A Peek At Handwriting | Week of December 11th

During the past two weeks in Handwriting, we have continued learning the Lower Case Initial Strokes. We focused on the letters r, p, u, w, and s. All of these letters begin with the same initial “swing” stroke of the pencil. I am very proud of our Kindergarten students and how hard they have worked the past couple weeks!


A Peek into Art Class | December 2017

With Ms. Renee

Week of December 4th

This week, to kick off the month of December and our holiday program right around the corner, we decorated trees in the forest! Each student cut out three triangles for trees, added garland, decorations and then glued the trees to their background of chalk pastel rubbings. To finish off the holiday trees, we added silver and gold paint last to add some sparkle!

Week of December 11th

To begin class this week we each made a jingle bell bracelet using pipe cleaners, beads and a jingle bell. The students worked hard stringing the beads onto the pipe cleaners and were excited about their finished work! Using our jingle bracelets, the students helped read The Little Reindeer by Nicola Killen. During various parts of the story, the students helped shake their bells so Ollie could find her reindeer friend.

Next we created a reindeer of our own, set against a snowy black sky (just like Ollie’s reindeer in the story!). The students worked hard to cut, glue and added painted snowflakes to their art work. Each reindeer turned out so cute and different!


A Peek Into Music | December 2017

December was filled with lots of practice in our classrooms for our 2017 Christmas Show! In Miss Lisa’s music class we practiced performing our songs and she taught us many popular Christmas carols and songs!


Here is a friend examining a large jingle bell. Miss Lisa brought a variety of different bells for us to practice with. The two main songs we played the bells with were Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock.

One of our favorite games with Miss Lisa is freeze dance! It doesn’t matter what song is playing, we love to dance! The most important skill in this game is listening. We have to listen very closely for when the music  stops so we know when to freeze our bodies.

Here is a picture of a friend waiting patiently to play her tambourine. We all know that instruments can’t play on their own, so we have to wait patiently until Miss Lisa tells us it is time to play.

A new instrument we enjoyed exploring with was the maracas! Maracas are used in many Latin and South American songs. We shook these maracas while singing along to Feliz Navidad.

We had a fantastic month with all of our festive singing! Don’t forget to order your copy of our 2017 Christmas Show DVD so you can hear us singing some of our favorites!


A Peek into Cuyahoga Falls Science Class | December 2017

As always, Science class with Mr. John is fun! This month we are showcasing our favorite experiment: Teflon Tape Secret Messages! view the guidelines at help desk solutions.

Teflon Tape Secret Message – Polymers

Mr. John wrote a secret message (Go Buckeyes!) on a piece of Teflon tape. When the tape was stretched top to bottom, we were not able to read the message. Once he pulled/stretched the tape end to end, tada! The message was readable! He explained to us that Teflon was a type of polymer and when the tape was stretched top to bottom, the polymers were still bound together, or “hugging”, just not as tightly as when the tape was stretched end to end. Our students loved this!


A Peek into Elementary Enrichments | December 2017

December was an exciting month for everyone here in the Elementary Classroom. December is my favorite month because of winter, I always love to take a good cup of coffee while reading the best Midas Letter Stock News. This excitement carried over into all the enrichment classes as students prepared for the Christmas show and the holiday season. To get an in-depth look into the students’ enrichment experiences, I asked to interview several students, and they were more than eager to share their thoughts on the many elements of Music, Latin and Art. Let’s take a look at what they had to say.

When asked about Art class, one student was excited to share, “The stained glass windows were really fun. We got to use water colored pencils then paint them with water. I have never used water colored pencils before. They went on to say, “Miro was the most difficult. It was harder because the paper was very big and it had to be filled. It turned out very good though.” Another student agreed, saying, “I liked when we did the stained glass window project because you got to use these colored pencils, then add water to them to make them water colors. I am proud of this art work.” Students work on these pieces for multiple weeks, and follow all the steps of planning, drafting, polishing, and presenting. These and other works have been presented in our hallways over the past months.
It is obvious the students thoroughly enjoy Latin class. A student said, “My favorite thing in Latin is when we research Roman gods because they are very interesting and they have powers. And at the end of Latin, we always play a fun game.” In a different interview, a student added, “My favorite part is learning about the gods and the games we play. Zeus is my favorite god because he’s like the captain. We made New Years cards from our favorite gods. We’ve also sang songs, like happy birthday in Latin.” Students have also learned other traditional holiday songs in Latin class. Latin class encompasses a broad spectrum of history and culture, and presents the information in a way that is relative to the students’ every day life.
The Elementary students are passionate about Music class and everything it has to offer. One student excitedly shared, “Bells are my favorite thing to do in music. I am high C. I don’t have a favorite song because they are all so much fun to play. I had a great time using the bells at the Christmas show! I’m very excited to start using the recorders again; it’s my favorite thing to do in music.” They went on enthusiastically, “I also want to say that Ms. Lisa has been doing a great job teaching us music. She teaches us a lot of songs.” A second student added, “I like all the instruments we get to play, especially the recorder. We get a different ‘belt’ every time we master a song. If you get to black belt, you are really good at a lot of songs. I also really enjoy playing the piano for the class!” In Music class, students are learning music fundamentals and theory, as well as practical application and presentation of practiced musical pieces. This combination helps each student practice the foundations of music in both written and expressive ways.

December may have been a shorter month, but it was certainly made up for in content and energy. All the students worked exceptionally hard in their enrichment classes to create unique works and present what they had learned to others. Every student is looking forward to a wonderful holiday and we hope they return empowered with new ideas, creativity, and momentum in 2018 for the upcoming seminars on online trading in their Computer and Technology subject which can be viewed on http://www.borse.pro/trading-online?amp. Until then, see you next year! Modern States offers comprehensive courses endorsed by the college board to help you increase your mastery of the material covered on each exam, completely free. If you’re taking just one or two CLEP prep exams, consider purchasing individual exam guides.


Peek At Our Week ** Mr. John ** Week of December 18, 2017

 

Happy Birthday:

A Montessori classroom hast students aging from 2 1/2 to 6 years of age. These are my two newest six year old students.

 

Peek In Our Week:
I just wanted to say your children did a great job at the Christmas Show!!!!  Those two songs they sung were very difficult pieces to sing.  The church I attend has an extremely accomplished music program and the Men’s, Women’s, Children’s  (age 8 to voice changing for boys) sing these songs on Christmas Eve to a packed house.  Very seasoned choristers that practice five hours a week. I wanted to do something different and the set up for this year’s show gave me that opportunity.  I felt these Carols were very beautiful songs and the students would be more than qualified to pull it off.  The soloists that did Past 3 O’ Clock did a very fine job.  My daughter, niece, and nephew were all soloists for this song at age 12, my youngest son did it at age 9. I was so impressed the two 6 year old students did so well.  I do want to thank all of the staff involved from teachers practicing with the children to the office staff securing the location to mapping out EVERYTHING that needed to be done.  Of course, I wanted to thank the parents for everything you did including taking your children to the restroom before the show.  The Absorbent Minds Montessori School Family is truly a special one.

 

Peek Into The Next Work Week:

Winter Break ENDS:  Wednesday 1/3/2018  :))

Line Time:  Reintroducing Ground Rules

Letter Of The Week:  N n

Rhyming Word Of The Week:  bob

Start bringing in the family trees.

**Students will need snowpants, winter coat, gloves or mittens, hats, and boots to be able to go out for recess.**

 

 


A Peak into Reading Group

The last story we read is called Me First. It was about two siblings that always wanted to win and be first. By the end of the story they end up helping each other and stop arguing. The kindergartners continued to practice reading along with the purple highlighted sentences. We had a discussion with interpretive questions about the story. Such as, “Why did the kids stop arguing amd start cooperating by the end of the story.” These discussions help the students to delve deeper into the meaning of the story and analyze the characters actions. Many people like reading books but rarely anyone likes doing book reports. Here is a site that helps out kids in elemntary schools in the Balkans – LEKTIRE, book reports are concise but very helpful.

The students are writing down what they were wondering about after hearing the story for the first time.

 

Sharing why Martha helped clean the cob webs off of Hal.
Sharing drawings with each other.

 


Academic Enrichment | week of December 11th | Tallmadge

The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning dynamic multiplication using the golden beads, stamp game, bead frame, multiplication bead board and dot board to solve problems.

Cursive: This child is practicing writing cursive letters. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.

Multiplication Bead Board: These students have been working very hard to complete all of the multiples of 1’s through 10’s by multiplying by 1 through 10. For example 1×1 through 1×10, 2×1 through 2×10, 3×1 through 3×10 etc.

 

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of December 11

What a busy week we have had! The students are very excited to share their bucket drumming, bell ringing, and surprise performance tonight at our Christmas Show. While students are not on the stage for a long time, they spend a long time organizing, practicing, and making changes in preparation for the show. Students write and memorize lines for song and performance introductions and are role models while practicing with Ms. Courtney’s class. This year we even have a couple Elementary students helping Ms. Courtney’s class with one of their song performances. While we were preparing for the show, we had quite a few exciting lessons. First years were excited to learn how to find the multiples of numbers using the bead bars, have their first lesson on sentence diagramming with Sentence Analysis, and found different types of lines throughout our classroom. Second year students began subtracting fractions with like denominators and looked at the differences between dehiscent and indehiscent fruits. Third year students continued their human body research with heart and lung experiments and began their divisibility study with the discovery of numbers divisible by 2. Fourth year students found the prime factors of numbers, learned growth and reproductive information about cells, and charted their discoveries about the differences and similarities of the five kingdoms.

This fourth year student is finding the prime factors of 56. With a white strip to divide the peg board, he is able to find the factors using his knowledge of division facts. He builds the number 56 in pegs (blue pegs representing the tens’ place and green representing units), then beginning with the smallest prime number he divides. He places his answer to that equation back on the left side of the white strip, then continues the process. He knows he is finished when his quotient is one and can check his work by multiplying all of the prime factors together. This work helps students with quickly reducing fractions, especially with unlike denominators.
Each week, the Elementary students have a new science lesson. After the lesson, they repeat the experiment and complete a lab report explaining the process. This student is doing our “Holding On” experiment. This experiment has students use a suction cup to try to lift different rocks. Students found that adding water to the suction cup, or fully immersing the rock in water, led to more positive results. Students discuss their ideas about why this works before consulting the explanation on their experiment card.
This student is practicing his multiplication facts with our bead bars. He is finding the multiples of 7. During this work, the child forms the equation horizontally with the beads, then places the product of the equation vertically underneath before recording the multiplicand, multiplier, and product. Typically students practice the facts from 7 x 1 up to 7 x 10, but this student has been working for a few days and is up to 7 x 21! We enjoy seeing students taking their interests above and beyond!
This first year student is working with our Sentence Analysis material. This material helps students deconstruct sentences to learn what each word does or means. The first lesson students receive is just a look at the action (predicate) of a sentence and who/what is doing that action (subject). Students are able to quickly find the action from their practice in kindergarten with the red grammar symbol representing the verb. The arrow in the lesson shows what word is receiving the “energy” from the action. Sentence Analysis helps students become stronger writers and can even help with learning another language!

A Peek into Next Week

This week we only have three days of school! Monday all students will have their midyear Spelling Assessment so there will be no homework. First year students will conduct root experiments and continue their planet research. Second year students will try a seed experiment that involves not speaking for an entire 30 minutes! Third year students will calculate distances between objects on a map and look at the positions of flower ovaries. Fourth year students will continue their study of cells.

REMINDERS:

  • Wednesday, December 20 – Pajama Day: Students may wear pajamas and bring a pillow and blanket/sleeping bag to enjoy “The Polar Express.” Students may also bring a board game to play and an item for Show-and-Tell. We will be sharing our Christmas Compliments with each other, making bouncy balls, enjoying some hot cocoa, and making ice cream with Ms. Courtney’s class. Elementary students WILL need a lunch this day.
  • There is no school Thursday, December 21, through Tuesday, Jan 2. School resumes Wednesday, January 3. Happy Holidays!

 


Academic Enrichment – Cuyahoga Falls – Weeks of December 4 and December 11

Kindergarten Lessons: Weeks of December 4th and December 11th

The first week of December found ourselves looking at five different kind of animals, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and Fish, and what make these animals, well, those animals.  See below…

Mammals: Vertebrates, warm blooded, born alive, skin has hair or fur, and babies drink mother’s milk

Reptiles:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born from hard shell eggs, skin is dry and scaly

Amphibians:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born from jelly eggs, sk8n 8s soft and moist.  Amphibian meanswer from two worlds.

Birds:  Vertebrates, warm blooded, born from hard shell eggs, feathers

Fish:  Vertebrates, cold blooded, born alive or jelly eggs, skin is slimy and scaly

The students got up close and personal with many animals.

 

The Week of December 11th we discovered the ruler and started measuring things.  We learned how to line the ruler to whatever we were measuring and learned how to measure in inches (in, “) and centimeters (CM).

The kindergarten students making sure the paper in 8 1/2 by 11 inches.

 

Peek Into Next Week:
We will be starting our lesson in math!!!!!!  My favorite subject.