A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of October 23rd

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This week we learned about different types of bats from micro to mega and even found out that there is a bat that is as small as a bumblebee! The class discovered how and where bats sleep and that they find their food through echolocation. The older students were very excited to share the fact that bats are mammals and explained to them the different characteristics that make them mammals: fur all over their bodies, born alive, drink mothers milk and warm blooded. We even learned that bats are nocturnal and that when we are sleeping they are eating all of the insects like mosquitoes, beetles and ants helping humans by stopping the spread of diseases and insects from eating crops. We will offer some courses for parents who want to learn about these kind of topics and share the knowledge with kids at home, there is also the possibility of taking them on Coxswain courses Gold Coast, the classes will be taught in our beautiful garage that actually were rebuilt by balancedgaragedoors.com, we will have a wonderful time there.

Guest Reader

 

Classroom

Pumpkin Scrubbing: This child is using many motor skills while also remembering the order and sequence of each action to successfully pumpkin scrub, which naturally leads to the development of concentration
Color Box 2: This child is using his ability to discriminate and identify different colors in order to match them.
Moveable Alphabet: This child is saying the word of the object and matching the symbol with the correct initial sound to the object. She is also practicing writing each cursive letter that she has matched to an object.
Binomial Cube: This child is learning how to build a binomial cube while also getting an introduction into algebra and preparation for the formula a3+3a2b+3ab2+b3.
Metal Insets: This child is tracing the metal insets developing her eye hand coordination and fine motor movements. She is also learning how to control a pencil (pincer grip, pressure and steadiness)
Cards and Counters: This child is demonstrating his knowledge that each number is made up of separate quantities. He is also able to visually see the sequence of numbers and how many separate units go to form each number.
Nine Layout: This child is becoming familiar with the names and relative sizes of the categories: units, tens, hundreds and thousands. He is also discovering that if he has i.e. 6 units and adds 1 more unit he will have 7 units.

Halloween Party

 

Reminders

October 31, 2017 at 2:30 PM The Old Lady that Wasn’t Afraid of Anything

November 15, 2017 Bring Your Parent to Work-Time

A look into next week: Body Parts

  • The children will be able to identify specific body parts and their purpose.
  • The children will start to develop body awareness.

A Peek into Science | Week of 10/9 and 10/16 | Tallmadge Campus

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Dancing Apple Seeds: We placed apple seeds in a glass full of Sprite. Apple seeds are more dense than Sprite so they originally sank to the bottom until air bubbles started to form around the seeds, which then forced the seeds to float up to the top. When the bubbles popped the seeds sank back down. This made the apple seeds look like they were dancing!

Ozzing Pumpkin: We mixed hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, food coloring, dry yeast and warm water together to get a reaction. The dry yeast sped up the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide by releasing the oxygen molecules into the dish soap making the pumpkin oz foam.

Academic Enrichment | week of October 16th | Tallmadge

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Parts of Plants: The children learned the characteristics and parts of trees, flowers, leaves, insects and arachnids  by using and working with the plant puzzles and control charts in the classroom.

This child is learning about arachnids and how they have no wings, no antennae, several pairs of simple eyes, 2 body parts, 8 limbs and a pointed mouth part for biting and poisoning its prey.
This child is learning how leaves make food for plants by using sunlight, water and air (photosynthesis).

A peak into next week: 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

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of October 16th

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This week we learned all about pumpkins and the different parts like: flesh, pulp, stem, seeds and rind. The children were able to explore the inside of a pumpkin  by digging out the insides and touching the seeds and pulp. The children were also able to try the seeds from the pumpkin and create a venn diagram of apples and pumpkins.

 

Guest Readers

  

Classroom

Reading about bats together in the library.
Binomial Cube: This child is learning how to build a binomial cube while also getting an introduction into algebra and preparation for the formula a3+3a2b+3ab2+b3.
Picture to Picture Matching: This child is working on her pre-reading skills by visually discriminating between objects but in a completely abstract way.
Color Box 4: This child is grading different colors from darkest to lightest, while also refining his sense of sight.
Eye Dropper: This child is transferring water using an eye dropper. The purpose of this work is to not only teach him how to use an eyedropper, but prepare him for activities that require a pincer grip.
Stamp Game: This child is doing static addition (a sum without exchanging) problems using the stamp game. He is practicing addition at a higher level of abstraction.

Reminders:

  • Parent Education Night Wednesday, October 25th at 6:30pm
    You can register to attend and for childcare by clicking this link
  • Bring Your Parent to Work Time Monday, October 23, 2017
  • Halloween Party Friday, October 27, 2017

A Peek into Next Week: Bats

  • The students will learn about the life cycle of a bat.
  • The students will research facts about bats.

A peek into our Academic Enrichment for kindergartners | Week of October 2nd & 9th

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Landforms: The children learned and explored the difference between a lake, island, bay, peninsula, gulf, harbor, cape, isthmus, strait, chain of lakes, and archipelago.

Landform Boards: This child is feeling the difference between a cape and a bay. The sand paper on the board represents land and the smooth blue portion represents water.

 

Parts of Animals: The children learned the characteristics and body parts of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish by using and working with the animal puzzle the was made with a great puzzle maker and control charts in the classroom.

Bird Puzzle: This child is tracing and labeling the parts of a bird: beak, head, breast, wing, tail, legs and claws.

A Peek into Next Week: Parts of Plants!

 

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of October 9th

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Topic: This week we learned about apples. The children enjoyed tasting different types of apples: granny smith, red delicious, gala and honey crisp. They also discovered what the inside of an apple looks like and how apples grow.  Some of the students even had the chance to do apple stamping and make homemade applesauce.

Work Time

Snap Dressing Frame: This child is learning to manipulate snaps so that she can dress herself. She is also developing motor skills and learning to follow logical steps.
Introduction Tray: These children are being introduced to the decimal system and becoming familiar with the symbols and quantities associated with units, tens, hundreds and thousands. They are visually seeing the difference between 1 unit, 1 ten, 1 hundred and 1 thousand.
Teen Board: This child is showing that he knows the symbols 11 – 19 and can successfully match the corresponding quantities, for example to make the number 14 he places one ten and four units.
Crumbing: This child is helping clean up sand after he was done using our kinetic sand work.
This child is learning how to prepare snack for his friends with Ms. Faith.
Object to Picture: This child is matching objects to pictures, by doing this she is making the connection that what she holds in her hand is the same as what she sees on the picture. In another sense that the picture of an apple is an apple, and the apple she is holding is an apple. This is a pre-reading material which aids in abstract thinking. This is essential preparation for reading.
These children are tracing and identifying the letter ‘e’ and its sound by using the sandpaper letter ‘e’.
Color Box 4: This child is selecting the lightest of the colored tablets and placing them in order lightest to darkest until all of the tiles have been put in order.

Guest Readers

  

Reminders

  • Parent Education Night Wednesday, October 25th at 6:30pm
    You can register to attend and for childcare by clicking this link
  • Bring Your Parent to Work Time Monday, October 23, 2017
  • Halloween Party Friday, October 27, 2017

A Look Into Next Week: Pumpkins

  • The students will describe a pumpkin using all of their senses.
  • The students will discuss the different shapes pumpkins can be.
  • The students will explore the inside of a pumpkin.
  • The students will guess and count how many seeds are in a pumpkin.

A Peek into Science | Tallmadge Campus

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In Science this month, students learned the term oxidation and discovered that when you add bleach to something it becomes oxidized, therefore its properties change.

 

 

The students experimented with air pressure using a hair dryer and ping pong ball. They discovered that the air from the hair dryer flows around the outside of the ball, so if they positioned the ball carefully, the air flowed evenly around each side making the ball float midair. We also talked about how gravity pulls the ball downward while the pressure below the ball from the moving air forces it upward, meaning that all the forces acting on the ball are balanced and the ball hovers in midair.

 

The students experienced seeing sound waves using a metal spoon and pan. They also learned that sound waves are what allows us to hear different noises.

 

For science this week we filled a Ziploc bag up with water and gently using pencils pierced through the bag until it pierced both sides, surprisingly NO water leaked out! The students discovered that the plastic the Ziploc bag we used was made of naturally formed a seal around the object as long as it stayed in place.

 

Our next experiment, we created an environment where we could see the oxygen/carbon dioxide process of plants by submerging a leaf in water and placing it in the sunlight. The process of photosynthesis allowed us to see bubbles on the leaves and as the leaves released its’ extra oxygen from being submerged, the oxygen was seen as bubbles in the water.

It has been a fun month exploring in Science!

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of October 2nd

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Topic: Leaves

This week the students learned that a leaf is one of the most important parts of a plant. They discovered that leaves produce food for the plant through a process called photosynthesis, and that leaves of different plants vary widely in size, shape and color. Also, the children learned the life cycle of a leaf and why leaves change color in the fall. They discovered the different parts of a leaf like: veins, blade, midrib, petiole and stipule.

Work Time

Moveable Alphabet: This child is identifying and matching the symbol for each sound he hears while sounding out the name of the object in order to correctly label each object.
Hand Grasping: Initially the child will use his whole hand to transfer large items from one bowl to the next. Then they will start transferring smaller items like the child in this picture using their fingers. As the items for transferring become smaller the child is required to use their pincer grasp more and more strengthening their finger muscles needed to grasp a pencil.
Animals/Continent World Map: These children are learning the names of the animals and where they live, while also sorting the animal picture cards and the seven continent labels in the appropriate location on the world puzzle map.
Moveable Alphabet: This child is saying the word of the object and matching the symbol with the correct initial sound to the object.
We found a lion on the playground at recess!
Geometric Solids: This child is developing a sense of awareness of three-dimensional shapes to objects in his environment. He is able to identify and label shapes such as sphere, ovoid, ellipsoid, cone, cylinder, cube, triangular prism, square prism, triangular based pyramid and square based pyramid.
Linear Counting: These children are working on one of our cubed bead chains, they are identifying the names of the numbers and seeing the correspondence of the quantities with the written number on the cards.
Land/Air/Water: This child is sorting and naming objects that you would see in the sky, on the land or in the water.

 

Reminders

  • Parent Education Night Wednesday, October 25th at 6:30pm
    You can register to attend and for childcare by clicking this link
  • Halloween Party Friday, October 27, 2017

 

A Look into Next Week: Apples

  • The students will learn to describe an apple using all of their senses.
  • The students will discuss all the different shapes apples can be.
  • The students will taste test red, green, and yellow apples.
  • The students will explore the inside of an apple.

A peek into our Academic Enrichment for kindergartners | Tallmadge Campus 9/29/17

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The past two weeks we have covered North America and the bodies of water surrounding the continent. We also covered Ohio and its surrounding states. We learned things like:

Tracing and labeling North America (Canada, United States of America, Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay, Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico).
Learning and identifying the three largest countries in North America (Canada, United States of America and Mexico).
Ohio’s state bird is a Cardinal.
Ohio’s state flag is the only flag that is not a rectangular shape.

 

Our next unit we will be diving into is Landforms!

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of September 25th

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Topic: Five Senses

This past week the children learned how our five senses help us understand and explore the world around us. Our five senses help us collect information about ourselves and our surroundings. They also learned to identify the five senses: hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and seeing.  We discovered that sometimes we use two or more senses at once; and how important it is for our senses to work together. The children had the opportunity to practice using their senses to determine properties of objects and distinguish them from one another.

 

Taste testing sweet, salty, bitter and sour foods.

 

  

Work Time

Tracing Name: This child is tracing her name in cursive. By doing this she is developing fine motor skills and coordination because her eyes and hands have to focus on the same thing in order to form each letter.
Color Box 2: This child is using her ability to discriminate and identify different colors in order to match them.
Pumpkin Scrubbing: This child is using many motor skills while also remembering the order and sequence of each action to successfully pumpkin scrub, which naturally leads to the development of concentration.
Floor Mopping: This child is mopping the classroom after lunch, doing this makes her more aware and willing to care for the classroom environment.
Spindle Box: This child is matching the correct quantity of spindles to each numeral symbol. She is also being introduced to the concept of zero and what its symbol looks like, while also seeing the natural sequence of the numerals.
Color Box 4: This child is grading different colors from lightest to the darkest, while also refining his sense of sight.
Tracing Tree Puzzle: This child is tracing and coloring the tree puzzle by doing this he is learning how to grip and hold a pencil correctly. It also helps refine his hand control to steady the pencil.
Pattern Peg Board: This child is reading the pattern control chart and creating the same pattern on the peg board. By doing this work she is gaining the skills needed to recognize and create patterns. This will not only help her determine patterns in math but also provide her with the needed pre-reading skills in language.
Cursive Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing cursive letters on a chalkboard. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.
Pyramid Puzzle: These students are matching the different colors together in order to create the pyramid shape. This puzzle involves not only the ability to concentrate but the ability problem solve.

Guest Reader (if you are interested in being a guest reader email me at cowens@themarterkids.com)

Reminders

Picture Day Tuesday, October 3, 2017

A Look into Next Week: Leaves

  • The students will observe the differences in leaf shape.
  • The students will observe the different Fall colors and the fun we can have with leaves.
  • The students will sort a variety of fall objects.
  • The students will learn different textures leaves have and identify them.