Vowels and consonants: The students learned to recognize and distinguish vowels from consonants, which is an important step in the development of reading and writing skills. We talked about how all words contain at least one vowel. The students were quickly able to recognize the vowels, which is great because they will have a strong foundation for learning rules and spelling patterns for short and long vowels, final vowels, unaccented vowels, silent vowels and irregular spellings.
This child is coloring, cutting and pasting vowels and consonants in different fish tanks.This child is looking at objects to compose words. He is using a blue marker to identify the vowels and a red marker to identify consonants in each word.These children are saying the word of an object then phonetically spelling them using the movable alphabet. They are also labeling the vowels and consonants as they practice writing each word.
This whole month is all about North and South America!! We are getting so excited for our International Festival on April 20th! This week we introduced our continent and North America Map Puzzle. We also talked about Ohio and our symbols that represent our state. This week we also started our class project for our festival.. can you take a guess of what we are making?? Hint: you can find this place in South America:)
Our friends are getting so excited about our baby ducks!! These last few weeks everyone has been making cards and pictures for the ducklings:) only about a week to go!Our two kindergarten students are working on the grammar farm together. They have learned what a article, noun, verb, adjective, and pronoun is. They are creating sentences using the different parts of speech.journaling Helps Your Child Deal With Big Feelings, Improves Your Child’s Writing Skills, and Enhances Your Child’s Communication Skills.Our friend is working on our living and nonliving work. When working on this they are learning how to categorize, and sort the pictures based on whether they represent living or nonliving things.When playing memory it improves concentration, trains visual memory, increases short term memory, increases attention to detail, and improves their vocabulary.
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we are learning about South America, the rainforest, working on our class project, and practicing our songs and lines.
Welcome back! We were so happy to be back together this week. Before break, we chose the National Parks we wanted to research for the International Festival. This week, we began our research for the Festival on Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Crater Lake National Parks. Our students have research questions to answer about the formation of their park, the landforms inside their park, the flora and fauna, and many more topics! The students are also choosing how they will present their information and writing a script for that presentation. Look for an email this weekend about all the costume details and your child’s script!
Our second year students are finishing up their study of polygons as a group of shapes before moving into studying each family of polygons. So far, our students have discussed which polygons are builders and constructors, the parts of a polygon, and regular and irregular polygons. To show what they have learned, the students are building different regular and irregular polygons from straws and strings. Your student will be bringing these home to share with you!Our first graders have completed their study of lines and are now studying angles. Our first lesson was about whole and straight angles. In this lesson, a first year student is sharing with our visiting kindergarten child how to write a definition into your own words. It’s so wonderful when students can share their knowledge with peers, especially when we can involve different subject areas into one lesson!Our tank for the hydroponic system is up and running! After a leaky tank and a three-day long search for local, aquatic snails, we are ready to plant our seeds. Our seeds have been germinating and have now sprouted enough to be placed into our hydroponic system. One of our students involved in planning this project, a third grader, is connecting tubing and bubblers to each tier of our system. This will ensure that the water that is nurturing our plants has enough oxygen. Once everything is in our system, students will need to consistently check and adjust the pH levels in our tank to make sure the fish stay healthy and the plants keep growing. We also have a three-way breeder to keep our baby guppies safe! Stop by next week to see our system!
“A Peek at Next Week”
Next week, we will continue our research for the International Festival and will begin practicing with our scripts. Please take time to practice lines with your student! First year students will continue work with the Decanomial, will discuss echinoderms, and will continue learning about angles. Second year students will discuss prime numbers, commas, and triangles. Third year students will begin multiplying fractions, will learn more about mollusks, and will find the formula for volume! Our fourth year students will review multiplying binomials and trinomials and will continue studying bacteria by building models of different bacterial shapes, discussing antibiotics, and will learn about bacteria on every day objects.
REMINDERS:
Wednesday, April 18 – International Festival Rehearsal 6:00-7:30
Friday, April 20 – Early Dismissal – All students must be picked up at noon. There is NO After Care this day.
Friday, April 20 – International Festival – 5:30-8:30
We are starting to practice for The International Festival. We are learning our individual lines and learning the songs to be sung at the International Festival. The children are having a good time practicing.
Peek in the Classroom:
We had an alumnus read to our class. She read a Bernstein Bears book.
The University Of Akron Field Students are working with their “Roo Buddy” This week they are working with letter sounds and the concept of “Land, Air, and Water”.
These two students are working together on the United States Puzzle Map. They traced the states and are labeling each state.This student is working on composing numbers from 11 to 99 with the Ten Board. The Ten Board helps the child recognize the numbers and quantities.
This student is working on a construction box which falls into the category of Geometry. This student made shapes such as a hexagon, chevron, trapezoid, parallelogram, and isosceles triangle.
Upcoming Events:
International Festival Dates-
Take your child to the restroom before dropping them off (even if they say they do not have to go)
International Festival Practice – Wednesday 4/18/2018 – 6:00 to 7:30 pm
International Festival – Friday 4/20/18 – 5:30 to 8:30 pm
Friday 4/20/2018 **** Early Dismissal at Noon — No Aftercare ****
Moms and Muffins – Friday May 11th – 7:00 to 7:45 am
March was a wonderful month in our Elementary Enrichment Classes. This month, students continued to hone and develop the skills learned from the previous “time traveling” months. Students investigated ancient stories, Renaissance and Impressionist artists, and developed their musical skills. Let’s take a look inside the enrichment classrooms for this month.
In Music, students have been diligently practicing reading music and playing their recorders. Each student has a piece of music to practice during the week then an opportunity to perform that piece in Music class for their peers. When a student has mastered a piece, they are presented with a more challenging piece. Each of these performances have an accompanying “belt” which is tied around their recorder. Some of the songs students have been practicing are “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring,” “Hot Cross Buns,” “Gently Sleep,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” and “Ode To Joy.” These belts can be seen on their recorders in the attached picture. It is obvious that the students take playing the recorders very seriously, as you’ll see each student has at least 2 belts. By practicing on their own and performing in front of their peers, students are learning the life long skills of time management, concentration, and public performance.In Latin, students have been reading from scripts and putting on short plays about some well known ancient stories. These stories include “King Midas and the Golden Touch,” “Zeus and Pandora’s Box,” and “Icarus and Daedalus.” Though these titles may not seem familiar, the morals attached to them are ones the students have heard and experienced before. As the students read through their lines they become more connected with the characters and the outcomes, then openly discuss the decisions the characters made, why they made them, and if they have ever been in similar situations. Even though these stories are ancient and mythical, their morals still hold true to the students’ lives, and have a lot to teach us about decision making, values, and thinking ahead.In Art, students began exploring the Great Masters of Art. This started with traveling back to the Renaissance for an investigation of Michelangelo and his works. Students learned about the historical setting Michelangelo lived in, some important Renaissance vocabulary, and the very interesting logistics that went into painting The Sistine Chapel. The students tried their hand at painting upside down under a table, and began to understand the issues Michelangelo faced everyday during his four year project. Then the students turned their attention to the Impressionist movement in France and Claude Monet. After studying brushstroke technique, color, and light, the students painted their own flowers from Monet’s garden. For this painting, students were challenged to create a large piece and fill the entire paper, just as Monet did. Next on the list of Impressionists, the students meet Vincent Van Gogh. They investigated the numerous interesting qualities that made Van Gogh so unique, as well as why he spent so much time painting flowers. After this investigation, the students held a Van Gogh art critique using official critique guidelines. The students wrapped up this month by creating their own sunflower paintings on 8×11 canvas.
Even though March only had three academic weeks, the students certainly accomplished a lot in Music, Latin, and Art. Their recorder skills have greatly improved, they have looked into their own moral values through stories, and created works just like the Masters of Art before them. We can’t wait to explore what is in store for the next month’s journey in Art, Latin, and Music.
This last week we read a poem about a storm. We listened for rhyming words through out the poem and practiced reading the purple highlited words. We discussed if we have ever seen a big storm like the speaker did in the poem. They talked about where they would like to be when their was a storm. They said they woukd like to be inside with their parents. The kindergartners created their own poem, and drew pictures of one of the types of stroms mentioned in the poem.
After Spring Break
-The students will be starting the next series in the Junior Great Books series. There will be different assignments and the format will look different. I will send out more information after spring break.
This week we were so proud to show off our Science Fair research! We had a variety of topics like plant science, animal science, robots, and gravity. We spent a few weeks researching our topics, forming a hypothesis, and creating a display board. Once we were ready for the Fair, we practiced presenting to each other and to Ms. Courtney’s class. Each student did so well at the fair and we are so glad so many parents were able to stop by. We also want to thank all the parents, grandparents, family and friends that helped us reach our goal for our classroom hydroponic system!
After the Science Fair, students chose what seeds they would like to germinate for our hydroponic system. After break we will get the guppies and snails needed to keep our plants fertilized. Thanks for your help, Mr. Owens.During our classroom practice presentations, students rated each other using a rubric. They had to look at each student’s hypothesis and question, their research and sources, how they used their voice during presentations, and how their display looked. Students also gave helpful tips to each friend.This month we studied Asia. Students chose partners to complete their work. They needed to draw the map of Asia, label the countries and capital cities, draw a compass, stamp and color the flags of Asia, and complete a self-test about the continent of Asia. Lengthy partner projects help students learn to delegate, manage time with another person, and work cooperatively.Students have been completing “Math Assessments.” This has been a chance for each child to show me what they have learned so far this year, and to receive new lessons in addition to their weekly Math lessons. These second year students have been working hard on adding and subtracting without materials and were excited to receive the next Checkerboard lesson with a two-digit multiplier!
We will be learning about the parts of speech until the end of the year. We the learned there are three articles. They are A, An, The and we learned rules when we use those articles. “A” goes with consonants, “an” go with vowels, and “the” goes with both consonants and vowels. Moving along we leaned that a pronoun takes the place of a noun and pronouns sometimes make our lives easier. We went over six pronouns He(boy), she(girl), we( a group we are included), they( a group we are not included), it(we use for non-living things and when we don’t know what gender). We never call a human an “it” because it is rude. “You” was the last pronoun we became familiar with.
The small blue triangle is the symbol for the article in the Montessori Classroom.
Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 27 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi, Farsi, and Turkish).
Next week:
Line Time: Pronouns
Sight Words of the Week: No words during International Festival Practices
Synonym of the Week: No words during International Festival Practices
We ended the month by learning about our own state of Ohio. The students were first taught how to spell Ohio. OH-IO ! We learned that the flag of Ohio is the only flag that is not the shape of a rectangle. The official nickname of Ohio is the Buckeye State and the Buckeye Tree is the official tree of Ohio. The white tailed deer and trilobite are the mammal and fossil of Ohio. We found a theme of the color “red/”scarlet for the rest of the official things of Ohio. The flower is the scarlet carnation, bird is the cardinal, insect is the lady bug and the official drink is tomato juice. The official rock and roll song is “Hang On Sloopy”
Peek In Our Classroom:
Absorbent Minds Montessori School has a relationship with the University of Akron where we welcome field students. The two field students are working with their Roo Buddy. This week they are focusing on shapes and colors.Having fun on Pajama Day.
We are continuing to track the growth of the plant. It grew from 18 inches to 24 inches or 24 cm to 60 cm. The flower is starting to bloom.The final measurement revealed no more growth in the stalk but the flower bloomed. The students found a work that looked very similar to the plant. A great opportunity to do a lesson on The parts of the plant.
He is working and comparing the different Geometric Solids.
Friends working with Knobless Cylinders. The purpose of this work is to identify and compare dimensions and patterns.
Cultural Subjects:
Your children can count to ten in 25 different languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo Croation, Cebuano, Malay, and Hindi).
Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time Lesson- Returning 4/3/2018 Continents/International Festival
Letter Of The Week- No letter of the week during International Festival Practice
Rhyming Word Of The Week- No word of the week during International Festival Practice.
Adding The Language Of.. No languages during International Festival Practice.
This week was all about spring!! We first started out Our week learning about the four seasons. We then read two great books that explained everything that happens during our spring season.
We then talked about about the parts of the flower, the life cycle of a duck, and a variety of activities that helped them understand the developments of spring. We had such a fun week!!
This week our friend read our phonics folder for the first time!!! So very proud of him! Our friend is working on the spindle box. The purpose is to reinforce the concept of 0. To show the child the numerals 0 to 9 in their correct fixed sequence , and to match them with the correct numbers of loose spindles. The purpose of the binomial cube is to construct the cube according to shape and color. Sequencing helps break down an event into simple steps and put those steps in order. We need sequencing skills to talk about something that happened in the past in a logical manner so others can follow the story. We also need sequencing skills to understand how to perform certain tasks that require the steps be done in a specific order. The 9 tray is to help the child become familiar with the quantities and hierarchies of the decimal system.
