:40 pm.

Written by Courtney Owens

Crumpled Bottle: We mixed water with calcium oxide (CaO) making calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2. The Ca(OH)2 produced a lot of heat making the bottle crumple.

Electricity: An elementary student placed a battery on one side of a strip of aluminum foil. Then she held the metal base of a light bulb to the other end of the battery. She then touched the metal base of the light bulb with the other side of the aluminum foil making the light bulb light up.

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of February 25th

Posted on March 3, 2019 at 11:29 pm.

Written by Courtney Owens

Dental Hygiene: The past week we discussed how different foods and drinks can affect our dental hygiene. We learned 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.

Work Time:

**Sandpaper Letters:** This child is tracing and identifying the sounds of the letters ‘s’ and ‘a’ and connecting the sounds with the sounds in different objects like strawberry and apple.

**Introduction Tray:** This child is learning the names of each category: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and learning to identify the quantity and symbol.

**Bead Frame:** This child is using the bead frame to do static and dynamic (exchange) addition. It is a more abstract way to work with the decimal system. She is also familiarizing herself with the different categories: units, tens, hundreds and thousands by looking at it in a different way.

**Land/Air/Water:** This child is sorting and naming objects that you would see in the sky, on the land or in the water.

Guest Reader:

Reminders:

March 12th | Parent / Teacher Conferences (Pre-K & Kindergarten Students Only)

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mscourtneys1

A peek into next week: Dr. Seuss

A Peek in Our Week | Elementary | Week of February 25

Posted on March 2, 2019 at 12:54 am.

Written by Ashley Steurer

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – WB Yeats

This week the Elementary students started their displays for the Wax Museum. Our first graders were introduced to a number line and measured their friends. Our second year students researched land forms made of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock. Our third year students learned to make a bar graph using Google Sheets and continued researching weather damage. Our fourth year students were introduced to their final early humans, the Cro-Magnon group of Homo sapiens. Our fifth year students researched different homes throughout ancient civilizations. If you are interested in being part of Providence Classical School visit https://www.pcsclassical.org/ your child is receiving the best possible education with us.

The third year students researched “Plants from the Continents.” They looked at each plant and tried to determine where it would grow best. After checking their work, they chose one plant from each continent to research for next week.

This week the third year students learned how to turn a bar graph on paper into a digital, 3D bar graph on Google Sheets. They chose a topic, polled their peers, and graphed the data on bar graph paper. When they were finished, they input the data into Google Sheets to create their digital bar graph. They then saved the bar graph to our class Drive. The students were so excited to see what different graphs they could form!

These students wanted to create something. They found Plaster of Paris in the Art Cabinet and decided to make a model of a bird. They worked together to mix the plaster, but then realized they added too much water and decided to strain out what they could. They did end up with an interesting final project that we are excited to see painted and presented next week!

Here, a couple first years and our visiting kindergarten students are working on assembling our number line. The students all made sure the line was in correct order and was assembled correctly so their measurements would be accurate. Our kindergarten visitors ended up being the exact same height, which was fun to see, while our first year students were all within a few inches of each other. Soon, they will learn to add and subtract on this line. Then, they will use it to solve word problems!

One of our second year friends is showing a kindergarten visitor our Solar System models. They worked together to put the planets in order and then talked about what they have previously learned about space! We had a great time with our visitors this week.

“A Peek at Next Week”

Next week, we will wrap up our Wax Museum project to begin practicing for the big day (Monday, March 18)! Our Lower Elementary students will study March Holidays and will begin researching Asian animals. Our first year students will be introduced to the pronoun, will begin to study two straight lines on the same plane, and will discuss the external parts of an annelid (like the earthworm)! Our second year students will continue studying angles and will discuss the main characteristics of a reptile. Our third year students will be introduced to homographs, will continue studying equivalence with the Metal Insets, and will discuss the internal systems of amphibians. Our fourth year students will make a timeline of all early humans, will discuss the indicative mood of verbs, and will subtract fractions with unlike denominators. Our fifth year students will look at transmogrified words, will be introduced to Pi, and will begin studying square roots (Wow!)!

REMINDERS:

Monday, March 4 – NO SCHOOL FOR ELEMENTARY – Student/Parent Conferences – Please refer to your email for your scheduled time. Your child must attend this conference.
WAX MUSEUM – Monday, March 18 – We will also hold a Bake Sale at this event. Details to follow soon.
SPRING BREAK – Thursday, March 21 – Friday, March 29

Take A Peek Into Our Week/Ms. Kate/March 1, 2019

Posted on March 1, 2019 at 6:39 pm.

Written by Kate Case

Happy March Everyone!!

I am so excited that spring is just around the corner!! We have simply enjoyed going outside and playing in our sunny weather!! We celebrated our last week of February with celebrating wonderful Dr. Seuss!! Our class had fun trying green eggs and ham, making one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, creating cat in the hats with Ms. Amanda, playing would you rather, having a discussion about all the places WE would go and more!!! We also had the best time wearing silly socks, crazy clothes and hair, wearing red and white, and having pj day!!! Wow what a week!!!

Today my friends really enjoyed working on our long bead chains. When working on our different long chains the child is able to practice linear and skip counting. This material is also a preparatory activity for more advanced work in the elementary grades.

Our two friends are working on folding different sized cloths from our Practical Life area. This wonderful work builds independence confidence and fine motor skills, by utilizing an everyday object.

This cutie here is working on the Nine Tray. The direct purpose is to introduce the child to the concept of the decimal system, to make the child familiar with the names and relative sizes of the categories.

Patterns help children learn sequencing and to make predictions which leads to mathematical skills, logic structure in algebra, and to establish order in life.

Have a wonderful and fun weekend!!!!

Academic Enrichment ^^^ Cuyahoga Falls Campus ^^^ Week Of 2/25/19

Posted on February 28, 2019 at 5:58 pm.

Written by John Kotradi

Lesson:
This week we reviewed the three different triangles we learned about, quadrelaterals, and polygons. We also added the geometric solids, three dimensional shapes such as the cube, sphere, cylinder, ovoid, elipsoid, square based pyramid, and triangular prism.

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, Malay).

Handwriting: We practiced writing fl, ck, bl, st, cl

Next Week:
Lesson- Vowels and consonants

Sight Words Of The Week- then out

Synonym Of The Week- Healthy- hearty, athletic, sound, strong,strong, fit

The next language will be- Hindi

Peek In Our Week ^^^ Mr. John Classroom ^^^ Week Of February 25, 2019

Posted on February 28, 2019 at 12:37 pm.

Written by John Kotradi

Line Time:
This week we went back in time and took a look at Ancient Greece and talked about Greek Mythology. The Greek Gods hung out on Mt. Olympus and we learned the King of all Gods was Zeus and if you made him angry he had a lightning bolt in his hand that he would throw at you. Zeus had a wife named Hera and she was the Goddess of Marriage. If you were a sailor you dare not make Poseidon angry because he was the the God of the Seas and held a trident (a fork like spear) in his hand. Zeus had a brother that he sent to the under world and that God was named Hades. Hades had a pet that was a three headed dog named Cerberus. We also learned about Pan and Medusa.

Greek Warrior and Wisdom Goddess Ashlie came to visit.

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 23 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, and Serbo-Croation).

This is what I think about:
Sometimes I wonder the amount of weight staples and paper clips are manufactured in a year. How is the measurement of the manufacturing of staples? By unit (and would that unit be 1 individual staple or is a unit a sleeve or box) or by weight? If anyone can enlighten me it will eliminate many sleepless nights.

Peek In Our Classroom: