Peek in Our Week ()() Buckeye room ()() Week Of October 11, 2021

Posted on October 15, 2021 at 7:31 pm.

Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
Amphibians- This week we looked at the Amphibian. We talked about how the Amphibians are vertebrates, cold blooded (the body temperature changes to the temperature that surrounds the amphibian), their skin is soft and moist, and they are born from jelly eggs. Some examples of Amphibians are toads, frogs, and salamanders. We learned that the term amphibian means of two worlds. Amphibians are born in the water but live their life on land. Below is the lesser know frog from the English cartoon Danger Mouse named Baron Silas Greenback.

A Message From Mr. John (Another Conundrum):

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 10 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian).

Know you Languages (Russian):

Alumnus Visit:

We had an alum from AMMS visit and read a book to the class.

Peek In The Classroom:

This is a Monday morning when Ms. Angela put new works on the shelf in Practical Life. Look at the interest and curiosity it created.

The same day as the picture above after our line time. The students dug into the new works!!!!!!! Look at the focus of the children working.

This boy composed several numbers using the golden beads/9 tray. He thought of this number by himself. Next he will learn to compose numbers with empty columns (which rocks the child’s world) then start to perform operations (addition, multiplication, subtraction, division).

This student is working with the Pink (short vowel sounds) Rhyming material. The purpose of rhyming is to provide practice in discriminating speech sounds in words which leads to beginning reading. These activities will develop phonemic awareness as well as listening skills and intonation patterns of the spoken language.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Fish

Letter Of The Week- I i

Rhyming Word Of The Week- Bin

Next Language is Romanian

Academic Enrichment:
Weekly Theme:
This week we looked at the five animals which are mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds. Look at the fancy dancy chart showing what makes that certain animal that certain animal.

Kinders pretending to be their favorite animal.

Handwriting:
We practiced writing in cursive vowel blends of Yy Zz Aa Ee

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Parts Of plants, Arachnids, and Insects

Synonym Of The Week: HOT, burning, scorching, blazing, boiling, sizzling

Sight Words Of The Week: she were

Upcoming Events:
Halloween Party- Friday, October 29, 2021 (details to follow)

Book Fair- Monday, October 25, 2021 through Monday, November 1, 2021

P/T CONFERENCES- Friday, November, 12, 2021 (details to follow) **** NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS ****

THANKSGIVING BREAK- Wednesday, November 24 to Sunday November 28 (returning Monday, November 29)

Friends, Frolic, and Fun:

This not a mustache it is dirt. In Mr. John’s class we work hard and play hard.

Your Kids Say The Darndest Things (My Sister):

A Peek At Our Week – Cherry Blossom – Week of 10/11/21

Posted on October 15, 2021 at 1:36 pm.

Written by Tonya Shaw

A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We continued our classroom study of Fall and the change of seasons, with a focus this week on leaves. We discussed the parts of a leaf, as well as why leaves change color in the fall. We talked about how chlorophyll is the green pigment inside of the leaf and its job is to absorb the sunlight and change that sunlight into food for the tree. We also discussed how the pigments yellow, orange, and red are inside of the leaf all along, but the chlorophyll covers it up during the spring and summer. During Preschool Lesson, Ms. Sam introduced us to a science experiment where we saw that leaves breathe! Lots of awesome facts this week! We also made beautiful leaf suncatchers that you can spy hanging up in our windows of the classroom.

What have the 4 year olds been up to in our mixed age classroom?

This child is Weaving Ribbons in our Practical Life area. Weaving is an excellent activity to work on the child’s fine motor skills.

This child is working with our Touch Tablets from our Sensorial area. These tablets consist of different types of sandpaper, ranging from less rough to roughest. The child can use their sense of touch to either pair the matching tablets or gradate them, or they can do both at once!

This child is working with the Table Top Rods with Symbols (In Order) from our Math area. The Table Top Rods are a smaller version of a familiar classroom work – the Number Rods! The child practices placing the numerals in order from 1-10, and then counts the blue and red sections of the rod, matching them to the correct numerals.

This child is working with Cards and Counters from our Math Area. We include different types of cards and counters in the classroom to keep this work interesting for the children. We’ve been working with trees and leaves for a couple weeks.

This child is working in his Handwriting Folder, a part of our Language area. Each week we study a new letter within our classroom. We not only practice the letter name and letter sound, we also practice writing our letter of the week. We write our letter in the air with our arm, on a large piece of paper, and then in our Handwriting Folders.

This child is working on coloring a World Map in our Geography area of the classroom. Each of the continents have a corresponding color within the Montessori Classroom. We’ve been focusing on North America because that is where we live, but the class favors Antarctica because of the penguins!

This child is working on Tracing and Labeling the Parts of a Tree from our Science area. The child traces the control card, and then uses the control card to assist in writing the parts of the plant. The child can also color this work to match out Parts of a Tree nomenclature cards like this child is doing!

Enrichment Spotlight – Art with Ms. Varela!

Ms. Varela introduced us to Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings of sunflowers. We have spent the past couple of art lessons creating our own paintings of sunflowers using watercolor pencils!

Peek Into Next Week!

We have completed our study of the season of Fall/Autumn with a focus on plants. Next week we will begin our Classification of Animals study which will last a few weeks. We will begin with Vertebrates and Invertebrates and Mammals.

Letter: Vv

Number: 6

Languages: Greetings & Manners in German and ASL

Important Dates:

October 26 – November 1: Usborne Book Fair

October 29: Halloween Party

ASPEN- A Peek At Our Week : October 4, 2021- The World Of Color!!

Posted on October 10, 2021 at 8:04 pm.

Written by Kelley Laney

Color is all around us and this week in Aspen we explored all things color! First, we learned all about Primary Colors and then experimented with them with our Color Mixing work! We discovered that when we mixed certain primary color combinations we got new colors! These new colors are called the Secondary Colors. After creating our color mixing combinations we then experimented mixing secondary color combinations! Ask your little artist/scientist what they discovered while color mixing this week! Many of the students figured out how to create various shades with their color mixing experimentation. As a result, we then discussed the color wheel and the concepts of warm and cool colors. We then applied the concepts we learned to create suncatchers for our windows. Finally, we learned our color names in Spanish with Ms.Sandy and read a book Olivia brought in to share with us! It sure was a fun and colorful week in the Aspen Room.

In kindergarten it was all about landforms this week. They discussed lake, island, cape, bay, peninsula, and gulf with Mr. John during kindergarten lesson. We then explored these concepts further with our Land and Water forms activity! In reading group we continued to work on our confidence with a variety of Sound Detective games, phonograms (letter teams), and Fluency. We also engaged in a Reading Comprehension activity by reading a nonfiction informative paragraph. The kindergarteners then took turns answering questions pertaining to the paragraph. Therefore, exploring concepts such as finding information within a text selection, recalling facts, and linking facts to practice reasoning skills.

Next week our topic is Skeletons!

Practicing to refine the fine motor skills by using the tweezers to remove sunflower seeds from a sunflower!

Indirect preparation for writing! Practicing using the pincer grasp by using tweezers to remove sunflower seeds. Also, note how focused she is! This work also allows for the child to learn how to engage their mind to focus and concentrate for lengthy periods of time.

Exploring the concepts of Warm and Cool Colors by sorting and classifying them.

Ms. Emily came in and taught us how to Sign the letters of the Alphabet! Ms. Emily will be presenting weekly American Sign Language lessons to the children every Friday!

A Peek Into Our Week – Cherry Blossom – Week of 10/4/21

Posted on October 8, 2021 at 4:27 pm.

Written by Tonya Shaw

A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

We continued our classroom study of Fall and the change of seasons, with a focus this week on trees. We discussed the parts of a tree, as well as its life cycle. We even practiced being a tree as we practiced yoga and mindfulness.

This week was also our very first Wildlife Wednesday! On Wildlife Wednesdays we will travel outdoors, weather permitting, to explore all that nature can teach us. This week our focus was on the change of seasons and how that was effecting the trees. We were scientists using our five senses! We observed, took notes, and had a wonderful discussion about all of the changes we noticed!

We also had a new Enrichment begin this week! Our after school instructor Miss Emily will be visiting our class on Fridays to teach us American Sign Language! We practiced our letters and were introduced to the signs for colors. We already use some ASL signs during our day so we are very excited to learn more from Miss Emily this year!

The Cherry Blossom Class has been loving this warm fall weather!

Even firefighters have some learning to do! We were lucky enough to watch the firefighters practice using their hoses in our parking lot this week!

Peek Into Next Week!

We will continue to learn about Fall/Autumn, as well as study the Parts of a Leaf. We will be discussing why leaves are so important to trees and why they change colors in the fall.

Letter: Nn

Number: Review 1-5

Peek In Our Week @@ Buckeye Room @@ Week Of October 4, 2021

Posted on October 7, 2021 at 3:06 pm.

Written by John Kotradi

The Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
Reptiles- This week we learned about reptiles and what makes a reptile a reptile. Reptiles are vertebrates, cold blooded (body temperature changes to the temperature around them), they are born from hard shelled eggs and their skin is dry, with scales. Some examples of reptiles are snakes, turtles, and lizards. Below was my childhood Saturday TV entertainment (notice how it is in black and white?).

Who Is Afraid Of Snakes? I Ain’t Of No Snakes (tune of Ghost Busters)

Did You Know?
Does hot water freeze faster than cold water? This is known as the Mpemba effect. Evaporation is the strongest candidate to explain the Mpemba effect. As hot water is placed in an open container the water begins to cool, the overall mass decreases as some of the water evaporates. With less water to freeze, the process can take less time. My thoughts is that it is a misnomer due to less ice is produced. But who am I to say?

October 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 student.

A Message From Mr. John (How We Start Our day):

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 10 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian).

Know Your Languages (Italian):

Peek In The Classroom:

This girl is working on the Ten Board which is a math material. These full size Séguin tens boards teach the child the number names, symbols and sequence from 10 to 99 and further strengthens the relationship between quantity and symbol.

A group of children are working on puzzle maps. The aim of the Puzzle Maps allow the child to physically see, hold, and trace sections of the world in order to identify each continent, country, and state that is represented in the puzzles. The knobs on each piece help strengthen fine motor skills.

She is working on a math material called The Nine Tray. The 9 Tray is an important lesson in the sequence of the golden bead work. It entails an elaborate set up, as well as mastery of building numbers, using unit beads, ten bars, hundred squares and thousand cubes. Allowing the children to concretely see the growth of numbers through the hierarchy of the decimal system it is a wonderful introduction to place value and organization of the ‘Golden Bead’ materials.

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Amphibians

Letter Of The Week- H h

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bit

Next Language is Russian

Academic Enrichment:
Weekly Theme:
We looked at ten different land forms. We looked at the pairings of islands and lakes, bays and capes, peninsulas and gulfs, and chain of lakes and archipelago.

Handwriting:
We practiced writing in cursive Vv, Ww, Xx

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Parts Of Animals

Synonym Of The Week: CALM, peaceful, quiet, inactive, serene, slow

Sight Words Of The Week: for with

Upcoming Events:
Halloween Party- Friday, October 29, 2021 (details to follow)

Friends, Frolic, and Fun:

Cutey Patutey with earrings and fancy hair which stayed in place all day.

I thought this was a Rorschach Test. She says it is a kitty. I see an scary clown. Everyone sees an scary clown, right? RIGHT?

Another one who knows what a camera is for.

Your Children Say The Darndest Things (My Sister Lily)

Peek At Our Week: September 27, 2020- Pumpkins!

Posted on October 3, 2021 at 11:30 pm.

Written by Kelley Laney

Hello Aspen families!! This week it was All About Pumpkins in the Aspen room. We learned how they grow, where they grow, studied the life cycle of a pumpkin, and watched a How They Grow: Pumpkins video on YouTube. At the same time, we also practiced our fine motor skills with a variety of pumpkin themed activities from our Practical Life shelf! We practiced pumpkin patterns, pouring pumpkin seeds, spooning pumpkins, transferring pumpkins using tongs, and scrubbing pumpkins. We also discussed the parts of a pumpkin and cut open pumpkins and a squash to observe each part. Ask your child about our pumpkin botany tray. Finally, the Aspen class explored number concepts counting pumpkin seeds!

The Kindergarten students have been discussing the vocabulary of location of where they live from largest to smallest. For example, Galaxy, Cluster of Planets, Hemisphere, Continent, County, State, County, City, and Street Address. They have also been practicing writing their address. Next week the kindergarten students will be learning all about land forms!

In reading group we continued to practice CVC words or consonant vowel consonant phonetic words! We first discussed what consonants and vowels were and then took turns sounding out phonetic words practicing being “Sound Detectives”. A Sound Detective uses sound(letter) clues when reading a word. They were all amazing detectives so to challenge them more we discussed how our language has many words that do not follow our phonetic rules! Therefore, we discussed that sometimes being a good sound detective requires us to learn new sound rules like letter teams. The kindergarten students then practiced sounding out words with letter teams like SH, FL, ST, and EE. In Montessori we call these letter teams phonograms. This week the kindergarteners also began work with their handwriting journal pages! We practiced forming each letter by sky writing with our hands and then practiced on lined paper. They learned the names of each line and where to form the lowercase i on the lines. The lowercase i is considered a swing letter because you have to swing up to the midline before returning to the baseline (bottom line).

Helping a friend with the Fall Classification activity!

Using tongs to transfer pumpkins into a pumpkin shaped ice tray.

Peek In Our Week ^^ Buckeye Room ^^ Week Of September 27, 2021

Posted on October 1, 2021 at 7:39 pm.

Written by John Kotradi

The Buckeye Room Bulletin

Line Time:
Mammals-This past week we learned about Mammals. Mammals are vertebrates (have a spine or backbone), warm blooded (their body temperature does not change), have hair or fur, live bearers, and eat/drink mother’s milk when young. Some mammals live in the water such as dolphins and whales. The only mammal that can fly is the bat! Cats, dogs, elephants, and rats are mammals. Oh, and people are mammals as well. “Are we not men? We are MAMMALS………. ”

I have to do this every year…. If you want to play Six Degrees Of Separation for DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh’s (front man for DEVO) brother does the confirmation classes for my church. Also, I do childcare at the church and I have cared for his niece’s children. I know useless but interesting information. Bonus trivia: Mark Mothersbaugh went to Woodridge High School.

Did you know?
Since football season is upon us it would be apropos to share this knowledge of the defensive term of “Blitz”. The term “Blitz” comes from the German word blitzkrieg, which means, “lightning war.” In World War II, the Germans employed this tactic which emphasized mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise.

A Message From Mr. John (Music Fills My Soul):

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can now count to ten in 10 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect).

Know Your Languages (Arabic With The Lebanese Dialect):

Peek In The Classroom:

This girl is working on the Number Rods that is found in the Math area. The Number Rods help children learn the names of numbers and their sequence and learn to correctly associate between the spoken number and its quantity. Children grow to understand that each rod represents a unique quantity and that each number is represented by a single object as a whole, separate from others.

She is working on the Table top Number Rods which is exactly the same as the above mentioned Number Rods but smaller.

This boy is working on the Introduction To The Decimal System. In the Decimal System, the children first explore the golden bead materials sensorially. They learn from concrete to abstract, combining the golden beads with the abstract color coded numerals, building their association of quantity and symbol. Notice how this boy has an very interested observer.

This boy is working on the Knobless Cylinders with the corresponding work named the Knobbed Cylinders. Do you notice how he is finding the relationship between the two works?

Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time- Reptiles

Letter Of The Week- G g

Rhyming Word Of The Week- bid

Next Language is Italian

Academic Enrichment aka kindergarten:
Biggest to smallest where we live- We discovered we live in the vast galaxy of the Milky Way (not the candy bar), then we are still in space and live in a group of planets called The Solar System. Then the planet we live is the planet Earth. Once we touched down we found we live in the Northwestern Hemisphere and live on the continent of North America. Once we found land we live in the country of The United States Of America and live in the great state of Ohio (Go Buckeyes). We all live in Summit County but live in different cities and have different addresses and phone numbers. What a journey it was!

Two students are missing and where did they go? They don’t know.

Handwriting:
We practiced writing in cursive Ss, Tt, Uu

Next Week:
Weekly Theme: Landforms

Synonym Of The Week: ACTIVE: lively, energetic, dynamic, vigorous

Sight Words Of The Week: you his

Upcoming Events:
Picture Day- Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Halloween Party- Friday, October 29, 2021 (details to follow)

Frolic, Friends, and Fun:

I am not sure what is being discussed but I am afraid there is going to be a coup.

Oh she knows when a camera is pointing her way.

Yah shoulda seen the other guy (her arm).

Your Kids Say The Darndest Things (I Like School):

A Peek Into Our Week – Cherry Blossom – Week of 9/27/21

Posted on October 1, 2021 at 4:27 pm.

Written by Tonya Shaw

A Peek at Our Week in the Cherry Blossom Classroom!

This week was all about Fall. We talked about all of the things we will notice as summer changes to fall. The temperature outside will become cooler, the leaves will change colors and fall from the trees. We talked about what different animals, like squirrels and birds, are doing to prepare for the change in seasons.

We also discussed the 4 Seasons this week. This is a topic we will return to several times this school year as we take the time to observe the world around us as it changes.

Also… Happy Birthday Ms. Sam! We hope you enjoy your special day!

Your Children Worked HARD This Week!

We saw our first signs of normalization within our classroom this week. “Normalization is the foundation upon which ‘spontaneous discipline, continuous and happy work, social sentiments of help and sympathy for others.…’ (The Absorbent Mind) arise. It is a time where children learn to focus and concentrate their energies for long periods of time, while taking personal satisfaction in their work.”

This child is using the Sand Tray with the Sandpaper Numbers to practice writing the numerals with her finger.

This child is using the Sand Tray with the Cursive Sandpaper Letters to prepare for handwriting.

This child is reviewing the letters and letter sounds that we have been working on in the classroom. He is using his knowledge of letter sounds to place the picture under the sound that the word begins with.

Ms. Tonya introducing a child to the Moveable Alphabet. This child is using her knowledge of letter sounds to sound out the words “cat”, “car”, and “rat” using pictures as a guide.

This child is being introduced to the names of the continents using the Continent Globe and the World Map Puzzle.

Ms. Tonya introducing a child to an extension with the World Map Puzzle. Now that this child is comfortable with the map of the continents, he can trace them to create his own map.

Check out that map! Do I also spy the word “World” written on the top in cursive?!?

Work Plans are still going well in our classroom with our older students! Some of the children have begun to write their own work choices onto their work plan!

Peek Into Next Week!

We will continue to learn about about Fall/Autumn, as well as study the Parts of a Tree. We will spend some extra time outside this week as we observe some of the trees around our school building.

Letter: Ee

Number: 5

Sight Word: is

PICTURE DAY is on Tuesday, October 5th!

For Parents that signed up to be a party helper – look for the Halloween Party Sign Up in your email soon! Halloween Party with be on Friday, October 29th!

A Peek At Our Week: September 20, 2021- All About Apples

Posted on September 24, 2021 at 7:30 pm.

Written by Kelley Laney

This week in Aspen, it was All About Apples! We learned how apples grow, classified different types of apples, and discussed the parts of an apple. We also took an apple taste test and tried different varieties of apples! Ask your child what kind of apple was their favorite! After exploring these concepts we watched a video called How Does It Grow: Apples. We learned many interesting facts about apples. For example, did you know… that apples are actually part of the rose family? Did you also know… that the apples we eat today were not native to North America? Your child is now an apple expert, they can tell you all about these facts and more! We also explored various numerical concepts and fractions as we sliced the apples for our taste test. For fun thematic crafts, we created apple prints with the apples we sliced and made apple sun catchers. It sure was a fun week! Ask your child about their apple adventures in the Aspen room this week!

Kindergarten students continued their work with geography and hemispheres this week! They also learned some interesting geographical facts. Please make sure that your child is completing their homework and returning it the following day.

Having fun counting apples on an apple tree! (Equating Numbers with their corresponding symbols)

Cylinder Block extension activity and memory training activity! Grading knobbed cylinders from a distance.

Fun creating works of art with Ms. Varela.

A Peek Into Our Week – Cherry Blossom – Week of 9/20/21

Posted on September 24, 2021 at 7:14 pm.

Written by Tonya Shaw

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