A Peek Into October 2017 Music Class

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Every Tuesday we have music with Miss Lisa. Half of our classes go in the morning and the other half goes in the afternoon. Here is what we have been up to this month!

This month we started off with learning the terms ‘adagio’ and ‘andante’. Adagio means slow and andante means medium. We also learned the term ‘Allegra’, which means fast. We practiced these different speeds with the song “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” and playing the tambourine.
The second week of October Miss Lisa introduced us to a couple of new songs involving counting and hand movements! We sang Allison’s Camel, Knick-Knock-Paddy Wack, The More We Get Together and 3 Little Monkeys. We loved using our fingers to count the different things in each song! We also learned a few new dances that went along with these songs. We love all the movement that Miss Lisa incorporates into her lessons!
We all have really started to learn the words to the songs and are having so much fun singing along with Miss Lisa. We also reviewed the words ‘piano’ which means soft/quiet and ‘forte’ which means loud. We also had a short discussion about how all of the music words we are learning are Italian. Miss Lisa’s music class is a wonderful enrichment on Tuesdays and we are looking forward to what we will do next month with her! Thank you Miss Lisa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of October 30

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As one of our first graders said this week, “There’s no way it is already November!” We can’t believe we are already heading into lower temperatures and Christmas Show preparations! Research projects are in full swing in our classroom. First and second year students are researching dinosaurs, third year students are learning about the human body, and fourth year students are beginning cell theory and classification of early humans. We have ended our North America Continent Study and are talking about animals, musical instruments, and capitals of South America.

First and second year students are diving into their Dinosaur Research. Each student chose one Saurischian dinosaur and one Ornithiscian dinosaur to learn about. They are researching the diet, habitat, size, and other facts about each dinosaur before creating a poster to display their findings. One thing students must be comfortable with before beginning research into any topic, is using the index of a book. This student is using the index to find information about her Saurischian dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
This first year student asked to join a second year lesson about the Conventional Protractor. The concept behind measuring angles is introduced through lessons about triangles. Students then move on to using the Montessori Protractor which is a complete circle with measurements from 0 to 360 degrees. After practice with that material, students draw lines and measure their angles with a Conventional Protractor. Students that have practiced adding on paper, will add up their angle measurements to check their work. If the sum of their supplementary angles is 180 degrees, then they know they did accurate measuring.
These students have been independently researching guinea pigs. They used books and the internet to complete a research template. After compiling their research, they wrote a rough draft, including an introductory paragraph and a conclusion. For their final draft, they had to include a cover page and a bibliography. The students chose when to present their information to the class and took questions at the end from their peers.
This week the second year students did a lesson where they matched many adjectives to three nouns. A few of the adjectives were words that the students didn’t recognize so we used the dictionary to find the answer. Something Montessori always said to teachers and recommended to parents was, “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed,” so you will often see in a Montessori classroom children being led to find their own answers instead of being given the answer. When you are learning networking, it is handy to visit Subnet-Calculator.org for free subnet mask calculator
These students are working on “Button Classification.” This is the first lesson before the study of Early Humans. The students are given a large amount of various buttons and have to separate them based on characteristics, just like a scientist would when discovering a new species. These students started with two groups: small and large. They further separated those groups based on holes in the buttons, texture, color, and other characteristics.

A Peek into Next Week
Next week our Lower Elementary students will be continuing their research, looking at the difference between a point and a solid, and will beginning studying the fundamental needs of humans throughout history. Our fourth year students will continue learning about cells, look into different categories of pronouns, and will classify living things.

REMINDERS:
Parent-Teacher Conferences are Friday, November 17. This is a NO SCHOOL day for students. Please sign up for a conference here.

A Peek At Our Week| Mr. John’s Classroom| Week Of October 30, 2017

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Cultural Subjects:
We have been counting to Ten in 11 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, and Romanian).

 

Peeking Into The Classroom:

This is an action shot of a student sorting. Inevitably, our reading books get mixed and become out of order but this student is assigned every day to put them in order. This set of books has four sets of ten and she enjoys the responsibility of doing and completing this task.

 

Rolling a mat develops O.C.C.I (order, concentration, coordination, independence) and development of muscles. The mat is to be rolled tightly and with even ends. Also, the purpose of the mat is to give the child his / her own personal work space while working on the floor.

 

The reason for this picture is not the material but how a student who is four years old is presenting and showing his peers how to use this work. Kindergarten students are not the only ones that present materials to others. All students have the potential to show others how the work with materials.

 

Did you ever wonder how the teachers keep track of all our students with all those materials on the shelf? The answer is a Montessori tracking program called MRX (Montessori Records Express). It tracks the individual student with the materials they are working on and mastered. It also exports that information to our progress reports and tracks attendance. We use MRX with our tablets.

 

This assessment this student is working on is called the Albanesi Assessment. This test is a bridge between the Montessori works and a traditional test. We give these tests to our kindergarten students and old preschool students.


Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we will learn about insects, arachnids, and invertebrates.

Letter of the week:  K k

Rhyming word of the week: ox

 

Upcoming Events:
11/16/17 (Thursday): Progress Reports emailed

11/17/17 (Friday): Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN)

11/21/17 (Tuesday): Harvest Party

11/22-11/26/17: Thanksgiving Break

 

A Peek into October Science Class | Cuyahoga Falls Campus

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We enjoyed exploring experiments in Science class this month!  Here are a few of our favorite experiements:

 

Sinking Salt- Density (10/5/17) The oil lies on top of the water. When we place the salt in the mixture, the oil and salt sink to the bottom.
Skittles/Gobstoppers Candy Run-Water Soluble Materials(10/26/17) The colors run into each other and stop, initially forming perfect,  colorful wedges. Because each color is  coated with a thin layer of wax.
The students loved this experiment and forming their hypothesis of what they thought would happen with the colors!

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of October 30th

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This past week we learned about different body parts. The students learned about the parts we can see on the outside and the parts we can’t see on the inside like our lungs, kidneys, stomach, small intestines, large intestines and heart. They made a model of a lung to keep in the classroom and discovered our anatomy apron where they enjoyed learning about the organs and where each one belonged by attaching the fabric organs to the apron.

Work Time

Zipping: This child is developing his independence and concentration while also gaining finger control and dexterity to manipulate a zipper.
Table Scrubbing: One child is teaching another child how to independently wash a table and care for his environment. These children are also learning how to control their muscles particularly in their hands. They have to remember the order and sequence of each action to complete the task at hand which is developing their concentration.
Color Mixing: This child is using the three primary colors to create secondary colors. He places one dropperful of red and one dropperful of yellow in a small dish and like magic, orange appears.
Tying: This child is learning how to care for himself and developing a sense of independence while refining his fine motor skills and coordination of movements.
Pumpkin Hammering: This child is hammering golf tees into a pumpkin and is developing the proper movements needed for manipulating a hammer and golf tee. He is also refining his fine motor skills by being able to grasp the golf tee and developing his strength needed holding a pencil to write.
Circuit Board: This child has created a circuit (a pathway made of wires) that electrons can flow through. The batteries are giving the power source the electrons needed to move. When the electrons get to the light bulb it gives it the power needed to make it work.

Guest Reader

Reminders

November 15, 2017 | Bring Your Parent to Work-Time

November 17, 2017 | Parent/Teacher Conferences | NO SCHOOL for students

November 21, 2017 | Harvest Party

A look into next week: Food Groups

  • The children will become aware of five food groups (dairy, protein, vegetables, fruits, and grains).
  • The children will become aware of different foods from each food group.
  • The children will be informed that eating different foods from each food group will help them grow, think, and have energy to play.
  • The children will learn how to recognize different foods from each group.

Academic Enrichment | week of October 30th | Tallmadge

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During academic enrichment this week the kindergarten students were hard at work learning how to not only compose and retrieve numbers, but how to do static (no exchanging or carrying when adding)  addition using both the golden beads and the stamp game.

Composing Quantities: This child is practicing the sequence of numbers in the decimal system units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and recognizing what different quantities look like.
Addition: These children are using the golden beads to discover that when you put two small numbers together to get a larger number it is called addition.
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.

A look into next week: Introduction to exchanging

  • Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes

 

Take A Peek Into Our Week | Ms. Kate | Week of October 30th

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This week we learned all about Nutrition. We discussed the importance of exercise, went over My Plate and the foods you need to choose for it, the five food groups, and how to wash our hands the right way with a variety of hands on activities, songs, books, and videos.

The metal insets are used to help with pencil control, to refine hand movements in the preparation for writing. This work also helps with eye-hand coordination.
Today are friend was working on our Vertebrate and Invertebrate cards. These cards teach the child about which animal or insect has a back bone or the ones that do not. It also teaches the child about grouping and  how to place cards in the right category.
Me. Ame made a fun My Plate matching work. My Plate is the current nutritional guide that replaced the food pyramid. This plate shows children the 5 food groups that should be placed on their plate at every meal.
Weaving is such an excellent activity to bring into the classroom. Weaving not only promotes fine motor skills, but helps children learn how to create patterns and work through problems that may encounter while weaving. It can also be a beautiful way to express themselves artistically.

A Peek Into Next Week

Over the next couple of weeks we will be having many lessons on respect, grace and courtesy, kindness, and classroom rules.

Junior Great Books Reading Club | Kindergarten | Week of October 16th-23rd

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This week we finished up with Jamaica’s Blue Marker. I really loved these last few classes because the children were really engaged in telling me how they would feel if they were Jamaica and their friend was moving away. I always like to start the class by telling them that we are a little family and they should never be nervous to raise their hand and to say how they feel. I want them to able to speak their mind and to think on their own without being judged.
At the end of each story the children have to rate on how well they shared throughout our meetings. They also have to come together and talk about what they all could do differently during our next reading. I like to write down all of their answers  they give me on our white board so that they are able to copy write in their own booklets.

A Peek Into Handwriting | Week of October 23rd

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The past two weeks have taken us all the way to the letter Z in Handwriting! We also started answering a couple of journal questions, putting into practice what we have learned thus far. Our two journal questions so far have been “What is your favorite color?” and “What will you be for Halloween?” The goal is to have the children begin to expressively write on their own and to practice their letter formation on paper. I’m so proud of their progress so far!

I would encourage you to help your child practice their handwriting at home by phonetically spelling words on their own. Why not have them help you write the grocery list this week?

 

Academic Enrichment | week of October 23rd | Tallmadge

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This past week in academic enrichment the children were introduced to numerals and quantities of the decimal system using our golden bead materials. They discovered what the numerals look like for different quantities from 1 to 9000.

 

Introduction Tray: This child is learning the names of each category: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and learning to identify the quantity and symbol.
Nine Tray: These children are learning equivalences i.e. ten units is the same as a ten bar. They are discovering that when they have a ten bar they have to move to a new place and can’t stay in the unit’s place anymore.
45 Layout: These children are visually able to see the association between quantities with the written symbols using the numerals and golden bead materials.

A look into next week: Introduction to addition

  • Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes