A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of December 3

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“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” -Maria Montessori

It is a busy time of year for all of us, inside the classroom and out, but it is refreshing to see students still so hard at work. As the end of our first half of the year grows closer, we are finishing up some projects and learning new skills. Our Lower Elementary students have been studying South America and are completing research projects about the continent. The first year students have started researching Mercury and Venus and will continue researching different planets every few weeks throughout the school year, ending with a research report about a famous astronomer. Our second year students are continuing their rock study by testing and identifying rocks. Our third graders have been introduced to the compound microscope and will be testing their knowledge to earn a microscope license to use the microscope independently. Our Upper Elementary students have completed a five paragraph persuasive essay about whether or not animals should be kept in cages to end our novel study of “The One and Only Ivan.”

This fifth grade student is helping these first grade girls research the country of Brazil for their South America Continent Study. He helped the girls use the index to find the page that they needed to answer their questions then helped them read challenging words. These students were so thankful for the help of this friend!
This first year student is working with our “Animals of the Continents” work. He has sorted photos of animals into piles representing different continents, then checks his work with the control cards. He is adding his own drawings of animals to our work!
This second year student is working on writing capital E in cursive. Each week, our students work with Ms. Kelley on proper formation and strokes of lowercase and capital cursive letters and words. Ms. Kelley also has them do different activities like writing in cursive on each other’s backs or writing the sight words we are practicing to make handwriting exciting. This second year student LOVES writing in cursive thanks to Ms. Courtney!
Our Upper Elementary students are completing the final draft of their persuasive essays. Two of our older students wrote why animals should be kept in cages and two write why they should not be. We will be sharing these essays with the class and voting on which argument was the most successful and why!
These second and third year students are being quizzed on the parts of the compound microscope by a fourth grader that has her microscope license for the compound and dissecting microscopes. She asked them to name the parts of the microscope and had them explain what each part does. This Friday they will take their quiz to be able to use the microscope independently!

A Peek at Next Week

Next week, our first year students will review multiplication lessons, will be introduced to Sentence Analysis, and will discuss mechanical energy. Our second year students will subtract fractions with unlike denominators, will write a biography about their classroom mentor, and will discuss types of seeds. Our third year students will continue multiplying on the Large Bead Frame, will write a biography about their classroom mentor, and will research platyhelminthes. Our fourth year students will find the prime factors of numbers, will determine relationships between humans and apes, and will discuss the characteristics and energy of cells. Our fifth year students will create a pictograph on Excel, will define Latin and Greek affixes, and will learn about reciprocals of fractions.

REMINDERS:

  • Wednesday, December 12 – Christmas Show Rehearsal. Please check your email from the school office for information about drop off and the rehearsal. Make sure to take your child to the restroom BEFORE you bring them to the auditorium. Ms. Lisa will have all piano music for piano students. They will not need their books.
  • Friday, December 14 – Elementary Box Top Pizza Party – We will have pizza (including gluten free), veggies, and snacks to celebrate collecting the most Box Tops at our campus. We will also be wearing Christmas Sweaters! Please do not feel the need to buy a special sweater for this day, it is an optional dress up day.
  • Friday, December 14 – Christmas Show.
    • Take your child to the restroom before dropping them off.
    • Bring your child in their “12 Days of Christmas” costume
    • Bring your child’s pajamas or “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” costume in a separate LABELED bag. If you have multiple children in our classroom, please put each of their clothes in a separate bag to make things easier for us while they change. Students will change themselves for our play and for Kids Bop in the back dressing rooms.
    • Look for more info from me on Remind later this week and from the school office.

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of December 3rd

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Over the past week the children started practicing for their Christmas Show multiple times a day. This will be their main focus for the next few weeks. We are doing a Christmas Tree theme. Feel free to dress your child up in anything Christmas Tree related for the show next Friday and practice singing the songs “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” and “O’ Christmas Tree” with them!

Work Time

Sandpaper Letters: This child is tracing and identifying the sounds of the letters ‘r’ and ‘q’ and connecting the sounds with the initial sounds of different objects like rabbit and quilt.
Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the words of different objects and phonetically spelling them: pan for pan, flowr for flower, pi for pie and str for star.
Cursive Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing the uppercase cursive B on a chalkboard. He is developing multiple skills involving his eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.
Stamp Game: This child is doing static addition (a sum without exchanging) problems using the stamp game. He is practicing addition at a higher level of abstraction.
Dishwashing: This child is using many motor skills while also remembering the order and sequence of each action to successfully wash dishes, which naturally leads to the development of concentration.
Cards and Counters: These children are demonstrating their knowledge that each number is made up of separate quantities. They are also able to visually see the sequence of numbers and how many separate units go together to form each number.

Guest Reader

Reminders

Christmas Show Rehearsal | December 12 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Cuyahoga Falls High School Auditorium, 2300 4th St.)

Christmas Show | No Afterschool care available (student pickup by 3:15pm) | December 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Cuyahoga Falls High School Auditorium, 2300 4th St.)

Pajama & Show-N-Tell Day | December 21

Take A Peek Into Our Week/Ms. Kate/December 6th, 2018

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What a fun and busy week we have had! We have been focusing on kindness, and what the word giving means. Together we charted the different ways we can show kindness to one another. I loved hearing such sweet answers from all of them. We also had fun acting out different scenarios and talked through together the different kind things we could do or say in those different situations. Throughout the week we started to prepare our parent gifts… you are going to adore them!!!

This little cutie is working on one to one correspondence with pom poms and christmas trees! When working on this work the child has the ability to match an object to the corresponding number and recognize that numbers are symbols to represent a quantity.
Our friend is working on our new holiday ribbon weaving work. Lacing and stringing activities help young children develop manual dexterity and manipulative skills. Also, by using there hands, children fully intergrate learning experiences.
When working on the trinomial cube the child is challenged to find patterns and spatial relationships.
Our two cuties are working together on tracing, coloring our plant and animal puzzles. When working on this they are gaining fine motor skills, pincher grip, and learning the different parts of the animal and plant. 
We had so much fun decorating our classroom Christmas tree! 

REMINDER’S:

Next Wednesday is our dress rehearsal. Please be there no later then 545, we will be starting at 6 sharp!!

Girls dress in red, boys wear a gree shirt and black or khaki pants. Everyone please wear a santa hat!! If you have any questions just ask!

 

A Peek Into Reading Group

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With Ms. Faith

Our last story we read was called Me First. It was about a brother and sister who argue and have to be first for everything. Towards the end of the story, they end up helping eachother and allowing the other to go first.

The group discussed how they choose who goes first when they are playing a game. They wrote if they think the siblings should get on trouble for arguing, and they said no because they started being nice to eachother, and no because that means they would be in time out.

A Peek Into the Next Two Week

– The students will be reading a story called The Fire Cat.

– The students will participate in discussions and writing activities.

– The students will learn the vocabulary words: Mixed up, suddenly, wonderful.

Fa la la la la | A Peek into Music | November 2018

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Let’s take a peek into music class with Ms. Lisa!

Each class begins with the children singing “It’s music time today!” Then, Ms. Lisa and her puppet sing good morning to each student by name and have the student sing good morning back to the puppet of the week. This is a favorite part of music for the kids.

“Hello, Pork chop!”
Each music class has also been a review of whole notes, half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes.

Above, the music class is singing and pretending to be elephants.

The kids are enjoying using bells to accompany their songs!
Time to add some movements to the song!
Five golden rings?

The class has also learned the musical terms “Alegro” -Fast, “Adagio”-Slow, and “”Ondonte” -walking beat/ medium.

We have also begun practicing for our upcoming Christmas Show during music class! We can’t wait to sing for you there!

 

Academic Enrichment | Week of December 3rd | Tallmadge

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The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning dynamic addition and dynamic multiplication using the golden beads and the stamp game. This past week they were introduced to another work called the dot board to solve both static and dynamic addition problems.

Cursive Handwriting: The students practiced writing the lowercase cursive letters a, d, g, qu, c and o. To make a lowercase c they learned to curve around to just below the midline and roll back around to just above the baseline. To make a lowercase o they learned to curve around to just below the midline, roll back around past the baseline and up to the midline and dip connector at the midline. To make a lowercase g they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and drop down half way past the baseline and swoop. To make a lowercase qu they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and drop down half way past the baseline and hook up to the baseline then swing up to the midline and down to the baseline, swing up to the midline, and down to the baseline. To make a lowercase a they learned to curve up to the midline, rollback around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and down to the baseline. To make a lowercase d they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing tall to the top line and slide down to the baseline.

 

A Peek into Science | 11/26 12/3 and 12/17 | Tallmadge Campus

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Lava Lamp: The students observed that when you mix oil and water together they separate from each other. The oil ended up on top because it has a lower density than the water. We then added food coloring and watched it fall through the oil and mix with the water at the bottom. We then added tiny pieces of Alka-Seltzer which created small bubbles of carbon dioxide gas that would rise to the top. The gas would then escape when it reached the top and the colored water would fall back down. The students learned the reason the Alka-Seltzer fizzed in such a way is because it contains citric acid and baking soda and the two react with water to form sodium citrate and carbon dioxide gas.

Traveling Water: The students learned that water has a lot of molecules that are held together by electrical molecular bonds. So we took a glass of water with a piece of string and  and dumped the water along the string and into the empty glass. Because water has such strong hydrogen bonds it allowed the water molecules to stick together and travel down the string and into the empty cup.

Dissolving Sugar: We dissolved sugar in both cold and hot water. The students were able to observe that the cold water wasn’t able to dissolve as much sugar as the hot water. The reason the hot water dissolved more sugar is because it has faster moving molecules which are spread further apart than the molecules in the cold water. So with bigger gaps between the molecules in the hot water, more sugar molecules can fit in between.

Academic Enrichment | Week of November 26th | Tallmadge

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Dynamic Multiplication: The students are doing dynamic multiplication using the golden beads. Dynamic multiplication simply means repeated addition where they need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static multiplication except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.

 

Cursive Handwriting: The students practiced writing the lowercase cursive letters a, d, g, qu, c and o.  To make a lowercase c they learned to curve around to just below the midline and roll back around to just above the baseline. To make a lowercase o they learned to curve around to just below the midline, roll back around past the baseline and up to the midline and dip connector at the midline. To make a lowercase g they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and drop down half way past the baseline and swoop. To make a lowercase qu they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and drop down half way past the baseline and hook up to the baseline then swing up to the midline and down to the baseline, swing up to the midline, and down to the baseline. To make a lowercase a they learned to curve up to the midline, rollback around to the baseline, swing up to the midline and down to the baseline. To make a lowercase d they learned to curve up to the midline, roll back around to the baseline, swing tall to the top line and slide down to the baseline.

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of November 26th

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Over the past week the children started practicing for their Christmas Show multiple times a day. This will be their main focus for the next few weeks.

Work Time:

Sandpaper Letters: This child is tracing and identifying the sounds of the letters ‘e’ and ‘t’  and connecting the sounds with the initial sounds of different objects like elephant and train.
Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the words of different objects and phonetically spelling them: rth for earth, bir for bear, hmr shrc for hammer shark and trdl for turtle.
Zipping: This child is developing his independence and concentration while also gaining finger control and dexterity to manipulate a zipper.
Tying: This child is learning how to care for himself while developing a sense of independence and refining his fine motor skills and coordination of movements to successfully tie the shoes.
100 Board: These children are 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 and how to write each number.
United States Map: This child is learning the names of the states and where they are located on a map.
Play-dough Letters: This child is developing her fine motor skills while also learning how to  form the letters of the alphabet.

Guest Reader

Reminders:

Christmas Show Rehearsal | December 12 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Cuyahoga Falls High School Auditorium, 2300 4th St.)

Christmas Show | No Afterschool care available (student pickup by 3:15pm) | December 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Cuyahoga Falls High School Auditorium, 2300 4th St.)

Pajama & Show-N-Tell Day | December 21

Young children who spend after hours daycare suffer from stress which could make them shyer in later life. A study has found the stress levels of toddlers in creches are around a third higher than those who stay at home. While children at home with a parent become more relaxed over the course of the day, those in childcare grow more anxious. Children who spend more than eight hours in childcare are the most stressed, based on saliva samples taken by researchers and tested for the stress hormone cortisol. A study suggests this is because they miss their parents and have upsetting conflicts with other children.

Peek In Our Week | Mr. John’s Class | Week of December 3, 2018

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Line Time:
We will be practicing for the Christmas Program.

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 13 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, and Tagolog).

 

Peek In Our Classroom:

Same boy, different material/ extension. This boy is in a Sensitive Period where he loves working in the Sensorial Area particularly making creations (extensions). Montessori sensitive periods refer to a period of time when a child’s interests are focused on developing a particular skill or knowledge area. During what Maria Montessori describes as the child’s absorbent mind, birth to age 6, is when most sensitive periods occur.

 

During inclement weather we put on kid’s yoga or kid exercise videos and the students love to follow along, sometimes we go to the mma gyms for kids and they completely love it. Working on gross motor skills helps a child gain strength and confidence in his/her body. It also helps them get exercise and physical activity, which is important for a healthy lifestyle, our teacher has been trained by the best PE coaching companies, she knows what the proper exercises are for a toddler. Developing these skills helps a childs ability to do more complex skills in future activities, such as playing soccer with a team.

 

This boy discovered that the difference in size per block is the size of the smallest piece of the Pink Tower.

The aim for the Pink Tower:
Direct-
-Visual discrimination of dimensions.

Indirect-
– Refinement of voluntary movement by placing the cubes one on top of the other with one single movement of the hand.
While doing this movement, the child is refining visual-motor coordination and is called upon to concentrate.
– Preparation for mathematics.

 

Friends working on Knobbless Cylinders. The aim of these cylinders is to develop child’s fine-motor movements, concentration, hand-eye coordination, and visual perception of dimension. The material also provides experiences of seriation and gives the child basic language important in math.

 

Next Week:
Line Time- Christmas Show Practice

Letter Of The Week- No Letter of the Week  due to Christmas Show Practice.

Rhyming Word Of The Week- No Rhyming Word of the Week  due to Christmas Show Practice.

Next Language will be – No Language of the Week due to Christmas Show Practice.

Snack will be brought to you by Finn

 

Upcoming Events:
12/12/2018 Wednesday—  Practice for Christmas Show at Cuyahoga Falls High School 6pm

12/14/2018 Friday– Christmas Show at Cuyahoga Falls High School 6pm  ((( All students to be picked up by 3:15 )))

12/21/2018– Pajama Day and  Show and Tell.  We will supply a Pizza Lunch since we won the box tops.

 

**** Student attire for the Christmas Show is white tops with gray or navy blue pants/stockings or tights. ****

 

**************  December 22, Saturday through January 6, Sunday Winter Break **************

 

Fancy dancy crazy curls and making crazy face

 

  • H (squared)

 

Ms. Kathleen working with a child on What Goes Together Cards.

 

Christmas Show practice