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.
Kindergarten students holding up their favorite land form.
Handwriting: We practiced writing in cursive Zz and vowel blends of ae, ai, ao, au
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 13 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish).
Next Week: Weekly Theme: Parts Of Animals
Synonym Of The Week: HOT:burning, scorching, blazing, boiling, sizzling
This week in music we used the tambourines and scarves to match the beat in different songs. Some songs were smooth and some songs were choppy. Thank you Ms. Lisa for a great music class!
This week our “Peek” was written by our students! These students read our previous blogs, took pictures around the room, and filled in a blog template. The students did some editing together, and with a teacher, so what you will read below is their final product. There are still some misspelled words in their final product, but in a Montessori classroom we focus on the process, instead of the end result. Dr. Montessori believed when we put all of the emphasis on the final product, we devalue everything leading up to that point. This can discourage repetition which will make mastery of a skill difficult. The purpose of the students writing the blog is to provide you with a glimpse into the room through their eyes, to provide them with practice of real world skills, and to give them a deeper understanding of the materials in the room. We hope you enjoy their work!
“A Peek at Our Week” by Camilla (Fifth Year) and Ellie (Second Year)
This week the Upper Elemantry went on a field trip to Hale Farm where we learned about the era of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. We learned to make brooms, yarn, and apple cider. We learned the chores and hardships of living as a child on a farm in the early 1800’s. We learned what they ate and how they cooked it. Everyone of course loved the glass blowing demonstration.
Ms. Marlee is teaching the second graders different types of sentances. This is a lesson about the many different ways to write, say, and improve a sentance.She is wroking on her journal. She is writing about a dog.They are wroking on handwriting. When they are done they will work on something else.He is working on the changing bases. They are working as hard as they can.
REMINDERS:
Thursday, October 17 – Picture Day
Monday, October 21 – Elementary performance of “Give Me Back My Bones” at Mulberry Gardens. Details to follow.
Tuesday, October 22 – Grandparents’ Day
Thursday, October 31 – 8:30 in the gym – “Give Me Back My Bones” performance for Ms. Courtney’s class and Elementary parents!
Friday, November 1 – Performance of “Give Me Back My Bones” at Cuyahoga Falls Campus and Halloween Party. Details to follow.
Over the past two weeks, we read the book My New Friend Is So Fun. In this book, Elephant and Snake find out that their best friends are playing together. They get worried that their best friends are having more fun together and will forget about them. It ends up that Piggie and Brian Bat (Elephant and Snake’s best friends) were playing best friend games. They decided to draw their best friends, Elephant and Snake. At the end the two main characters are happy their friends are having fun.
After the readings, the kindergartners participated in discussions, writing activities, and drawing activities to aid in comprehension. Once the students are finished with their papers, they share and we discuss their ideas.
The kindergartners are drawing Piggie and Brian Bat playing best friend games.This sudent is sharing her drawing with the group.
A Peek Into the Next Two Weeks
-The students will be listening to the Mo Willems book, We Are in a Book.
-The students will be participating in comprehension and evaluative activities.
-The students will be participating in a craft that goes along with the story.
This past week the students learned about various parts of the human body. They discovered that even though all of the components of the human body work differently, they still manage to work together. They also developed an understanding of the basic functions of the bodies main components.
A peek into next week: Leaves
Kindergarten: Landforms
The past week the kindergarten students learned and explored the difference between a lake, island, bay, peninsula, gulf, cape, isthmus, strait, chain of lakes, and archipelago.
A peek into next week: Biggest (galaxy) to Smallest (person/atom)
Reminders:
10/17 Picture Day
10/18 Bring Your Parent to Work Time
10/24 Grandparents Day
11/1 Halloween Party
Enrichment Highlight:
This week in dance class we practiced our combinations across the floor and worked on improving our coffee grinder technique.
Work Time:
Movable Alphabet:This child is practicing blending and forming words using the different letter sounds he has mastered box, hat, drum, sled and trumpet.Forty-Five 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 6 units and add 1 more unit than he will have 7 units.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.
We had a great time in art class! Ms. Dana had us rotate through stations and explore with different types of materials such as paint, markers, and play dough. Thank you for a fun week in art class!
We had such a fun week this week!! Our theme was all about pumpkins!! Together we had fun doing a pumpkin investigation which included giving a description of what our pumpkin looked like, measuring our pumpkin with the pink tower blocks, seeing if our pumpkin sinks or floats, and we counted the pumpkin seeds! We also talked about the like cycle of a pumpkin, and labeled the different parts of the pumpkin!! They had a blast!! Our class also had fun creating different pumpkin crafts and science experiments!!
How does cutting help a child’s development? The opening and closing motion of cutting with scissors helps children develop the small muscles in their hands otherwise known as fine motor skills. These muscles are crucial for holding a pencil or crayons and gripping and manipulating small objects.Our kindergarten friend is working on the Vowel tree. The vowel tree is tactile, engaging way to teach and practice decoding words. This manipulative can be used with beginning readers to more advanced readers.The direct purpose of the sandpaper letters is to teach the child sounds of the alphabet by means of muscular and visual memory.
REMINDERS:
Book share is every Friday!
Friday I will be sending out Halloween party sign ups!
Please keep ALL toys in car or at home!! Thank you!!
Line Time: Mammals-This past week we learned about Mammalus. 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………. ”
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.
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 10 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian).
October Birthdays: In the Montessori classroom we have students ranging from 2.5 to 6 years old. Here are our newest 3, 4, 5 year old students.
Peek In The Classroom:
These proud girls are doing equations (addition) with the golden beads. Montessori math uses the golden bead material; first to build numbers into the thousands. Once a child is able to build a visual representation of a number, the beads are used to teach basic operations. Young children are able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers into the thousands using this material.
These girls are working on the Knobbed Cylinders. The Knobbed Cylinders are a Montessori sensorial material, designed to assist children in making distinctions in their immediate environment. This material primarily engages the senses of touch and sight. The material is comprised of 10 different cylinders with ‘knobs’ used to hold each object using the pincer grip. I like how they are working together and how focused they are.
This student is working on the Brown Stair found in the Sensorial area. The Brown Stair helps us see relationship and a visual understanding of objects getting incrementally thinner and thicker. Another purpose for this material is called “materialized abstractions” – the sensorial materials help bring concepts that were abstract into the concrete. I especially love the focused expression!
These boys are working on a pre-cursive handwriting material using a dry erase marker on a wipe board. In the classroom we teach cursive to children as young as three years old. The letters flow together because it’s easier and quicker. It is our unique hand writing. Cursive means “running”, and is simply quicker than picking up and putting down the pen for each letter. Visually, in cursive, all the letters that compose one word are touching, the same way we say them.
Peek Into Next Week: Line Time- Reptiles
Letter Of The Week- G g
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bid
Next Language is Russian
Person bringing snack for week of 10/7/2018 is Chase
Weekly Theme: 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!
Handwriting: We practiced writing in cursive Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz
A few of the kindergarten students practicing cursive handwriting. The one on the left may be having too much fun.
Cultural Subjects: We now can count to ten in 10 languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian).
Next Week: Weekly Theme: Landforms
Synonym Of The Week: Calm: peaceful, quiet, inactive, serene, slow
