Learning about form or shape in art class as we read The Cat And The Bird. Did you know that form or shapes can be found all around us? We found and observed forms in our classroom!
Using blocks of different shapes (form) to create our own designs on paper. Did you know there are warm and cool colors? We discussed and experienced the differences between these colors as we explored form.
Sharing, and helping our friends as we create our artwork!
Taste the rainbow?? Nope, Skittles are for Science Experiments!! A failed experiment? Will the colors mix?
The experiment is a success! The colors are beginning to dissolve into the water and leave the candy! Will the colors mix? Create a rainbow?
Look at all that color! The Skittles are water soluble they dissolve in water and the color will dissolve and absorb into the water! Notice how the actual colors have not yet mixed? The secret to this magic, wax in the candy!
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill
Yesterday we worked together with Ms. Courtney’s class to pack our boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Our students packed their own boxes with the help of a few parents, then helped along Ms. Courtney’s students! Each child that wanted to help, was given a part of the assembly line and a younger student. They helped the younger students choose one of each item and pack them successfully in the boxes!
CHRISTMAS SHOW COSTUME INFORMATION
Tyler and Ellie (Grinch 1 and Grinch 2) – Grinch costumes, green face paint optional, shoes that will allow them to move quickly and safely across the stage and on stairs
Caiden (Max the Dog) – dog costume – we will be adding an antler headband during the performance, so nothing on his head other than dog ears
Hana (Cindy Lou Who) – plenty of costume ideas on Amazon, Pinterest, and Google for Cindy Lou – may have extreme hair if she would like
All other students will need to dress like Whos from Whoville. I am adding some photos below for ideas, but be creative! Please do not give your child tall hair or tall head props so we can ensure all parents will be able to see their children on the risers. Cindy Lou is a taller student and her tall hair (if she chooses) will not be blocking anyone. Whos also need shoes that will allow them to move quickly and safely across the stage and on stairs.
Lower Elementary
Our Lower Elementary students are studying South America. After learning more about it with Ms. Erica, they are researching a flag and information from a country of their choice. This student has created his flag and now needs to research three fun facts!This week we packed our boxes for Operation Christmas Child! Before we were able to pack our boxes, we needed to write letters to the children that will be receiving the boxes. This second year student is using a template created by Ms. Brandy to complete her letter!
Upper Elementary
These fourth year students are helping a third year friend work on the Racks and Tubes. One student is working with the tens’ and units’ boards while the third year student is working on the thousands’ and hundreds’ boards. Our other fourth year student is helping ensure that all exchanges are correct and accurate.Each Monday our Upper Elementary students read an article about new scientific discoveries or current events. This week, they read about the Darwin Bark Spider. This spider spins the largest webs and has webs stronger than Kevlar!
Enrichments by Ms. Erica
Elementary had fun trying to stretch out wire during art class!It’s hard to believe it’s already time, but elementary is beginning to work on their Christmas play! We are excited for you to see our Bell Choirs!
Line Time: Dinosaurs- We traveled back in time and discovered some fascinating things about certain dinosaurs. We learned that dinosaurs no longer exist and that they are extinct. We know dinosaurs exist because scientist found their bones or fossils. From these fossil we saw that some teeth were long and sharp to tear flesh from it’s prey which belonged to meat eaters or carnivores (T Rex). Some teeth were flat for grinding plants, leaves, and branches and belonged to plant eaters or herbivores (Brachiosauras).
Who remembers Dino from The Flintstones?
Did You Know: Catsup and Ketchup are two different spellings of the same condiment. These words have the same meanings and are simply alternate spellings. Therefore, both are correct. Catsup is a condiment and is the less popular spelling. Ketchup is also a condiment and is the more popular spelling, which, today, is a westernized version of a condiment first introduced to European traders in the late 17th century. Ketchupwas originally a paste made from fermented fish guts (yes, it’s come a long way).
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 16 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean).
Peek In The Classroom:
This boy is working on the Spindle Box found in the Math area. The Spindle Boxes have important purposes of reinforcing the idea that the symbols represent certain quantities of separate objects, introducing the concept of zero and its symbol, and reinforcing the sequence of the numerals. The traditional spindle boxes are two boxes divided into five compartments each which includes numbers from 0 to 9.
This student is working on the Color Bead Bars. This activity is found in the Math area. The colored bead stair is a quintessential Montessori math material because it has SO many different mathematical benefits. The youngest child in primary all the way through upper elementary learns one-to-one correspondence, connecting quantity to symbol, square roots and cubes, basic operations, and complex algebraic equations.
This girl is working on her shapes. She has learned and can identify parallelogram and trapazoids, and she knows what equilateral, isosceles, and scalene triangles are.
This student is working on the Binomial Cube that is found in the Sensorial area. The Binomial Cube is one of those amazing Montessori materials that introduces abstract math concept to children as young as 4 without them even knowing it. The early sensorial experience with the cube inspires them again at age 8 or 9 when they use the cube for algebra. The material provides the all important bridge between concrete and abstract thinking and the child develops a much deeper understanding of the math. One of these days I will include the mathmatical formula.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Pilgrims, Thanksgiving
Letter Of The Week- M m
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bop
Next Language is Hungarian
Upcoming Events: Thanksgiving Break: We are off Wednesday November 27th and returning Monday December 2.
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
An obvious staged photo but it is cute.
This cheeky girl tricked me into thinking the title of the book is “Here Comes The…… Brid, lol
I think they were planning a coup because they were chatting but when I passed by…. they became quiet, very very quiet.
Weekly Theme: This week the kindergarten students did addition with carry overs (dynamic)/carry overs in multiple columns/with empty columns using the manipulatives of the Golden Beads and Stamp Game.
Handwriting: We practiced writing in cursive vowel and consonant blends of uu, ch, sh, th, wh.
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 18 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish).
Next Week: Weekly Theme: Multiplication with Golden Beads
Synonym Of The Week: SMALL, tiny, miniature, minute, little, petite
The kindergartners have been listening to the book Waiting Is Not Easy by Mo Willems. In the story, Piggie tells Gerald that he has a surprise for him. Gerald is excited but Piggie tells him he has to wait for the surprise. Elephant becomes impatient and does not want to wait anymore. Piggie tells him it will be worth the wait. After waiting all day, Piggie shows Gerald the stars and Elephant realizes it was worth the wait.
After the readings, we disscussed how Elephant was behaving while he was waiting and that sometimes it is hard to be patient. They drew a time that they had a hard time waiting, wote about what they wondered during the story, and why they thought Gerald was not happy about waiting, and then we made a chart together as a group.
A Peek Into the Next Two Weeks
-The students will be listening to My Friend is Sad
-The students will be participating in group discussions
-The students will be participating in comprehension activities
This past week we talked about the five food groups: fruits, vegetables, dairy, proteins, and grains. The students learned about MyPlate which is a healthy guide that shows how much to eat from each food group every day. As a group the children created a MyPlate chart and listed a variety of foods in each group. They also talked about how being active plays a big part of being healthy. The students learned that they should get at least one hour of exercise daily and eat healthy foods to live a healthy life.
A peek into next week: Pilgrims and Indians
Kindergarten: Addition
This week the kindergarten students used the stamp game to discover that when you put two small numbers together (addends) you get a larger number (sum) and that this process is called addition.
A peek into next week: Addition
Reminders:
11/ 14 Operation Christmas Child | Packing Party
11/22 Fall Progress Reports
11/27 – 11/29 Thanksgiving Break | NO SCHOOL
Enrichment Highlight:
In art class the students made a group art piece with a long line because they learned that a line is a dot that went on a long walk.
Work Time:
Stamp Game: These children are doing static addition (a sum without exchanging) problems using the stamp game. They are practicing addition at a higher level of abstraction.Triangle Box: This child is exploring different ways to use smaller triangles to make larger triangles.Cursive Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing an uppercase cursive M on a chalkboard. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.
“There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.” -Mahatma Ghandi
Today is our last day with Ms. Marlee. We want to thank her for all of her time and patience helping and teaching in our rooms. We will cherish our memories of all of her lessons, rap skills, and dance moves. We hope she cherishes all the moments we have forced her to love Harry Potter and insects. We love you, Ms. Marlee, and can’t wait for your next visit. Best of luck!
Lower Elementary
This first year student is working on the Addition Snake Game. This “game” is an engaging way for students to practice the memorization of their addition facts. Completing this work helps students easily understand which numbers can be added together to make ten and which combinations make more than ten.These second and third year students invented a game for our classroom about the solar system. They were inspired by our Animal Stories work which uses riddles to help students learn about different types of animals. After drawing their answer cards and writing their riddles, these students laminated their work, organized it on our shelf, and labeled it for students to easily find!
Upper Elementary
This week, our fourth year students continued their study of multiples. Using bead bars, students researched the multiples of numbers they have struggled to memorize. This student is researching the multiples of twelve to see what patterns she can find!These students reviewed the layers of the Earth recently and had to choose how they would show me what they had learned. Two of them decided to build a model of the layers of the Earth using Styrofoam. It was a messy, but incredibly creative project. Check out our Instagram later to see their end result!
Enrichments
Practicing some freestyle solos before working on our dance for the Christmas Show!
Weekly Theme: This weeek the K-kids did addition with carry overs (dynamic) using the manipulatives of the Golden Beads. Did you know the two numbers added together are called addends and the answer is called the sum?
Handwriting: We practiced writing in cursive vowel blends of ua, ue, ui, uo, uu.
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 17 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian).
Next Week: Weekly Theme: Addition with other materials
Synonym Of The Week: BIG, vast, gigantic, huge, large, enormous, colossal
This week in science class, Mr. John taught us about surface tension! We poured some pepper into a bowl of water, and then placed a cotton swab covered in dish soap into the bowl. We observed the pepper move away from the dish soap. Thank you for such a fun science class!
Line Time: This week we learned about insects and arachnids. Creepy Crawly, creepy crawly creepy creep creepy crawly (reminds me of The Who song, Boris The Spider). When we went over the five animals all of them were vertebrates (having a backbone and spine) but looking at Insects and arachnids they were invertebrates (no back bone or spine). Most had what we call an exoskeleton which is the skeleton is on the outside. This gives the creature support and protection. We learned insects have a head, thorax, and abdomen, six legs, and two antennae. We sang the characteristics of an insect to the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. Some insects are ants, bees, and butterflies. Arachnids have a head and abdomen, and eight legs. Some examples of arachnids are spiders, scorpions, ticks and mites.
Did You Know: Since it is the season… Did you know there is a difference between apple juice and apple cider? Here is the explanation. Apple cider is made from apples that are washed, cut and ground into an “apple mash” similar to applesauce. The mash is then wrapped in cloth and pressed into fresh juice. On the other hand, apple juice undergoes filtration to remove pulp and is then pasteurized to extend the shelf life.
November Birthdays: A Montessori classroom consists of students ranging in age from three years to six years. Here are our newest four and five year old students.
Grandparent’s Day:
A full house on Grandparents Day.
Alumnus Reader:
This alumnus is 10 years old and is in the 5th grade. He carried a 4.0 this term and said he misses the Montessori classroom. He is almost as tall as I am and take a look at that foot. I would be interested to see this boy’s grocery bill. All alumni are welcome to come back to my classroom and read!
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 15 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew).
Peek In The Classroom:
Surprise! This boy is working on 3 part cards on the week’s subject, birds.
One of my readers is reading the chapter books Billy B. Brown.
One of my Kindergarten students working in her Binder (The Letter Of The Week and Rhyming Word Of The week).
These girls are practicing their handwriting. One is tracing name in cursive and the other is working on her pre-cursive folder.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Dinosaurs
Letter Of The Week- L l
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bot
Next Language is Korean
Upcoming Events: Operation Christmas Child: Thursday, November 14th Check your email! Also, follow the below link to donate.
