A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week was all about PUMPKINS.  We held them, danced around them, read about them, and discussed their life cycle all week long.  But the best part about learning about pumpkins is getting to visit a real life pumpkin patch at Ramseyer Farms!

A new enrichment for us this week – Library with Ms. Cat!  We will visit the library here at Absorbent Minds every 3 weeks.  Ms. Cat talked to us about the library, introduced us to the vocabulary words: cover, spine, and author.  We even went on a bear hunt and practiced mindfulness by pretending to be a tree.

In the classroom, we introduced work plans to our older students.  Work plans are an important organization tool for students in the Montessori classroom.  We have listed the different academic areas of the classroom on the work plan, with pictures that match the labels on our shelves.  The students use their work plan to help them choose a work from each area of the classroom.  They then place a checkmark on their work plan and periodically check in with a teacher who assists with writing down the name of the work.  Students will be using work plans daily in Kindergarten and the Elementary classroom, and the work plans we use in our classroom are a wonderful, age appropriate, introduction!

Peek Into Next Week!

We will be learning all about Fall/Autumn and the Seasons.  We are very excited to watch the leaves change colors and fall from the trees.

Letter: Tt

Number: 4

Sight Word: she

A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week was all about Living and Non-Living.  We discussed how we determine if something is living or nonliving.  All living things need food, water, and clean air.  Living things will grow or change, react to their environment, and reproduce.  We practiced determining if something was living or nonliving and read the best book – I am Josephine and I am a living thing!

Also, in true Cherry Blossom fashion, we learned more by singing and dancing with our friend Jack Hartmann.

More Enrichments this week!  We attended our first Music Class with Miss Lisa.  We tried out Taekwondo with Master Barnick.  We drew a beast with Ms. Varela in Art Class and hypothesized about sinking and floating with Mr. John in Science Class!

Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old and our newest 5 year old!

What have the 3 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?

This child is working with the Tonging activity from the Practical Life area.  Currently, we have small acorns to tong on our tray.  We will change out the items used for tonging every couple weeks to keep this tray interesting to the children in the classroom.  Tonging is a wonderful activity to encourage fine motor development that the children will need for handwriting!

This child is working with our Knobbed Cylinders from the Sensorial area.  The children use the pincer grasp to hold onto the knob of the Knobbed Cylinders to take them out and place them back into the appropriate space.  There are 4 sets of Knobbed Cylinders which allow the child to explore different depths and widths.

This child is working with the Number Rods from the Math area.  This is a child’s first introduction to quantity as they count each red section and each blue section of the rod, using one to one correspondence.  They are also able to visually see that nine is larger than three.

This child is working with Picture Matching from the Language area.  This type of matching activity helps develop focus in the Montessori classroom.  We will change out the cards every couple weeks to keep this activity interesting to the children.  They are currently matching picture to outline which makes the activity a little more challenging.

Peek into Next Week!

We will be learning about PUMPKINS!  Those round, bright orange, fruits that make us so excited for the First Day of Fall which is on Wednesday!  We’ll be ending our week with our field trip to Ramseyer Farms!  Miss Sam and Miss Tonya are so excited to see you there!

A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week was all about APPLES! We talked about the different parts of an apple and created books to work on our handwriting skills.  We also learned about the life cycle of an apple from seed to harvested apple. We read many books and were so excited each time one of our friends brought an apple in their lunch.  If your family takes a trip to the apple orchard soon, please send us a picture!  

We also had in introduction to Geography this week.  We talked about the globe and looked at the Sandpaper Globe where we discussed land and water.  We’ll talk more about air, land, and water next week!

Preschool lesson included many activities this week!  Miss Sam worked with us on name recognition, color mixing with primary colors, and learning to count to 10 in German!  Miss Sam introduced us to another globe found in our classroom while we looked at Europe and found Germany on the map of Europe.

This child is working with our letter of the week – a!  We practiced saying the name of the letter, the sound the letter makes, and some words that start with that sound.

Letter a can also be found in our Handwriting Folder!  We’re practicing writing uppercase A and lowercase a.  Why do we teach handwriting in cursive?  Research indicates that cursive trains the brain to have better hand-eye coordination and reading efficiency.

Enrichments started this week!  We attended Art Class with Ms. Varela and Science Class with Mr. John!  Ms. Varela taught us about the different shapes you would find in art – lines, curved lines, dots, and circles.  We studied the art of Wassily Kandinsky, looking for the different shapes and enjoying the bright colors he used.  We then brought our new knowledge into our classroom and created our own art inspired by Kandinsky!

Happy Birthday to our newest 5 year old and our newest 3 year old!

Peek into Next Week!

We will continue our study of Apples, Kandinsky, and introduction of Geography.  We will also discuss Living vs. Non-Living and talk a little about plants!  Our field trip to Ramseyer Farm is coming up soon, information came home in your child’s folder!

Miss Tonya and her family visited the apple orchard over the weekend!

A Peek Into the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week we learned all about the 5 Senses!  We know that our 5 Senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling.  We also know that we use these 5 Senses to learn about the world around us.  We spent some time learning about how different types of animals use their senses as well.  Did you know that a snake uses its tongue to smell or that a katydid has “ears” on its front legs?

It was also All About Me week!  The children shared their All About Me papers with their friends, and we talked about our favorite colors, favorite foods, and our favorite animals.  We also talked a lot about our families!

Using our 5 Senses to explore our spider plant that has flower blooms!

 

 

 

 

 

 Happy Birthday to our newest 4 year old!!!

This child highly recommends this book from the library!

This child is working with the Blue and Red Number Rods.  This is one of the first works within the Math area of the classroom.  The child uses knowledge about length previously gained by the Red Rods and then takes their learning one step further by using one to one correspondence to count the sections of the Number Rods.

This child is practicing his handwriting skills with the chalk and chalkboard.  Why do we teach cursive first?  Cursive writing involves a flowing, uninterrupted movement which reinforces the left to right directionality of our written language.

And a note from Mr. John….

MR. JOHN IS AWESOME!

Coming Up Next Week!

We will be learning all about Apples! As well as an introduction to primary colors and geography. Remember – NO SCHOOL on Monday for Labor Day!

A Peek at Our Week

What a wonderful start to our school year!  This week we learned about the ground rules in our classroom.  We learned the expected behaviors for work time and were introduced to new work trays in the Practical Life area so that we can strengthen our fine motor skills. We explored Knobbed Cylinders and their dimensions, and also learned our daily routine.  We love eating lunch in the multipurpose room and enjoy the playground even more!

Preschool Lesson included reading books and learning about emotions and feelings.  We highly recommend the books My Many Colored Days, The Color Monster, and I’m Happy-Sad Today if you’d like to check them out from the library.  See if your children can sing you “If You’re Happy and You Know It” with all of the different feelings words!  We’ll be returning to these feeling words all school year long as we learn to express ourselves using our words.

These two children enjoyed having snack together on the first day of school!

A sneak peek at what work time looks like!  These children are working on their fine motor skills, naming objects, and I spy some Pink Tower and Brown Stair extensions!

On the very first day of school, we were able to take a close look at a monarch butterfly, the chrysalis it emerged from, and released it outside!  We were so excited to watch the butterfly fly away!  We’ll explore more of the butterfly life cycle this spring!

Miss Tonya and Miss Samantha are so excited to welcome all of our new friends to the Cherry Blossom classroom!

Peek into Next Week!

We’re going to be learning all about the 5 Senses!  During Preschool Lesson we will be learning All About Me! Please make sure to return your child’s All About Me papers next week, we will be sharing them with the class and hanging them up in our classroom.

Last week we took a peek into our skeletal system. The students were amazed that we all have a skeleton inside of us! We made skulls to decorate our classroom for the upcoming Halloween Party and some made skull bracelets. It was a great week of learning and progress.  Our students were very interested in the facts we learned about our bones! For example, we have 206 bones in our body and without them, we would be like a bowl of Jell-O! We learned that the skull is inside our head and protects our brain. We also talked about the ribcage and how it moves when we breathe and protects our heart and lungs and how our pelvis is the bone we use to dance and sit. Lastly, we discussed how our backbone supports our body and helps us to stand up straight.  The children loved dancing to the skeleton song!

We have all been diving deep into learning new things throughout our classroom. We built the pink tower and brown stairs in new ways and started using the movable alphabet! Many friends were fascinated by the landform trays and saw the difference between island and lake. We started journal copy writing this week. Some friends are tracing over highlighter letters while others are copying the words on their own. We are all learning sign language  and beginning to use it I  our classroom. It is so nice to be able to communicate nonverbally across the classroom. Wow what an amazing start to our school year and progress in learning and growing together!

This week we have been studying apples. We Tasted McIntosh, Red Delicious, Ambrosia, and Granny Smith apples. Most of our friends liked Red Delicious the best. We went apple picking in our room, sorted apple colors and sizes. Students made an apple that included seeds, the core, some skin, and a stem. We used apple seeds for counting and even made patterns using apples. We watched a video about apples and how they get from the orchard to the grocery store! We even learned a song to the tune of  Bingo !  “I know a Fruit thats good to eat and Apple is its name-O! A-P-P-L-E!

Last  week in Cherry Blossom we have been studying leaves. We talked about the parts of a leaf. There are stipules, petiole, veins , and the blade. We talked about how the leaves are green because they have chlorophyll.  Leaves are the part of a plant that turns water, sunshine, and oxygen into food for the plant. We also talked about how the leaves fall off in the autumn to conserve energy. We collected leaves at recess to make leaf rubbings. We have be cutting leaves, matching different color and shape leaves, and many of the children have tracing the leave puzzle.

A peek into our work time…

It is a joy getting to know your children and watching them blossom!