Kristen’s Class Overview – September 2014

Themes of the Week
(in addition to Individual Montessori Work time)

08/25: Grace and Courtesy / Ground Rules

  • Learning Control of Movement-Rolling A Rug, Carrying A Tray, and Carrying A Chair.
  • Learning Grace And Courtesy- How to Introduce Yourself, How To Say Please And Thank You, How To Interrupt Another.
  • Learning classroom rules.
  • Discussing what it means to be kind to others and what are “kind words”.
  • Making a “Kind Words Chain” in pre-school lesson.

9/1: Grace And Courtesy/Ground Rules

  • Reading the book, “The Bear That Was Chicken” and discussing with the children how they felt before coming to school and how they feel now about school.
  • Lessons on saying “Excuse Me”, “I’m Sorry”, and “Thank You”.
  • Singing songs and playing game to review what we’ve learned about classroom rules and manners.
  • Having the children write our classroom rules and display them in the classroom.
  • Read the book “There’s A Bird On Your Head”. Discuss how to speak to someone when we’re frustrated.

9/8: All About Me

  • “ Who’s Baby Picture Is This?” guessing game. (Be sure to send in a baby picture of your child with them this week.)
  • Discussing what makes each of us special: hair color, eye color, likes and dislikes, our birthdays, our names, our emotions, etc.
  • Graphing our differences such as hair and eye color.
  • Practicing saying our full names.
  • Learning our birth dates.

9/15 All About Apples

  • Read the story “Little Bear’s Star”- Story about an apple.
  • Sorting apples by size and color.
  • Learning the fractions of one whole and one half using an apple.
  • Taste testing different color apples and making a graph, as a class, of our favorites.
  • Learning the Apple Life Cycle.

9/22 All About Fall

  • Discuss differences between Summer and Fall.
  • Go on a nature walk outside to find leaves.
  • Painting with leaves.
  • Learning the parts of the leaf.
  • Learning Robert Frost poem about Fall.

Letters of the Week: Try to find objects that begin with each letter wherever you go with your child.

8/25: Aa
9/1: Cc
9/8: Rr
9/15: Tt
9/25: Review Of All Four Letters

Sight Words of the Week: Try to find each word in books as you read to your child.

8/25: at
9/1: cat
9/8: rat
9/15: tap
9/25: Review All Four Sight Words

Things to do at Home this Month to reinforce our themes:

  • While reading a book have your child point to all of the letter of the week she/he can find. Have them do this with the sight words as well. Play I-Spy using things that only start with the letter of the week.
  • Go on a walk as a family. As Fall comes, point out the differences you see in nature, now that the weather is changing.
  • While reading to your child, point out the sight words they are learning this month.
  • Find a fun apple recipe to try as a family. Let your child practicing measuring the ingredients, assemble the ingredients, etc. Discuss with your child the other things that can be made with apples