Ms. Kristen’s December 2016 Newsletter Article

Classroom News:

The month of December has been full of fun and merriment in our classroom! The children have enjoyed learning about Arctic Animals, the Weather, the different parts of the Orchestra, and about different symbols of the Holiday Season. We had a blast!

In week one, we learned all about Arctic Animals. We learned many Arctic Animals have white fur or feathers that aide them in hiding from predators in their environment. For instance, a penguin is both black and white, so that when it is looked at from below in the water it blends in with the sky above, and when it is looked at from above, it blends in with the dark water below. The children also enjoyed an experiment Ms. Catie conducted with them on how blubber helps to keep arctic animals warm. She had the children take turns placing their hand inside a Ziploc bag covered in butter. She then had the children place that hand into ice water. The butter acted as insulation, much like blubber, and helped keep their hands warm, even in the ice water!

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Callen and Liam were so interested in musical notaion that they wanted to copy a piece of music on to staff paper!

 

During the second week of December, we learned about weather. The children enjoyed talking about the job of a meteorologist how it is their job to scientifically predict the weather. Ms. Catie and Ms. Kerri and I also had the children keep track of how many sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy days there were that week. Not surprisingly, there were more cloudy days. We also conducted a weather related science experiment as a class. We taped a Ziploc bag filled with water to the window in our classroom and watch throughout the coming weeks as the water level at the bottom of the bag decreased and condensation formed at the top of the bag, which was a great visual representation of how clouds are formed!

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Tenleigh enjoying a book about Arctic Animals!

 

During the third week in December, the children learned about the different parts of the orchestra. They learned all instruments belong to a “family”, such as String, Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion. I also showed the children my ukulele and how the different lengths and thickness of strings on the ukulele produce different pitches. The thinner the string, the higher the pitch. The thicker the string, the lower the pitch. The children also enjoyed listening to music from the different families of the orchestra during their afternoon work time as well!

 

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Samantha decided to put her amazing handwriting skills to practice and wrote Santa a letter!

 

During the fourth week of December, we focused on preparing for the Christmas Show. We also made candy cane ornaments with Ms. Catie and Ms. Kerri. Pajama Day was also a blast, and the children loved wearing their p.j.’s and watching movies! We also made gingerbread houses with graham crackers, marshmallows, and M&M’s. It was a well deserved rest after all of their hard work so far this year!

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Avery Ucker, Audrey’s sister, came in to read a story to our class!

I would encourage you to watch the weather report with your child. As a family, track how many sunny, cloudy, rainy, and snowy days there are for a week. Listen to classical music with your child and discuss the different instruments you hear. Find a cookie recipies to make together as a family. Make your child a part of the preparation, measuring, and baking.

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Mia and Kailyn work on the Mirror Polishing Work, which teaches the child a sense of order, concentration, coordination, and independence!

Maria Montessori stated that Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.” As a Montessori Directress, it’s truly been my privilege to watch your children grow and learn through working with the materials in the classroom. Through their interactions with each other, I have enjoyed watching your children form lasting friendships and learn to resolve their own conflicts peacefully. I am so proud of all of their progress so far this year, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next have of the school year brings!

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Academic Enrichment Group Time | Kindergarten
with Mr. John
This abbreviated month found us learning a little bit about creepy crawly things. Namely Insects and Arachnids. We learned insects have 6 legs, an abdomen, a thorax, and a head in addition to two antennae. They are also invertebrates. Arachnids are also invertebrates but have a head and a cephalothorax.

We ended the year by learning how to measure things with a ruler. We learned how to measure in inches and in centimeters. The students had homework measuring things around the house, and find out the state of the house and find solution if it have any problem, as it need some repair, or have a pest finding services from sites as https://www.bigfootpestcontrol.com/schaumburg/mosquito-control/ to help with that. I was told this was a useful assignment.

Cultural Subjects
We can now count to ten in 21 languages(We can count to ten in 19 different languages. We can count in English, Latin, Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic (with the Lebanese dialect), Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish.

 

Handwriting Enrichment | Kindergarten
with Ms. Kristen

During the month of December, we began to work on cursive letter formation beginning with form drawing, which is a pre-cursor to cursive handwriting. We then focused on letter A-I and practiced writing simple words beginning with each letter. The Kindergarten students have also practicing answering questions in the form of a complete sentence, such as “ What is your favorite color?” and “ What do you want for Christmas?”. The children are doing so well with this and their handwriting is improving daily!

 

Reading Group | Kindergarten
with Ms. Kate

For the month of December our friends learned all about Fantasy. We read poems by Sylvia Plath, Edward Lear, and Lewis Carroll. With each of these readings the children were able to create an art activity, do a dramatization of the reading, and also discuss their Junior great book questions they did with their parents. One of the readings we did was called The Bed book. As a class we brainstormed different types of beds they would like to have. I love that the children had to really use their imagination and talk to their classmates about what they were thinking. We then created our own Right Sort Of Bed poem! When children work on these creative writing projects, the activity provides a framework of lines and verbal cues to help children generate and organize their ideas. The children really enjoyed reading these poems.

 

Science Enrichment
by Ms. Kathleen

We love Science here at AMMS! One of the favorite experiments we would like to highligh this month was Gluep/ Homemade Slime! Yes, as I’m sure you can imagine…it was a big hit!

This made by using Borax, White Elmer’s Glue (It has to be Elmer’s Brand) ,Water Food coloring.

The children watched Mr. John add the Tablespoon of glue to one cup of water then mix, then food coloring. then he added 1 teaspoon of borax with 3 more cups of water, he stirred until dissolved.Then when finished was a soft lump.

By combining Glue, Borax and Water a newly created Polymer will have characteristics of a Solid and a Liquid. A chemical reaction begins when Glue and Borax and Water are mixed to make a highly flexible Polymer. A Polymer is both a liquid and a solid.

The Children all (except a few because it is slimy to the touch) loved this experiment and were so happy to bring their own little bit home in plastic bags all provided by Mr. John.

 

Music Enrichment
by Ms. Sabrina

This was a very busy month for our music class. The children learned many new songs and signs for the Christmas Show which they practiced during music class. Along with those songs and movements, they also learned Jingle Bells freeze dance and Jingle Bell Rock. Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer with motions was so much fun!! Castanets were used (we love using instruments!). The children learned a lot about self control. Feliz Navidad was a song they sung, and they galloped to Deck The Halls!! Away In Manger was also heard, and it was beautiful. All the children did a wonderful job performing in the show! All of us also had such fun!!

 

Art Enrichment
by Ms. Ame

This month in December, Miss Michele mixed it up combining art and physical movement! Miss Michele introduced some new pieces of art to the class, that all had one thing in common; they were pictures of people in different positions. The students then each took a turn being a model for the class. Each student took their turn on the stool in the center of the circle. Then they got to pick a prop and make a pose with their prop. There were globes, scarves, and other classroom objects they could pick from. Once they found their prop and pose, the students had about 1 minute per student to quickly draw their friend in the center. It was a good lesson that taught the students about drawing different parts of the body in different positions. It also helped them learn to look quickly for details when they are drawing something they are looking at. This lesson helped prepare them for the next week’s still life lesson where each student brought in a toy or object from home. Each student brought in their own object from home and put the objects in the center of the circle. Then the students drew the objects that they saw and had so much fun! Thanks for everyone for bringing in such wonderful objects! Thanks to Miss Michele for another wonderful year and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

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