Cuyahoga Falls School
After what seemed to be a very short summer break it was good to get back in the classroom and start teaching. I do miss the Alumni, eager to get to know the new students, and get reacquainted with the returning students. It is amazing how students change over the summer. Some are more mature and some look as if they grew six inches!
The first two weeks we went over the ground rules of the classroom. We reviewed the “big four” rules. Walk in the classroom: because if you run, fall, and hit your head on a table, chair, or the hard ground; which would win, your head or the super hard table? That’s a no brainer, pun intended. Keeping your hands and body to yourself, use your listening ears, and be respectful in the classroom. We focus on being kind to others and respecting the materials.
We then explored the subject of healthy habits. Washing hands and our bodies, exercising, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep were needed to keep a healthy mind and body, although we can have specific training to have even a better body, as for the mind we can find resources online for example the power of your subconscious mind pdf show you the best techniques to improve your mind power. Healthy habits created a good segway to the introduction of the food pyramid. We learned what the food groups were, what foods were in each food group, and servings of each.
We had examples of many fruits and vegetables. I quiz each child at lunch time about what foods they have and the group in which they belong.
The next week we took a look at what was living and non living. It was pretty easy to identify what was living and non living but we went a step further and determined what characteristics were needed to be labeled living. Reproduction, growth, taking in nutrients (eating), and exchanging gases (breathing) were the four categories we reviewed. We discovered that the children were living but Mr. John’s shoe was not. A chair was non living and so were Ms. Dana and Ms. Kathleen before they get their morning coffee!
We have counted to 10 in eight different languages: English (our native language), Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, and Arabic w/ the Lebanese dialect.
Kindergarten:
We kicked off the Kindergarten season with a dose of Geography. They learned about the seven continents, fun facts about the continents, and a few countries in each continent. They are very familiar with the cardinal directions, the equator, the prime meridian, and the hemispheres. They even know the North America is in the Nort
h Western hemisphere. We then looked at our home state of O-H-I-O and the surrounding states (their abbreviation and nickname). PA-Keystone State, WV- Mountain State, KY-Bluegrass State, IN-The Hoosier State (what in the world is a Hoosier?) and that…(sigh)… state up north MI-The Wolverine State. Ask your child all about Ohio! The cardinal is the official bird, scarlet carnation the official flower, lady bug is the official insect. I see a consistent theme of red! Even tomato juice is the official drink! We are the BUCKEYE state and for some reason they got the impression the only college football team that matters is THE Ohio State Buckeyes! The official rock and roll song is Hang on Sloopy performed by the McCoys in 1965. Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy Hang On… O-H-I-O, YA!