Bodies of water surrounding North America: The students learned where Canada, USA and Mexico are located on a map of North America. They also became familiar with and the location of different bodies of water such as: The Hudson Bay, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
Cursive Handwriting: The students focused on the correct stokes to successfully make a lowercase r and lowercase w. For the lowercase r they were taught to swing up to the midline, dip and then down to the baseline. For the lowercase w they were taught to swing up to the midline, down to the baseline, swing up to the midline, down to the baseline, swing up to the midline, dip connector at the midline.
A peak into next week: Ohio and its surrounding states
For our first story in Reading Group, the kindergartners listened to Cornelius. Cornelius is a crocodile who walks upright. The other crocodiles don’t seem to care about his talent. He ends up meeting a monkey who teaches him how to stand on his head and hang from his tale. After showing his new talents, the other crocodiles end up trying to stand on their heads and hang from their tales too.
The kindergartners listened to the story, participated in discussions, wrote responses to prompts regarding the story, and shared what talent they are proud of. The last activity was to evaluate how well they listened during the story and while others where sharing their ideas. They even made a goal to listen and follow along with the story better the next time.
Our T-chart on the differences between real crocodiles and the crocodiles in the story
The students are sharing what they think Cornelius is thinking when he walks proudly back to the riverbeach.
A Peek Into the Next Story
-The students will be learning about the genre fantasy fiction.
-The students will listen to the story Big Wolf and Little Wolf.
-The students will be learning the vocabulary words: approached, curious, and suspicious.
“The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself.” -Maria Montessori
A few years ago, I had a visitor ask me after observing Elementary children completing a morning work cycle, “But how do you know what each of them is supposed to be doing?” Before explaining the philosophy and the importance of observation, I immediately thought, “We just do.” As Montessorians, we plan lessons, set expectations, and then we wait. We wait to see what a child will do next. How will they show what they’ve learned? What did they gain from this lesson? Did it inspire some inner curiosity? Almost always, a child will go above and beyond our expectations. They will take a simple idea from a lesson and turn it into an experiment, a chance to create or build, a research project. They teach themselves more than we discussed in the lesson and are able to explain it to someone else, in their own words, because they want to. Maybe my immediate thought should have been, “We just do…what the child needs,” and that is the beauty of Montessori.
One of our third year students is completing a drawing of Stellar Evolution. Lower Elementary students discussed the life cycle of a star, learned what phase our sun is in, and found out what chemicals are involved in thermonuclear fusion!This week we have started our spelling lessons! These second year students are completing one of their activities together. They have written their words in white crayon and are coloring over the words to reveal them! We call this “Ghost Write.” Our Upper Elementary students also began a self-paced spelling curriculum which will allow them to add “Challenge Words” and repeat words until mastery at their own pace.Our second year students were so excited to “finally” receive a lesson with the Large Bead Frame. This material allows students to multiply an equation with a multiplicand in the millions! Our second graders are practicing forming and reading numbers on the Large Bead Frame to prepare them for multiplication.Our Upper Elementary students have asked to lead morning meeting once a week. A fourth grader was able to be first this week. She asked students to tell her the date, the weather, and to solve our word and number of the day. She also gave announcements and let everyone know the schedule. We love seeing our older students take on responsibility and to see the younger students being a respectful audience!One of our fourth graders brought in a chemistry kit he received over the summer. He asked a fifth grader to join him in some experiments. They read all the labels of the chemicals to see what protective gear they needed and followed procedures to make their mixture.
A Peek at Next Week
This week, our first year students will learn to construct bar graphs, will be introduced to the article, will learn the etymology of the days of the week, and will complete their study of the Geometric Cabinet. Second year students will discuss the difference between A.M. and P.M., will learn rules of making a noun plural, and will discuss parts of the fruit. Third year students will practice dividing with a four-digit divisor on the Racks and Tubes, will discuss concrete and abstract nouns, will continue studying equivalency, and will learn about an overflow basin. Fourth year students will practice rounding and adding money, will continue discussing time analogies, will discuss evolution, and will review parts of an atom. Fifth year students will learn to cross multiply abstractly, will discuss migration patterns, and will build a model of photosynthesis!
REMINDERS:
Our first Spelling homework is due Monday, 9/24, we will like to remind parents that if they happen to run out of time, Famed writings helps students to complete their tasks at any day in case of an emergency
Wednesday, September 26 – Picture Day
Sign up to come work in our classroom with your child here.
Weekly Lesson: 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 us and identify 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 are continuing to prepare for cursive by practicing our “big and small loops”, “waves” , “flat tops”, and “tents or mountains”.
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 8 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, and Japanese).
Next Week: Lesson- Ohio and Surrounding States
Sight Words Of The Week- are was
Synonym Of The Week- boring- drab, dull, lifeless, mundane, monotonous
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. Next week we will be identifying and learning the characteristics are of living things and non living things (non-living thing: me at 5 am in the morning).
Cultural Subjects: Your Children can now count to ten in 6 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, and French).
Peek In The Classroom:
Two friends working on the Food Pyramid.
This young lass is working on the Binomial Cube. The Binomial Cube is introduced at around 4 years of age, the purpose of the material is not to teach math, but instead, to provide a challenge for a child’s ability to find patterns and relationships. Therefore, the material is presented as a sensorial activity. It is presented like a three dimensional puzzle. The formula for the Binomial Cube is……. a³+3a²b+3ab²+b³
This student is working on the Ten Board. He was so excited to learn about this material he took it out a few minutes after he was presented with it. His excitement overflowed to where he is teaching a younger student the material. the purpose of the Ten Board is to combine the quantities and numerals 10 to 90
This student was excited to master this material. Once again the enthusiasm of learning prompts the older student to give lessons to younger students.
The Ten Board is matching the correct number of ten bars and a one to nine bead bar to compose a two digit number. Through this material children gain a better understanding of two digit numbers to 99.
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 Japanese
Person bringing snack for week of 9/24/2018 is Chase
Upcoming Events: Mark your calendars picture day is Thursday, September 27th, from 8:30-11:00am. All students in attendance will be photographed in order to be included in the school yearbook. Families can also order school pictures. John and Kim Tuesday, from Tuesday Photography, do a wonderful job with our school pictures and have been taking them at our school for over nine years! They take their time with each child, working very hard to capture the best possible picture. Their work is guaranteed. If you are not 100% satisfied they offer retakes at their studio in Tallmadge or a full refund of your purchase.
“Education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.” -Maria Montessori
This week we had many exciting lessons and spent time learning from each other. Our first graders worked with fractions, learned the history of clocks, continued their Geometric Cabinet work, and learned about the first plants on Earth! Our second year students practiced labeling Golden Beads as greater than, less than, or equal to, distinguished between feminine and masculine nouns, looked at the intersection of two straight lines, and classified animals on our Animal Kingdom Chart. Our third year students began adding and subtracting squares and cubes, learned about suffixes, were introduced to congruence, similarity, and equivalence, and studied the taxonomy of vertebrates! Our fourth year students further studied the Pythagorean Theorem, discussed basic life processes, and learned about acronyms. Our fifth year students continued their Native American research, continued studying acronyms, and found the formula for a decanomial using the Table of Pythagoras.
Our fourth grade students discovered that the Pythagorean Theorem doesn’t just work with squares of numbers, but works with rhombi, trapezoids, and hexagons! We combined all of our Constructive Triangle boxes and even borrowed some from Ms. Courtney. Our students each took one side of the right-angled scalene triangle to build the shapes listed above.These second and third year girls are working together on Handwriting. Our returning second year students are working on capital cursive letters. Our third, fourth, and fifth year students are writing paragraphs in cursive. This week, the older students wrote about black holes!One of our first grade students has spent time this week working on snake research. In this photo, he is researching the Emerald Tree Boa. Research in the Elementary classroom can incorporate many areas of the classroom into a single project!This first grade student is practicing the Fraction Skittles lesson she received on Monday. This is our first fraction lesson of the year and reminds students of their work with fractions in kindergarten. We discussed fracturing a whole into equal parts and different ways to write fractions.
A Peek at Next Week
Next week our Lower Elementary students will work on telling time, alphabetizing, different types of nouns, and parts of flowers and fish. Our Upper Elementary students will practice estimating and learn rules of divisibility. They will learn about coined words and the history of the English language. The fourth years will learn the chemical composition of life. Fifth year students will continue studying plants. Next week all students will begin Spelling lessons and will have their first homework assignment sent home following their Spelling lesson on Monday. We have our first field trip Friday, September 21, to Ramseyer Farms! Please remember to dress your child for the weather and a day on the farm!
REMINDERS:
Friday, September 21 – Ramseyer Farms Field Trip
Wednesday, September 26 – Picture Day
It’s almost here – “Bring Your Parents to ‘Work Time’!” Sign up here.
Equator, Prime Meridian and Hemispheres: The students learned what hemispheres are and how to identify where each continent is located Northern/Southern/Eastern or Western hemisphere. The students also learned where the equator and prime meridian are located on a globe.
Cursive Handwriting:
The students focused on the correct stokes to successfully make a lowercase j and lowercase p. For the lowercase j they were taught to swing up to the midline, drop down halfway below the baseline, swoop, and pick up the pencil then dot. For the lowercase p they were taught to swing up to the midline, drop down halfway below the baseline, slide up to the midline, circle around to the baseline, touch and glide.
A look into next week: Bodies of water surrounding North America
My Family: This past week we learned that we are all part of a family and that families are configured in different ways with many factors affecting them like marriage, divorce, adoption, remarriage and therapies with biblical marriage counselors, ethnic diversity, grandparents as primary care givers, single parents, foster care, etc. We read many books and the student’s shared a lot about their families. Through this they discovered that there are different kinds of families, but most importantly all types of families love and care for each other!
Work Time
Introduction Tray: This child is being introduced to the decimal system and becoming familiar with the symbols and quantities associated with units, tens, hundreds and thousands. He is visually seeing the difference between 1 unit, 1 ten, 1 hundred and 1 thousand.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.Knobbed Cylinder: This child is able to visually discriminate the dimensions of each cylinder to find its correct placement in the block.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.Nesting Dolls: This child is using her fine-motor skills, coordination, concentration, and sense of order to visually discriminate between the smallest and largest nesting dolls in order to correctly put the dolls back together.Microscope: This child is learning how to view different organisms under a microscope, including the mushrooms she brought to school.
Guest Reader
Reminders:
September 21 | All School Field Trip | Ramseyer Farms
Line Time: 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).
A Kindergarten Student being quizzed on hemispheres.
Handwriting: We practiced our cursive cups and trees, trees and loops, upside down and right side up cups. Your children are doing a nice job.
Showing off there handwriting assignment.
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 7 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, and Greek).
Next Week:
Lesson- North America and Surrounding Water and Countries
Line Time: Healthy Habits! We discussed how important our personal hygiene is. It is important that we wash hands, brush teeth, and take showers or baths. When I say wash our hands I mean with soap and for at least thirty seconds (you could sing the alphabet song). The same amount of time is needed to brush your teeth at least twice a day. When taking a shower actually get wet, soap up, and rinse off. Do not be like my youngest who just sticks his head under the water and tries to convince me he is clean. To remain healthy we must also exercise (walking, running, climbing, riding a bike, swimming…), eating healthy foods, and getting plenty enough sleep. with the right bed and mattress for this, which is easy to get with a Nolah Mattress coupon code online… if I ever catch anyone of my students smoking I will bop them!
Cultural Subjects: Your Children can now count to ten in 5 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, and German)
Peek In Our Classroom:
This Student is working on the Knobless Cylinders. This material promotes OCCI (Order, Concentration, Coordination, and Independence). She worked on this for a good amount of time because she had to find the places for forty cylinders and had fun doing it.
This boy is working on a matching material. There are 9 compartments and nine colors. But the nine colors may have different shades of color. This makes the work a bit more challenging.
This work is the Knobless Cylinder and focuses on the area of Visual Discrimination (smaller to larger, shorter to taller, thinner to wider). Eventually, they will find matches between all four colors.
In the foreground an older student is giving a lesson to a younger student. The presentation is the Spindle Box which is a Math Material. This material helps the child make the connection between the symbols/numbers and the quantity.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Food Groups
Letter Of The Week- D d
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bag
Next Language is French
Person bringing snack for week of 9/17/2018 is Aayush
Upcoming Events: Ramseyer Farms on Friday, September 21, 2018. Students can take pleasure in the very things that autumn brings us! We will enjoy picking out our own pumpkins while on a guided hayride, learning all about the working farm, and having some fun with farm animals like pigs and chickens, we will learn some interesting things about their diet, we will be finding out one of the questions a student asked, can chickens eat black soldier fly larvae? Below is all the important information for the trip.
We will depart the school by 8:20am to Ramseyer Farms and look to arrive back at the school by 1:00pm. Please know that this field trip is only possible if we have enough chaperons and volunteer drivers.
**If your child is a half day student please note the change in our daily schedule as we will be arriving back to the school at 1:00pm that day to plan accordingly.
