Our Academic Enrichment time is daily from 12:00-1:00pm. This time is specifically designed for our Kindergarten students to join as a group to work and progress through the advanced materials and lessons in the Montessori primary curriculum with Ms. Courtney. During this time Ms. Courtney also gives additional handwriting and journaling lessons. Throughout the school day in their classroom they are still working individually with their classroom teachers on these and other materials at their level. Please read through what we will be covering during this time together below.
Reading Group Overview | Ms. Faith
Junior Great Books is a foundational reading program that introduces students to a variety of literary genres, while teaching critical thinking and comprehension skills. Our Kindergarten students meet twice a week as a small reading group. During this time, they listen to a story being read to them and take turns reading the story aloud. Students pause during readings to think critically about the story, identify the different parts of the story, such as the characters and main ideas, make predictions about what might happen next, and learn new vocabulary words, using the context to understand the meaning. Each week I will email information about the current story and any assignment information for at home work.
Kindergarten Reading Group
In January, the kindergartners will be reading a Native American folktale called, Coyote Rides the Sun. After listening to the story, they will learn new vocabulary such as, deeds, falcon, haunches, and singed. They will complete two art activities in response to the folktale. The kindergartners will also write a question based off of the story to ask their fellow group members for a class discussion. There will also be a creative writing activity where the students work together to create a song about a time when they want to get up early in the morning to do something special. To end the activities, there will be a dramatization where the kindergartners will act like one of the animals from the story.
We will be ending the series at the end of the month, and will be reading a series of poems called Seasons. Each poem is about a different season. In response to the poems, the kindergartners will be drawing what they like about certain seasons. They will be lead in textual analysis with questions to make them think why the author wrote what he or she did, or what their favorite part is.
1/02: Introduction to 9 Tray/ 45 layout/composing numbers
- Learning what is and says ( 1, 10, 100, 1000)
- Reinforce by placement and identification of numbers within each decimal place
- Reinforce number placement with creation of numbers
1/09: Introduction to addition
- Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
- Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes
1/16: Introduction to exchanging
- Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
- Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes
1/23: Introduction to multiplication
- Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
- Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes
1/30: Introduction to multiplication continued
- Working with 9 tray / 45 layout
- Using single units, 10 bars, 100 square and 1000 cubes
- Working with stamp game
- Working with dot board
Sight Words of the Week: Try to find each word in books as you read to your child.
1/02: are
1/09: and
1/16: up
1/23: see
1/30: am
Synonym Words of the Week: Try to find each word in books as you read to your child.
1/02: LOUD, noisy, piercing, deafening, booming, crashing, boisterous, raucous
1/09: QUIET, peaceful, mute, calm, silent
1/16: SKINNY, thin, lean, emaciated, scrawny, slender
1/23: FAT, overweight big, bulky, heavy, plump
1/30: APPROPRIATE, suitable, fitting, apropos, correct, proper
Things to do at home this month to reinforce our themes:
- Look for our words of the week when reading a story, cut out pictures beginning with the letters of the week.
- Practice using the different synonyms of the week in a sentence together.
- You can view this link to give you more information on how the math materials are used in the Montessori classroom http://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/index.php?title=Math
- You may also google the name of the work to find more videos and information on the purpose of that material.
I will be sending homework home to reinforce these lessons. Please turn homework into Ms. Courtney. Please email me if you have any questions: cowens@thesmarterkids.com