A Peek into Elementary Enrichments I February 2019

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We love our Enrichments at Absorbent Minds! Your children have been busy learning new skills, refining ones they already have, and sharing the joy of learning with their classmates and Enrichment teachers, every week they come and gather around our classroom furniture to talk about what they have learnt.

MUSIC

Recorder practice has begun! Each week in music the students practice new songs and test for a new belt. Just like in martial arts, you can test for a colored belt while learning the recorder. Ms. Lisa works with each child to strengthen their skills and teach them new techniques and songs. The children progress through the curriculum during practice and test with Ms. Lisa each week to guide their progess. Each time they recieve a new color while testing they get to display it on the end of their recorder!

 

The Upper Elementary Class learning with Ms. Lisa

 

New songs are presented as the students progress to new levels! Do you think you could play this song on the recorder?

 

The Lower Elementary class practicing a new song

 

LATIN

During Latin lessons in February, students have been learning about a variety of topics including different parts of the body, colors, myths, and mythical creatures.

Students immerse themselves in Latin. Mr. Matt provides the students with learning tools each week and offers them the opportunity to be as involved as each student is comfortable.

Learning Latin helps the students gain a better understanding of many new words, phrases, and language skills. It also lets them experience a different culture and history which can guide them to see how there are some things that make us different but much more that can connect and bring us together.

 

This 1st grader is learning about parts of the body in Latin.

 

Mr. Matt is explaining the Latin pronunciation of these students favorite colors. Each student was able to color code their informational sheets in order to help them remember what they learned at the lesson.

 

Students across grade levels are being read some of the most common Roman myths.

It is wonderful to observe an older student asking to read to the rest of the group as seen in the second photo.

Over the past few weeks the Elementary students have welcomed several Kindergarten visitors from both campuses. In the third photo you can see one visitor immersed in the story as Mr. Matt reads it to the group.

For follow-up work Mr. Matt assigned the students to research one of the mythical creatures introduced at the lesson. We are all excited to see what the students discover!

 

ART

Art class has been filled with several new creations! Based on Holden’s screen printing advice to make cards, signs and more!

The lower-Elementary students refined their skills with paper quilting and foil printing.

The upper-Elementary students have been paper-quilting, designing and painting  their own bookmarks, and exploring creating textures with geometric shapes. Here is a peek at some of their designs.

 

 

 

GYM 

The students let out a ton of energy with Mr. Glen during Gym class. It’s no mystery why we save gym class for Friday!

Friday’s are reserved for student-teacher conferences so having gym in the morning helps the students re-focus their day and end their week on a positive note.

The Elementary class likes to let lose and have some fun in Gym!

Dodgeball is always a favorite for the Elementary class!

Academic Enrichment | Week of February 18th | Tallmadge

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Telling Time: The past week the kindergarten students continued to learn how to tell time to the hour, half past, quarter past and quarter till.

Cursive Handwriting: The students practiced writing the lowercase cursive letters h and k. To make a lowercase cursive letter h they learned to loop up to the top line, straight to the baseline, bump up to the midline and down to the baseline. To make a lowercase cursive letter k they learned to loop up to the top line, straight to the baseline,
slide up to the midline, circle around, touch halfway between the midline and the baseline and kick out to
the baseline.

A peek into next week: Fractions

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of February 18th

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Presidents: We talked about how we celebrate Presidents Day every year. The students learned that the president is the leader of the United States of America and that he cares a lot about our safety. They discovered that George Washington was our first president and Donald Trump is the current president. We even talked about Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.

Work Time:

Sandpaper Letters: This child is tracing and identifying the sounds of the letters ‘j’ and ‘ie’ and connecting the sounds with the sounds in different objects like jet and pie.
Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the words of different objects and phonetically spelling them: cat, hat, web, log and dog.
Addition: These children are using the golden beads to discover that when you put two small numbers together you get a larger number and that this process is called addition.
Binomial Cube: This child is learning how to build a binomial cube while also getting an introduction into algebra and preparation for the formula a3+3a2b+3ab2+b3. 

Reminders:

March 1st | Progress Reports | 2nd Term

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

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

A peek into next week: Dental Health

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of February 18

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“A child, more than anyone else, is a spontaneous observer of nature.” – Maria Montessori

This week was an exciting week for nature in our classroom. We have been able to see Kernel out exploring his new habitat almost every day, we started germinating our lettuce seeds for the aquaponic system, and we have seen some growth in the food scraps we are trying to regrow! So far, most of our lettuce has sprouted enough to plant into our aquaponic system and it has continued to grow! Through research and conversation with others that have aquaponic or hydroponic systems, we learned from our mistakes last year and have seen success! Our onions, garlic, and carrot scraps are coming along and we are waiting to see if our pineapple will regrow.

This week we had two more kindergarten visitors. Here, a first grade friend is showing a kindergarten friend how to build quadrilaterals with the Box of Sticks. The Box of Sticks is one of our favorite Geometry materials because we can use it to study angles, lines, polygons, and circles!
One of our first grade friends practiced her cursive handwriting with a kindergarten visitor. They wrote letters for a while, then decided to switch to words. Our first grader helped sound out the words when necessary and gave advice on where to start each letter. It is so great to hear our students share their knowledge with new children!
Last year two of our current fourth year students and one of our current second year students were in charge of the aquaponic system. This year, they each chose a younger child to teach about the system so we can use it year after year. The younger children were able to begin the germination process and our older, experience friends, showed them how to plant the seeds once they were germinated. We are so excited to continue to see the progress of our lettuce.
Ms. Marlee introduced our first year and kindergarten students to the adverb! This is always a favorite lesson of teachers and students. Each child gets to chew a cracker in a specific way based on which adverb they receive. Some children had to eat messily, some quietly, some quickly! Being able to physically bring an adverb to life leaves a lasting impression.
These third year students used our physics discovery materials to make this creation. They were able to make five gears turn simultaneously! The students use this work to create cars, pulleys, and other machines!
Kernel is trying to write us a message!

Photos from our Valentine’s Party 

“A Peek at Next Week”

Next week we will begin our backdrops and buttons for the Wax Museum! Our first year students will be introduced to number lines, will discuss antonyms, and will find the parts of a bulb. Our second year students will have their next Checkerboard lesson, will find adverb pairs, and will learn the origins of the names of the days of the week. Our third year students will write explanations about graphs they study, will classify adverbs, will join the second years in learning the origins of the names of the days of the week, and will find plants from each continent. Our fourth year students will begin studying early groups of Homo sapiens, will continue studying simple tense verbs, and will continue taking the area of triangles. Fifth year students will continue ancient civilization research, will divide fractions, and will begin measuring circles.

REMINDERS:

  • “Bring Your Parent to Work Time” – 2/26 and 2/27 – We still have a few slots open. Sign up here.
  • Monday, March 4 – NO SCHOOL – Student Led Conferences – Please check your email for the time your child was scheduled and for more information.
  • Monday, March 18 – Wax Museum
  • Thursday, March 21-Friday, March 29 – NO SCHOOL – Spring Break

Peek In Our Week ~~~ Mr. John’s Class ~~~ Week Of February 18, 2019

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Line Time:
We went back in time and learned about Ancient Egypt.  We learned that the leaders or kings were called Pharaohs and when a king died they used a method to preserve them called mummification.  The pharaohs that were mummified look nothing like you see at Halloween or on cartoons.  The ancient Egyptians had a a written language called hieroglyphics which incorporated symbols such as cats, humans, and other daily objects. We also learned that the ancient Egyptians were responsible for building the Great Pyramids and The Sphinx which has the body of a lion and a head of a man. 

Image result for hieroglyphics    Image result for sphinx

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 21 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, and Polish).

RIP Peter Tork:

 

Guest Reader:

Pastor Kirk reading the book The Three Horrible Pigs. It was about being nice to others.

 

Peek In Our Classroom:

This student is working on geometry. The aim is the discrimination of form, to provide the child with the key to orient himself in the world of shapes.

 

I gave this student the responsibility of putting this set of books in order.

 

This student is working in her work binder. She is practicing her handwriting.

 

These student are working with the sound cylinders. The purpose of this work is to make the child consciously aware of sounds and to train the ear to distinguish similar sounds.

 

Next Week:
Line Time- Ancient Greece

Letter Of The Week- V v

Rhyming Word Of The Week-  ben

Next Language will be- Serbo-Croation

Snack will be brought to you by

 

Upcoming Events:

***** Bring Your Parent To School ***** follow the link to sing up
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-mrjohns9

 

<<<<<< Akron Art Museum Field Trip March 14, Thursday in the morning >>>>>>

 

(((((((((( Spring Break week of  3/25/2019 to 3/29/2019.  Returning 4/1/2019  ))))))))))

 

 

Fun, Frolic, and Friends:

I am not really sure what I was taking a picture of before I got photo bombed.

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic Enrichment ~~~ Cuyahoga Falls Campus ~~~ Week of 2/18/2019

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Lesson:
This week we started our two week journey in the fascinating world of Geometry.   We learned that there is just not one kind of triangle.  Actually, there are many kinds of triangles but we focused on three (Equilateral, Isosceles, and Scalene).  We then looked at quadrilaterals which are any four sided shape (square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, chevron).  We moved on to polygons (pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon).  Learning how to count in Greek really paid off during this session.

 

 

Handwriting:
We practiced cursive…

 

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, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano).

 

Next Week:
Lesson- Shapes 2, Geometric Cabinet, Geometric Solids

Sight Words Of The Week- write them

Synonym Of The Week- Wet:  damp, moist, soggy, drenched, soaked

The next language will be- Malay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of February 11th

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Pets: We learned that a pet is a companion animal. Which means he/she is kept for a person’s company, protection or entertainment. We talked about how the two most popular pets are cats and dogs. We also learned that some other animals that people commonly keep as pets are: ferrets, rabbits, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes, lizards, fish, frogs, turtles etc.

Valentine’s Day: A big thank you to all the parents that donated supplies or volunteered their time to make such a great party possible!

Work Time:

Sandpaper Letters: This child is tracing and identifying the sounds of the letters ‘a’ and ‘h’ and connecting the sounds with the sounds in different objects like apple and helicopter.
An elementary student showing a primary student a bug she caught in a bug catcher.
100 Board: This child is memorizing where the tiles should go and be placed on the 100 chart, while also learning to identify names of the numbers 1 through 100.
Introduction Tray: This child is learning the names of each category: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and learning to identify the quantity and symbol.
Cursive Handwriting: This child is practicing writing the lowercase cursive letters y, w, m, o, c, d, f, t, g, p, v, j, x, e, k and u.

Guest Reader:

 

Reminders:

February 22nd | Bring Your Parent to Work Time

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

A peek into next week: Dental Health

Academic Enrichment | Week of February 11th | Tallmadge

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Telling Time: The past week the kindergarten students continued to learn how to tell time to the hour, half past and quarter past.

 

Cursive Handwriting: The students practiced writing the lowercase cursive letters f and e. To make a lowercase cursive letter f they learned to loop up to the top line, drop down halfway below the baseline, hook up to the baseline, touch and glide. To make a lowercase cursive letter e they learned to small loop up to the midline and down to the baseline.

A peek into next week: Telling Time (to the hour, half past, quarter past and quarter till)

Peek In Our Week ::: Mr. John’s Class ::: Week Of February 11, 2019

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Line Time:
Presidents Of The United States Of America (Wasn’t that a 90’s band? Gunna eat a lot of peaches!) We first learned about George Washington and how he was our first president and was the General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln came from a poor family,  freed the slaves and was president during the Civil War.  We were introduced to Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he was president during World War II and how John F. Kennedy fought for equal rights.  We then learned that Donald Trump was current president. The children were taught that the president’s wives are called the first lady and that the president lives in the white house in Washington DC, and flies on a jet called Air Force 1.  We discussed what responsibilities the President has.  The children came up with keeping us safe, keeping the world safe, and running the country. 

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 21 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, and Dutch/Flemmish )

 

Valentine Party:

 

Momma son love
Sibling Valentine love!

 

Peek In Our Classroom:

The aim of this work, cards and counters, is to solidify quantity and symbol. Another aim is to identify odd and even numbers. Notice how every other number/counters are staggered?

 

The key purpose of the Moveable Alphabet is to prepare children for writing, reading, and spelling. The child’s use of the material progresses from single words, to phrases, and eventually to stories. In this way, the Moveable Alphabet teaches children how to symbolize their own thoughts, and begin to write creatively.

 

Color Box 1 primary purpose is to identify and match the primary colors. If you notice the dots on the edge of the tablets the students and teachers are to line the dots. This an extension to enhance concentration and focus.

 

These buddies are working with one of the science bins (rocks). This bin has the physical rocks, a book to find the rockes, and a magnifying glass to see the texture of the rocks better.

 

Next Week:
Line Time- Ancient Egypt

Letter Of The Week- U u

Rhyming Word Of The Week-  bet

Next Language will be- Polish

Snack will be brought to you by Khoury

 

Upcoming Events:

((((((((((((  Open House February 24, Sunday 2pm to 4pm  )))))))))))

 

***** Bring Your Parent To School ***** follow the link to sing up
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-mrjohns9

 

<<<<<< Akron Art Museum Field Trip March 14, Thursday in the morning >>>>>>

 

—–Recess attire….  winter coat, hat, gloves or mittens that are waterproof (not cloth or yarn), boots, and snow pants! 

        If the child does not have one or all of these items they may be asked to stay in.

 

Fun, Frolic, and Friends:

You shoulda seen the other guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic Enrichment ::: Cuyahoga Falls Campus ::: Week Of 2/11/2019

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Lesson:
We broke away from the four operations and learned about fractions.  The purpose of fractions are to help the child gain a sensorial impression of fraction, introduction to the concept and notation of fractions, sensorial exploration of equivalency among fraction.  We divided things like circles, triangles, and rectangles.  We divided the class into boys/girls, Mr. John’s Students/Ms. Kate’s Students, and Buckeye Fans/xicigan fans.  No xicigan fans were found.

 

1/3 boys, 2/3 girls in my Kindergarten Class.

 

 

Handwriting:
We practiced cursive…    u,v,x,y,z

 

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,  Serbo-Croation ).

 

Next Week:
Lesson- Shapes 1, Geometric Cabinet, Construction Boxes

Sight Words Of The Week- would about

Synonym Of The Week- Dry:  dehydrated, arid, parched

The next language will be- Cebuano