Line Time: This week the students were introduced to the continents in preparation for the International Festival.
Did You Know (catnip, frostnip, Jack Frost NIPPING at your nose???): The stage before frostbite is known as “frostnip.”
Message From Mr. John (No Spring Break For Me. Heavy Sigh ): 🙁
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 26 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi).
Enrichments (Music):
Students learning about the keys on a keyboard.
Peek In The Classroom:
He is working on the Vowel Tree. The Vowel Tree is a tactile, engaging way to teach and practice decoding words. This manipulative can be used with beginning readers to more advanced readers. Originally developed as a Montessori material, the vowel tree reinforces skills for all learners; tactile learners, auditory learners. AND we have some vowel fatigue.
She is combining several works to help her recognize the symbol/number and the corresponding quantity.
She is working on the Continent Globe and the Continent puzzle Map. Starting with the map of the world and progressing through continents and then countries, the puzzle maps showcase the difference between land and water, and help to develop an appreciation for spatial awareness.
He is working on the Construction Boxes The aim is to show the child that by joining together different triangles, 4 sided figures are formed and to prepare the child for later work in geometry. Level of Parent Involvement: Medium during the initial presentation then low once the child has been shown and can work independently.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Practicing International Festival
Letter Of The Week- No Letter Of The Week
Rhyming Word Of The Week- No Rhyming Word
No new language will be presented
Academic Enrichment: Handwriting: This week we practiced writing sentences in cursive.
Next Week: Weekly Theme: Articles
Synonym Of The Week: No synonym of the week.
Sight Words Of The Week: No sight words of the week.
Kindergarten students showing us what their favorite verb is.
Upcoming Events: A few days off and other stuff.
DAYS OFF: -No School: SPRING BREAK- March 28 through April 1 — Returning Monday April 4 -No School: Easter Monday, April 18
OTHER STUFF: Breakfast Club: Friday, April 8 from 7:00 am to 7:45 am …
Social Hall at school
International Festival (REHEARSAL): Wednesday, May 4 at 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm …
Cuyahoga Falls high School/Big Auditorium (details to follow)
International Festival (MAIN EVENT): Friday, May 6 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm …
Cuyahoga Falls high School/Big Auditorium (details to follow)
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
BFFs
A very proud rendition of the Karate Kid.
Do you see how thrilled she is after I told her a dad joke?
I asked for a nice picture and this is what I get.
This week in the Aspen Room it was all about St. Patrick’s Day, rainbows, and the light spectrum! Aspen engaged in rainbow-colored activities, crafts, and science experiments exploring the light spectrum. During group lessons Aspen learned how rainbows are formed, why they occur, and explored stories and legends surrounding the rainbow. Then the Aspen scientists shared ideas regarding how they thought rainbows occur. Prior to the lesson, each child shared their ideas and thoughts on this subject. The class unanimously agreed and made an observation that a rainbow needed rain (source of water) and sunlight. The class then explored this observation and discussed the concept of reflection and learned about the light spectrum. We learned that each wavelength of light is reflected at different angles. Thus, the light spectrum is separated creating a rainbow. The Aspen children also shared stories on how they have created rainbows with a hose, bubbles, spray bottles, and sequins making new observations sparking an interest in trying to create rainbows. Thinking about our observations, we decided to experiment creating rainbows. Therefore, we had the opportunity to experiment separating the wavelengths in the light spectrum using a prism and a flashlight! Our Practical Life area was also filled with colorful rainbow themed fun! Ask your child about their week!
This week we also began our introduction to the International Festival and began to learn about Europe. The Aspen children were introduced to the European flags activity, animals of Europe, and landmarks of Europe. We also began learning the location and names of the countries we will be representing for the International Festival. If you haven’t already picked a country please make your selection this week. If you visit Signup Genius you will find a list of available countries. Next week, we will continue our exploration of Europe. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-country
The Aspen kindergarteners explored vowels and consonants and engaged in lessons identifying vowels and consonants while practicing their reading skills with word lists. The kindergarteners also practiced their handwriting skills throughout the week.
Exploring the world of color by color mixing to create the colors of the rainbow.Pouring rainbow gems! Taking a practical life activity and turning it into a counting and sorting work! How many gems do you count?Creating Leprechaun traps to catch that cheeky Leprechaun and our chance at getting his pot of gold!
Making paper chains to decorate our classroom.
That Cheeky Leprechaun pranked our classroom and evaded our traps! No pot of gold for us!! However, he did leave us Skittles and a St. Patrick’s Day book to enjoy!
A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!
We have had a super busy week in the Cherry Blossom room! Our focus was on clouds and rainbows, and we completed so many fun science experiments as we learned about these awesome parts of nature!
Ms. Sam introduced us to the order of the colors in a rainbow.
We used sunight and prisms to create rainbows on the wall of our classroom! We learned that raindrops and prisms work the same way by bending the sunlight to reveal the colors!
We know that clouds are water droplets that stick together, but then how does it rain? We saw that when the cloud gets too heavy or too full of water then the drops fall down!
We learned about the three main types of clouds that we can see in the sky. Cirrus and Cumulus clouds generally mean good weather but Stratus clouds cover the sky like a blanket and generally bring rain. We’ve been checking the sky all week to see what types of clouds are up there.
This experiment was definitely their favorite. Maybe you could try it at home too!
That sneaky little leprechaun caused some mischief!
We were quite surprised to come inside from recess and find that a sneaky little leprechaun had visited our classroom!
What have the 3 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?
This group is all about the sensory based works!
This child is working with both the Brown Stairs and the Pink Tower to build extensions. You’ll notice that the Brown Stairs are still built from thick to thin and the Pink Tower is still built from big to small.
This child is working with all four knobbed cylinder blocks.
This child is beginning to learn how to write individual letters with our sandpaper letters and our sand tray.
Our 3 year olds are beginning to work on writing their names! We are focusing on the first letters at this time, and they’ve started writing that first letter on all of their papers!
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Topic: Spring and Seeds!
Letter of the Week: Qq & Zz
Number of the Week: 18 & 19
Important Dates:
March 24: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum – 6:00-7:00pm
Line Time: This week we took a look at life cycles of humans, frogs/toads, and butterflies/moths. Humans have relatively boring life cycle compared to the butterfly/moth and toa d/frog. As humans we are born, we live, we die. YAWWWWN. The toad and frog start with being jelly eggs in the water. They hatch into tadpoles and eat algae, then they turn into a froglet which has a head of a frog and a tail. Then the tail falls off and an adult frog/toad lives the rest of its life on land. The butterfly/moth starts as an egg. The a caterpillar is hatched and it eats A LOT. Then a caterpillar spins its (butterfly) chrysalis/ moth spins a cocoon. Then a buttery comes out of its chrysalis and moth comes out of the cocoon. I posed the question “which came first the egg or the butterfly?” This created some heated conversation!
Did You Know? (Don’t Listen To What Your Mother Said): Although chewing gum is designed to be chewed and not swallowed, it generally isn’t harmful if swallowed. If you swallow gum, it’s true that your body can NOT digest it. But the gum doesn’t stay in your stomach. It moves relatively intact through your digestive system and is excreted in your stool. Did your mom tell you it would take seven years to digest? Mine did.
Below is the gum where the flavor lasts a whole eight seconds. I also thought it says “vapes” in action.
A Message From Mr. John (Nothing is As hopeless as it seems even though I thought I was going to die in the library parking lot.):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 26 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi)
Enrichments (Science/Dancing Raisins):
One student said it looks like beer??
When I do this experiment I think of these two songs/videos….
Shaun O’Keefe (our reappearing class leprechaun):
Shaun O’Keefe causes a quite a ruckus! That cheeky leprechaun.
Views from the Shamrock Classroom:
This is a student’s rendition of St. Patrick’s Day in the classroom and it is pretty accurate.
Peek In The Classroom:
Tjhis boy is finding the relationships between two different materials (Knobless Cylinders and Knobbed Cylinders) found in the Sensorial area. This will help him recognize patterns and distinguish visual discrepancies.
She found the Teen board found in the Math area all by herself(not being told to work on it) She took it out/worked on it/ completed it/and the put it away.
He is learning how to create different shapes with triangles. he also learned the terms of Equilaterall Triangle (all sides equal) Isosceles Triangle (2 sides equal, and Scalene Triangle (no sides equal)
My newest reader generating a lot of attention.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Preparing For The International Festival
Letter Of The Week- Y y
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bac
Next Language is No New Languages will be Introduced
Academic Enrichment: This week we learned all about vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and consonants (the rest of the letters).
Kinder student showing their favorite vowel via sign language
Handwriting: We practiced writing sentences in cursive.
Next Week’s Lesson: Weekly Theme: Nouns/Verbs
Synonym Of The Week:No synonyms this week
Sight Words Of The Week: have this
Upcoming Events: A few days off and other stuff.
DAYS OFF: -No School: SPRING BREAK- March 28 through April 1 — Returning Monday April 4 -No School: Easter Monday, April 18
OTHER STUFF: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum: Thursday, March 24 6:00 to 7:00pm …
School Campus
Breakfast Club: Friday, April 8 from 7:00 am to 7:45 am …
Social Hall at school
International Festival (REHEARSAL): Wednesday, May 4 at 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm …
Cuyahoga Falls high School/Big Auditorium (details to follow)
International Festival (MAIN EVENT): Friday, May 6 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm …
Cuyahoga Falls high School/Big Auditorium (details to follow)
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
Working on the Leprechaun Trap. They are bound and determined to catch Shaun O’Keefe!
Line Time: We had fun this week looking into the world of art. We went over the primary and secondary colors. We learned there are different ways to create art such as, drawing with pencils, coloring with crayons, and painting. We looked at artists such as Michael Angelo, Pablo Picasso, Monet, and Andy Warhol.
Who can name this album cover? Free tuition for the first to identify it….. OK, no free tuition. Kelly and Brandy just scolded me! 🙁
A student’s redition of flowers and his original drawing called “Man Playing Piano In The Woods”
Did You Know? (C is for Cookie): In a song in 2004, and later in an interview in 2017, Cookie Monster revealed that his real name is Sidney Monster. He is best known for his voracious appetite and his famous eating catchphrases, such as “Me want cookie!” Although he eats almost anything, including normally inedible objects, as his name suggests, his preferred food is cookies. Chocolate Chip Cookies are his favorite kind. Despite his voracious appetite for cookies, Cookie Monster shows awareness of healthy eating habits for young children and also enjoys fruits and eggplant.
A Message From Mr. John (My InsantPot):
Know Your Languages (Hindi):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 26 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi)
Enrichments (Art Museum Field Trip):
March Birthdays: A Montessori classroom prides itself on a mixed aged classroom of ages between 2 1/2 and 6. Here is our newest 5 year old students.
Peek In The Classroom:
This material is the Movable Alphabet (cursive). The key purpose of the Moveable Alphabet is to prepare children for writing, reading, and spelling. The child’s use of the material progresses from single words, to phrases, and eventually to stories. In this way, the Moveable Alphabet teaches children how to symbolize their own thoughts, and begin to write creatively.
She is working on Color Box 2. The main purpose of the Colour Box is to develop a child’s visual sense of colour. Primary colours (Red, Yellow and Blue) are introduced in Colour Box 1, which is first presented to a child at 2.5 to 3 years of age. Colour Boxes 2 and 3 add more tablets to the mix, expanding a child’s colour knowledge.
He is working on the 45 Layout. This layout will help your child to visualize and develop an understanding of place value, order of numbers, and concentration. This work is very large and can take some time. Our children loved building this chart, and sometimes in stages. It can take time to build the concentration to complete the entire layout.
She is working g on the Trinomial Cube which is found in the Sensorial area, The direct purpose of the binomial and trinomial cubes is for the child to practice the steps to properly disassemble and build the cube, while refining dexterity and visual accuracy.
A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!
A HUGE thank you to all of the families that attended our Breakfast Club this morning! It was so nice to spend some time with families and friends before our school day began. We enjoyed joining conversations and hope the All About Mom and Dad papers made you smile! And a huge thank you to everyone for making my birthday special as well! My heart is full today!
This week we talked about weather! We learned that weather is what we see outside, and that it can change throughout the day! We also learned that temperature is the way it feels outside. We briefly dicussed different types of weather and will continue to do so all month long as we fill in our March weather graph. What type of weather do you think we’ll have the most of this month?
We also talked about the water cycle this week, learning big words such as: collection, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. We started a science experiment in our room that can show us all of the steps of the water cycle, and we’ll keep talking about this cycle next week as we take a deeper look at clouds.
What have the 5 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?
This child is working with the Trinomial Cube. She has practiced building the cube in the box and on the lid, and is now working with the pieces of the cube on the table.
This child is composing large numbers with the Golden Bead material in our classroom. We break numbers down into units, tens, hundreds, and thousands and then the child can use the bead material to build that number in a concrete way.
This child is using the moveable alphabet to write words without pictures. We were focusing on making “at” and “in” word families with known words and nonsense words.
This child has been working with individual sandpaper letters and is now working with the sandpaper letter blends to practice connecting letters together while writing in cursive.
This child is working with our 3 part cards. 3 part cards include a control card with picture and word, a picture card, and a word card. The child will lay out the control cards, then match the pictures cards to the control cards, and finally match the word cards. We use 3 part cards in the Language, Geography, and Science areas of the classroom to build upon our focus lessons.
International Festival News!!!
The Cherry Blossom Class will be studying the continent of AFRICA for the International Festival. We’ll be diving right in after Spring Break so make sure your child signs up for the country that they would like to represent by Friday, March 18th!
Hello Aspen families! My apologies for the time lapse and gap between blog postings! But what better way to resume a blog post than a fun filled week of Dr. Seuss inspired fun. It was a blast seeing all of the crazy socks, fun hats, mismatched outfits, mustaches, and occupational attire! At the same time, it was inspiring and interesting getting to hear what our students wanted to be when they grew up! We had lots of amazing aspirations and ideas to share with our classmates on Friday during line time. The Aspen room sure has some awesome kids with amazing goals for their future. Besides, the fun mentioned above our week included a variety of fun activities promoting the importance of literacy and word play. As a class we revisited the terms author and illustrator and discussed what those terms mean. During the work period the Aspen students were able to engage in word play with a Dr. Seuss rhyming activity where we matched pictures and words that had the same sounds, explored the vowel tree (for those students who are combining sounds), and were introduced to the pink rhyming material (for those students that have demonstrated decoding skills). The Aspen students also engaged in a group activity where we experimented writing our own rhyming story as a class. During line time, we created a list of rhyming words and created our own short story. There was a lot of silliness and laughter with this activity! Check out our story posted in the hall outside our class. The Aspen students also tried their hand at rescuing letters, counting or adding goldfish, engaged in color matching activities, and created daily Dr. Seuss themed crafts. It was a Seussical experience in the Aspen Room this week! Ask your child all about the fun we had.
In kindergarten the children started their introduction to the world of Geometry. The kindergarteners were presented lessons with the Geometric Cabinet where they learned the geometric terms for various shapes. They also discussed the concepts of angles, learned how to identify them (characteristics of angles), and learned their names. The kindergarteners then applied their geometric knowledge during the work period! They truly enjoyed finding right angles around the classroom.
During Reading Group, we took our Dr. Seuss theme and continued our fun with phonics and words by playing with different phonetic sounds. Therefore, creating many silly words. At the same time, we reviewed language rules while creating word lists. After creating our lists, we then tried our hand at recalling the words from the list we created working on retaining information and comprehending what we read! We also practiced fluency skills reading simple sentences (some with sight words).
Advanced Practical Life work- scrubbing pennies!
Matching the Presidents of the United States in chronological order.
Learning about the linear sequence of numbers beyond one hundred.
Exploring the linear sequence of numbers to one hundred!
I mustache you a question!! Dr. Seuss fun with Lorax mustaches and our cutting. activity!
Dr. Seuss inspired counting activity with goldfish crackers.
I am so excited that spring is just around the corner. We celebrated our first week of March with celebrating wonderful Dr. Seuss. We had the best time wearing silly socks, wearing crazy clothes and hair, wearing their favorite hat, wearing mustaches Wow! what a fun week.
Hibernation- During hibernation, an animal’s body temperature, heart rate, breathing, and other metabolic activities slow down significantly in order to conserve energy. While resources are scarce, hibernation allows animals like bears, chipmunks, and bats to use their stored energy much more slowly. Or when Mr. John is on Christmas Break!
Migration- A seasonal movement of animals from one region to another. Such as birds flying south for the winter. Like people who move to Florida for the winter, hehe.
Adaptation- A change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment. We did an experiment where we dipped our hands in cold water then dipped them again in cold water with butter protecting our hands
A experiment about Adaptation. We recreated blubber of animals. Hands were put in ice water (naked) and a hand was put in after in a bag of butter (blubber). The children discovered quickly the difference between cold and warm.
Did you know (It’s Impossible to Hum While You Hold Your Nose?) You can not hum while holding your nose for the same reason you can’t exhale while holding your nose and closing your mouth—to make the humming noise you have to pass air through your larynx. You can’t do that when no air can be exhaled. I bet you tried it, didn’t you?
A Message From Mr. John (Part 6 and final installment):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 25 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay)
Know Your Languages (Malay):
Enrichments (Music): Being ducks and swans in music class. I love the movement!
Peek In The Classroom:
This boy is sweeping a mess made by another student. He was not asked to do this chore and this is a prime example of caring for the environment.
She has completed stringing beads in a pattern. The benefits of threading beads for children are to improve fine motor skills: Threading beads can help to strengthen the small muscles in children’s hands as they grasp different sized beads. The benefit of developing fine motor skills through threading beads is that it uses similar hand movements to gripping a pencil. Also, it helps to establish order to one’s sense of being. It leads to higher cognitive skills as one advances in complex pattern details.
Ms. Angela helping a student with the shoe tying work. It seems he is enjoying the lesson.
He is working on the Binomial Cube found in the sensorial area. The purpose of the material is less focused on the complex mathematics behind the material, and rather is to provide a challenge for a child’s ability to find patterns and relationships between the blocks.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Art
Letter Of The Week- X x
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bel
Next Language is Hindi
Academic Enrichment: Weekly Theme: Geometry
Kinders making the best right angles that they can.
Handwriting: We practiced writing sentences in cursive.
Next Week: Weekly Theme: More Geometry – 3D shapes
Synonym Of The Week: DRY, dehydrated, arid, parched
Sight Words Of The Week: they that
Upcoming Events: A few days off and other stuff.
DAYS OFF: -No School: SPRING BREAK- March 28 through April 1 — Returning Monday April 4 -No School: Easter Monday, April 18
OTHER STUFF: Akron Art Museum Field Trip: Thursday, March 10 (from 9 am to 12 pm) IT IS FREE! (permission forms have been sent) Breakfast Club: Friday, April 8 from 7:00 am to 7:45 am
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
Oh the drama!
A smile or a sneer? You decide but look at the growling photo bomb!
Beignet heaven. A generous parent brought this in for Fat Tuesday. I had to fight off children to protect this sweet ‘Narlins treat. The family who brought this will get preferential treatment.
Showing off their muscles. The boy in the background maybe showing muscles or acting like a monkey.
A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!
“Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to great places! You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights!
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed!)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting.
So… get on your way!
– “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ by Dr. Seuss
Dear Parents,
Thank you for assisting us with a fun, silly, wonderful, fantastic week with your child! This book brings tears to our eyes as we think of all the amazing places this group of children is going to go! We love your kiddos!
– Ms. Tonya & Ms. Sam
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Topic: Weather and Clouds
Letter of the Week: Ww
Number of the Week: 16
Important Dates:
March 11: Breakfast Club!
March 24: Elementary LIVE Wax Museum – 6:00-7:00pm
A Peek At Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!
We continued learning about Our Earth this week. We focused on land and water forms, such as lake, island, cape, bay, gulf, and peninsula. We also talked about what would we would see if we could cut the Earth in half. We found out that there are different layers inside the Earth. The inner core, the outer core, the mantle, and the crust!
We also continued our study of habitats this week, focusing on the ocean, the savannah, and the desert. We participated in a science experiment with Ms. Sam, introducing us to the different zones of the ocean. We were most interested in the Twilight Zone and a special animal – the Vampire Squid! We watched a special Octonauts episode to learn even more about the Vampire Squid.
Enrichment Spotlight – ASL with Ms. Emily!
Ms. Emily was so excited to hear that we were learning about habitats! She told us a story about forest animals, all with ASL! Then we discussed the story we saw her tell and practiced signing with her! It was a wonderful ASL lesson this week!
Peek Into Next Week!
Focus Topic:Dr. Seuss!
MONDAY: Wear Crazy Socks!
TUESDAY: Wear a Hat!
WEDNESDAY: Dress Wacky!
THURSDAY: Wear Green!
FRIDAY: Dress like what you want to be when you grow up!
