Put on your space suit and get ready to explore our solar system. We started with discussing the planets nearer the sun then worked our way to the furthest reaches of our solar system. Mercury is our first planet and is the closest to the sun. Venus is the second planet. Even though it is further away from the sun than Mercury it is the hottest planet in our solar system. The third planet is near and dear to our hearts. It is the planet earth. It is the only planet in our solar system that has life. The next planet is Mars and is known as the red planet. The next planet is the biggest planet in our solar system and has a big red storm that has been raging for centuries. That planet is Jupiter. Saturn is the next planet and has really cool ring around it that are pieces of rock and ice. Uranus is next and it spins up and down instead of side to side like all the other planets. Neptune is the last planet in our solar system. I did not forget about Pluto. Oh! Poor Pluto. Pluto was once a planet but now has been demoted to a dwarf planet. As a side note did you notice that some planets were named after Roman Gods and Goddesses? Some of the students made the connection.
Peek In Our Classroom:
Two girls having fun working together.She is practicing writing cursive.
These two girls are studying bones from our science bins.
This boy is working with the land form work.
He is working with the science bin found in the science area. He is comparing the plastic insect to the insects in the book.
This week our “Peek” was written by two 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 Pets” by Ainsley, Maddex, and Trevor
(Ainsley) This week we researched and wrote the taxonome of all the animals in the school, including a Wolf Spiter that Ms. Courtney found. This year the 3rd graders have been learning a lot of main characteristics and internal systems of animals. We learned a lot about different and most common pets.
Annelids by Ainsley
Taxonomy of Earthworm Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Annelida Class: Oligochaeta Order: Megadrilacea Family: Lumbricidae Genus and Species: Lumbricus terrestris Fun Fact: Earthworms don’t have eyes.
Arthropods by Maddex and Trevor
Taxonomy of Painted Lady Butterfly Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Lepidoptera Family: Nymphalidae Genus and Species: Vanessa cardui Ms. Courtney will have Painted Lady Butterflies in a few weeks!Taxonomy of Wolf Spider Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Arachnida Order: Araneae Family: Lycosidae Genus and Species: Hogna aspersa Fun Fact: Wolf spiders have “book lungs.” Their lungs are made of fine “leaves.”
Mollusks by Maddex
Taxonomy of Mystery Snail Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Mollusca Class: Gastropoda Order: Caenogastropoda Family: Viviparidae Genus and Species: Bellamya chinensis Fun Fact: Male and female snails can reproduce by themselves. They reproduce asexually.
Chordates – Fish by Maddex and Trevor
Taxonomy of Tuxedo Guppy Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii Order: Cyprinodontiformes Family: Poecilidae Genus and Species: Poecilia retiuculata Fun Fact: Guppies have gills to filter they water so they can live in it and still get oxygen.Taxonomy of Betta Fish Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Teleostei Order: Perciformes Family: Osphronemidae Genus and Species: Betta splendens Fun Fact: Betta fish jaws are stronger than a Great White Shark.
Chordates – Reptiles by Trevor
Taxonomy of Corn Snake Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Squamata Family: Colubridae Genus and Species: Pantherophis guttatus Fun fact: Snakes swallow their prey whole
Chordates – Birds by Ainsley
Taxonomy of Chicken Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Galliformes Family: Phasianidae Genus and Species: Gallus gallus Fun Fact: Chickens don’t have teeth!
Chordates – Mammals by Ainsley
Taxonomy of Guinea Pig Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Rodentia Family: Caviidae Genus and Species: Cavia porcellus Fun Fact: Guinea pigs have tails. The tails are under their fur.
“A Peek at Next Week” by Ms. Ashley
Next week will be our final full week of school! We will have Spelling Assessments Monday and Reading Assessments throughout the week. There will be no new Spelling homework, but please continue to have your child read and record their work on their reading log. Next week Lower Elementary students will add and subtract lengths, add and subtract squares and cubes, practice budgeting, learn more about circles, and complete some research charts as a Zoology review, where we will continue to study about different pets and how to maintain them properly. Since this week we focused more on chickens, next week it will be more about rabbits; since this was a popular pet among our classmates and share how difficult finding a suitable home for your rabbit can be. We will learn that a decent sized rabbit hutch is a good start and how to find the right one. Taking care of these pets can be pretty delicate but with the help of the class mates that already owns one, we’ll cover all of their specific needs in order to help them live a long, happy, and healthy life and many other fun facts about them.
Sports: This week we talked about different sports like: baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey, ice skating, bike riding etc. We talked about how sports can be competitive and are a physical activity or game. The students learned that through sports the can maintain or improve their physical abilities and skills while also enjoying themselves. We also discussed how there is specific safety equipment needed for certain sports.
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.Prepositions: This child is learning what a preposition is and reading them in different sentences. She is developing an understand that a preposition is a word used to link nouns, pronouns, or phrases to other words within a sentence.Stamp Game: This child is using the stamp game to do addition. It works like the golden beads but instead of unit beads there are unit stamps. Instead of ten bars there are ten stamps. Instead of hundred squares there are hundred stamps. Instead of thousand cubes there are thousand stamps.Linear Counting: This child is working on one of our cubed bead chains, she is identifying the names of the numbers and seeing the correspondence of the quantities with the written number on the cards. She is also discovering that 5X1=5, 5X2=10, 5X3=15 and so on.Solar System: This child was so excited to present his solar system. He has been creating it at home for the past month.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.Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the word of the object and matching the symbol with the correct initial sound to the object.Geometric Solids: This child is developing a sense of awareness of three-dimensional shapes to objects in his environment. He is able to identify and label shapes such as sphere, ovoid, ellipsoid, cone, cylinder, cube, triangular prism, square prism, triangular based pyramid and square based pyramid.
Guest Readers:
Reminders:
LAST Bring Your Parent to Work Time | May 21st
Memorial Day | NO SCHOOL | May 28th
Last Day of School | May 31st
Kindergarten Graduation | June 1st | 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
This week was all about community helpers. On Monday the kids took a field trip to the fire station. They had a blast learning about fire safety, seeing behind the scenes at the station, watching a firefighter put on his turnout gear, and more! It was a great field trip. We also talked about the different community helpers that we have in our neighborhood, and how they make an impact on all of us. This week we also celebrated grandparents day!! It was amazing watching the grandparents and their grandchildren interact together, it was super special.
Such a great time at grandparents day!!!The purpose of the red rods is the visual discrimination of differences in dimensions, and the muscular memory of length. This work also prepares them for mathematics.The direct purpose is to observe and compare the different series with each other. The indirect purpose is for them to get a clear understanding for the different dimensions and their interplay.While working on the addition snake game the child is to familiarize with all the possible number combinations that make up ten. They can also aquire a subconscious knowledge that no two numbers together amount to more than 18. This gives practice in getting the first basis of memorizing the essential combinations with which, when known, one can make any addition.
Our two kindergarten friends preparing for graduation!
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week is all about outer space. We will have fun learning about our 8 planets, the sun, moon, and stars, the space shuttle and more!
The kindergarteners listened to a set of poems these last two weeks. We defined unfamiliar words and held discussions about the different poems. The group even came up with a poem that was a riddle about a holiday. Their last activity was to create a mural using the words from the Apache poem at the end of the section. The kindergarteners had to work together to create the work of art. They delegated who drew what and the colors they would use.
Adverb: The kindergarten students learned that an adverb is a word that describes a verb and usually ends in “ly”.
Above the students are labeling all of the parts of speech they learned so far (nouns, verbs, articles, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs). They are doing this by using dry erase markers to draw the shapes and our wooden symbols.
Eggs in different liquids: We decided to do an experiment by placing eggs in different liquids to see how the different liquids would affect the egg shells. We chose to place an egg in water, milk and vinegar. The water and milk had caused the eggs to gain weight. The vinegar caused the egg not only to gain weight but striped off a layer of the eggshell making the egg squishy.
Parachute: We created two parachute’s one out of paper and one out of plastic. Then, we dropped both parachute’s to see what would happen. When we dropped the parachutes the strings that were attached to the plastic and paper pulled down, which in turn made the parachute’s open to full size. When the parachute’s opened to full size it created a large surface area and more wind resistance. The more wind resistance there was the slower the parachute’s went down.
Baby animals was the theme for the week. We started out by what we call human babies (younger children). We came up with the term “kid”. We then discovered a kid is a baby goat and we should call humans children. We went over the easy animals such as cats/kittens, dogs/pups, but went on with ducks/ducklings, chickens/chicks, pigs/piglets, manatee/calf, geese/gosling, peacock/peachick, kangaroo/joey.
Peek In Our Classroom:
An older student getting a younger student interested in reading.
She is putting the animal puzzle together outside the frame.
Two friends working together on the Monomial Cube
It has been awhile since our line time was on the Skeletal System but Elvis the Pelvis is still a popular work.
Interjections!!!!!! We learned that the Interjection enhances the message of the sentence. If the Interjection is followed by a comma the emotion is not strong but if the Interjection is followed by an explanation mark that emotion is pretty intense.
Practicing handwriting in Kindergarten Class. And obviously someone has a burning question.
