We have had a busy few weeks as we’ve begun our newest unit of study – outer space! We studied the planets of our solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. We discussed characteristics of each of these planets and learned about the rocky planets vs the gas giants. We also talked about dwarf planets so Ms. Tonya could include Pluto in our discussions. We learned what the word orbit means, and discussed asteriods, comets, the Moon, the Sun, and stars. Did you know that stars come in four colors? Yellow, white, blue, and red!
Right to Read Week!
What a fun week celebrating reading within our classroom! Right to Read week encourages everyone to read books for fun, and what books are more fun than Dr. Seuss books! We read many Dr. Seuss books this week, noticed rhyming words and nonsense words along the way, and had a blast with our dress up days!
Work Time is the BEST!
Coming Up Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Space – Our Galaxy and the Universe
Important Dates:
Tuesday, March 19 – Elementary Science Fair
March 25 – April 1 – Spring Break! School resumes Tuesday, April 2
Line Time: This week we went back in time and took a look at Ancient Greece and talked about Greek Mythology. The Greek Gods hung out on Mt. Olympus and we learned the King of all Gods was Zeus and if you made him angry he had a lightning bolt in his hand that he would throw at you. Zeus had a wife named Hera and she was the Goddess of Marriage. If you were a sailor you dare not make Poseidon angry because he was the the God of the Seas and held a trident (a fork like spear) in his hand. Zeus had a brother that he sent to the under world and that God was named Hades. Hades had a pet that was a three headed dog named Cerberus. We also learned about Pan and Medusa.
Did You Know?
People used to say “prunes” when taking pictures. In the 1840s, it was considered childish to smile for pictures so it became popular for people to say “prunes” instead of “cheese” in order to keep their mouths taut.
AMessage From Mr. John (Corroborating My Dad’s Story):
Corb sent a letter to NBC telling them that the guy was his dad. NBC sent him a 8×10 autograph picture of Ted Danson, LOLOLOLOLOLMr. Corbin the blonde in the middle.
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 23 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation).
Know Your Languages (Serbo-Croation):
Nature Center:
Spots first shed in the classroom. Meet the newest addition the Pac Man Frog named Jabba!
Know your languages (Serbo-Croation):
Peek In The Classroom:
They are exploring the “Tree Bin” where they can find and feel different nuts and branches. She traced and labeled Elvis the Pelvis.He is working on the 9 Tray. The aim of the 9 Layout lesson is to help children understand number placement (1s, 10s, 100s, 1000s) as well as reiterate the association between quantity and numeral. It’s one of the lengthier mathematics activities and is good for encouraging concentration.He is making creations with the Geometric Construction Boxes.
Line Time: We went back in time and learned about Ancient Egypt. We learned that the leaders or kings were called Pharaohs and when a king died they used a method to preserve them called mummification. The pharaohs that were mummified look nothing like you see at Halloween or on cartoons. The ancient Egyptians had a a written language called hieroglyphics which incorporated symbols such as cats,humans, and other daily objects. We also learned that the ancient Egyptians were responsible for building the Great Pyramids and The Sphinx which has the body of a lion and a head of a man.
The first time I saw this video was at The Ohio State University with my roommate. When Susanna Hoffs did that side eye my roommate was never the same after viewing that. And, how much hairspray did they go through in a week?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vth-T1u7A58
Did You Know?
Creed from The Office was in the sixties band called The Grass Roots and they scored 2 top ten hits. Creed is the guitarist in the blue at the beginning of the video.
AMessage From Mr. John (Water and waves):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 22 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish).
Nature Center:
Our newest addition to Thee Buckeye Room’s Nature Center. Spots the Leopard Gecko! More to come.
Specials Spot (ASL):
Know your languages (Polish):
Peek In The Classroom:
Concentrating on stringing pasta strengthens fine motor skills and focus.Making pyramids. Apropos for the week’s theme.Skip counting. This activity allows the child to visually see what it looks like when skip counting. Indirectly, the activity prepares the mind for multiplication, squaring, and cubing.Scissor cutting develops her fine motor skills.
Letter Of The Week- W w
Rhyming Word Of The Week- beg
Language- Polish
Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. Telling Time (to the minute) Math.. Multiplication Math Facts Language.. Prepositions Diagram Packet Geometry.. Review Triangle Box 1
Next Week: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. Coins Math.. Multiplication Math Facts Language.. Interjections Geometry.. Rectangle Box 1
Synonym Of The Week: BAD, incorrect, awful, unsatisfactory, faulty, defective
Sight Words Of The Week: then out
Future Happenings: Spring Break: From March 25 to April 1/ RETURNING April 2
International Festival Rehearsal: Wednesday April 24 Cuyahoga Falls High School
International Festival Show: Friday April 26 Cuyahoga Falls High School
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
Queen TutsTwo cool girlsYa shoulda seen the other guy.I ain’t scared of no bugs.
Your Children Say The Darndest Things (My birthday):
Line Time: We first learned about George Washington and how he was our first president and was the General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln came from a poor family, freed the slaves and was president during the Civil War. We were introduced to Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he was president during World War II and how John F. Kennedy fought for equal rights. We then learned that Joe Biden was current president. The children were taught that the president’s wives are called the first lady and that the president lives in the white house in Washington DC, and flies on a jet called Air Force 1. We discussed what responsibilities the President has. The children came up with keeping us safe, keeping the world safe, and running the country.
Presidents Of The United States Of America (Wasn’t that a 90’s band? Gunna eat a lot of peaches!)…
Did You Know?:
You can now get a headstone with a QR code. Called “Living Headstones”, they show pages with photos, video biographies, and comments from loved ones.
AMessage From Mr. John (Just giving up on the weekend):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 21 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish).
Know Your Languages (Dutch/Flemmish):
Peek In The Classroom:
She is learning to recognize numbers from 0 to 9 and put them in order. Working on the 9 tray where she will learn to identify and compose numbers from 1 to 9,999.Sewing with real thread and real needle.
Letter Of The Week- U u
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bet
Language- Dutch/Flemmish
Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. Telling Time (quarter til) Math.. Addition Math Facts Language.. Prepositions Geometry.. N/A
Next Week: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. M/A Math.. Addition Math Facts Language.. Prepositions Geometry.. Square Pythagoras
Synonym Of The Week: APPROPRIATE, suitable, fitting, apropos, correct, proper Sight Words Of The Week: would about
Nope…… Not even going to try that with medical staff present.Now that’s a bow! Who remembers The Flying Nun? Maybe your parents do. Did they plan this?
Your Children Say The Darndest Things (Mari my friend):
We have had such a fun time the past two weeks learning about the insides of our bodies! We’ve learned about the brain, the lungs, the heart, the stomach, the small and large intestions, and the kidneys. Each of these body parts have a super important job to do, and we learned all about it! We also had fun identifying where inside of our bodies each organ is.
Preschool Corner:
Preschoolers are busy! They’re counting internal organs, using the Moveable Alphabet to isolate beginning sounds, tracing and labeling animals, and completing the 45 layout with the Golden Beads! This time of year is a time of big growth for our preschool students, many of them are entering a sensitive period where their math, language, and handwriting skills will grow immensely in the months we have left. It’s such a magical time of year, full of excitement and pride in their work!
Kindergarten Corner:
Kindergarteners are doing some big kid works! They are gathering data by asking questions of their classmates, telling time on an analog clock, and reading challenging words. In Reader’s Workshop, our older Blossoms have been introduced to the parts of speech – noun, verb, and adjective. In Writer’s Workshop, children have completed their unit on How To Books, and started Personal Narratives as we work on sentence structure, which words should be capitalized, and punctuation.
Check out what we’ve been up to!
We have had so much fun in the classroom over the past few weeks! We celebrated the 100th Day of School with some 100 year old ladies and gentlemen. One of these older gentleman used his walker to give you a hint about which continent we’ll be studying for the upcoming International Festival. We also celebrated Valentine’s Day with Candy Heart Graphing, dancing, a game of Musical Hearts, a treat, and Curious George’s Valentine’s Day.
Peek into Next Week!
Focus Lesson: Healthy Foods (5 Food Groups)
* We will be checking our lunch boxes each day next week to see if we can find the 5 food groups every day!
*We will also be preparing our own snack next week, eating one food group each day! Thank you to all the parents that are providing food items for us! Your child does not need to pack a snack next week!
Line Time: Pollution and Recycling The class went green for the week learning about recycling, conserving energy, and pollution. I explained that pollution was anything that made our environment dirty. We learned there is littering. Littering can be people throwing trash on the side of the road or dropping a candy wrapper in the woods. We now know that we need to put trash in an appropriate container. We learned that air pollution is created by factories’ smokestacks and cars exhaust, but cars are just one of the factors that produce air pollution, there are also other reasons. Water Pollution is caused by factories dumping chemicals in the water or people throwing trash in the water instead of putting it in a trash can. The 3 R’s were introduced and now we all know to reduce, reuse and recycle! We thought of ways to conserve energy. We came up with turning off lights in rooms we are not in or turning off the TV if we are not watching it. We thought of turning off the water while we are brushing our teeth or turning down the heat and wearing a sweater instead. During the kindergarten lesson a student realized the room was just as light with the lights off as it was if the lights were on. Now we do our kindergarten lesson without lights.
Did You Know?: Banging your head against a wall burns 150 calories. This is better than going Keto. lol. Those heavy metalers have got something here.
AMessage From Mr. John (Do I need a haircut?):
I am going for the Joey Ramone look!
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 20 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh).
Know Your Languages (Welsh):
February Half Birthdays: A Montessori classroom prides itself on having a multi-aged classroom.
Specials Spot:
Peek In The Classroom:
Working together on the 100 Board. This material you put the numbers in order from 1 to 100.Teamwork!He is working on the Vowel Tree or Vowel Substitution. This is a pre reading material. The Vowel Tree helps children develop the pre-reading skill, word blends. If a Vowel Tree is new to you, here are a few tips. Start by placing one consonant from your moveable alphabet, such as ”r” in front of “a”. Say “ra” to the child.She is peeling and cutting carrots for a “real purpose” of providing food for the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.
Peek Into Our Week: Line Time- Pollution and recycling
Letter Of The Week- T t
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bed
Language Welsh
Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. Telling Time (quarter after) Math.. Addition Math Facts Language.. Conjunctions Geometry.. Square Pythagoras
Next Week: Weekly Themes: Cultural.. Telling Time (quarter til) Math.. Addition Math Facts Language.. Prepositions Geometry.. Square Pythagoras
Synonym Of The Week: APPROPRIATE, suitable, fitting, apropos, correct, proper Sight Words Of The Week: would about
The tracking has ended since the flower bloomed and it looks suspiciously like a work in the classroom.
Friday 2/16 :NO SCHOOL Teacher training/In-Service Day
Monday 2/19:NO SCHOOL President’s Day
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
I thought this was a “You should have seen the other guy” moment but the scratch was only Nutella. This is some fancy dancy hair.Up close and personal with our Ball Python, Milky Way.
Your Children Say The Darndest Things (My brother and sister):
We began our study of the Human Body this week – beginning with our skeletons! Our skeletons are such an important part of our body since they hold us up, help us move, make our blood, and protect some very important organs inside of us. After this week, your child should be able to show you where their skull, spine, ribs, pelvis, femur, and humorous bones are. They can also wiggle their philanges! We put skeletons together this week, traced and labeled them, and created some extremely cute artist renditions of them!
Preschool Corner:
Preschoolers continued with their very big works this week! Our older preschoolers completed their Continent Maps that you can see hanging up in the hallway. They worked hard on these and it shows! Some of our other preschoolers tried new work activities for the very first time – like tracing a fish and completing 1-20 on the 100 Board! We’re so proud of them!
Kindergarten Corner:
Kindergarteners are busy in Writer’s Workshop! Our current unit is How To Books, and they are busy teaching their readers how to build snowmen, how to make hot chocolate, how to grow flowers, and how to be kind. Within the classroom, each Kindergarten chose a continent puzzle to trace and label as well. We’re getting ready for our upcoming in depth continent study that’s coming soon!
99 Days of School!
We are so excited to be 100 Days Smarter on Monday! Our class has been counting the days of school each day during Line Time. We practice exchanging when we get to ten units (ones) and moving them to the tens place. We practice counting by tens and ones each day. We can’t wait to rubber band all of those tens and move them to the hundreds place!
Groundhog’s Day!
We were so lucky to be able to get outside this week and introduce the concept of shadows with the sun! We learned that shadows are created by objects blocking the light source. We then furthered this study within the classroom using a flashlight and one of our geometric solids. We learned that the light needs to be behind the object to create a shadow in front of it. That if the objects gets closer to the light, the shadow gets bigger, and it gets smaller as the object moves farther away. We wrapped up our study by watching Punxsutawney Phil predict an early spring by not seeing his shadow on Friday!
This week learned a bit more about our body. We went over the five senses. We learned that we can use our sense of touch not only with our fingers but any part of the body. Have you ever stepped on a Lego in bare feet. An electrical impulse travels from your foot to your brain and your brain tells you it hurts. Our sense of hearing is through our ears. Sound waves travel through the air and are caught by our ears, then travel down the ear canal hitting our ear drum. The ear drum vibrates and the brain interprets what we are hearing. Sight is used with our eyes. Light reflects and travels until caught by our eyes. Then the brain tells us what we are seeing. We smell trough our nose. Particles travel through the air and end up in our nose captured by little hairs called cilia. The hairs send an electrical impulse to, you guessed it, the brain. The brain tells us what we are smelling. We taste with our tongue and the food particles come in contact with our taste buds. The the taste buds tell the brain if the taste is sour, sweet, salty, or bitter. I gave the students salt water, sugar water, lemon juice, and unsweetened baking chocolate. Take a look at the pictures below. Some students liked the sour and some didn’t. Why you may ask? Because everyone’s brain is different and interprets the taste differently from some someone else’s brain.
Wall of Disgust and Fun:
Did You Know?:
Identical twins don’t have the same fingerprints. You can’t blame your crimes on your twin, after all. This is because environmental factors in the womb such as (umbilical cord length, position in the womb, and the rate of finger growth) impact your fingerprint.
AMessage From Mr. John (Baking branches to kill critters):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 19 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish, Kiswahili).
Know Your Languages (Kiswahili):
Specials Spot(polymers love each other so much they hug to create a strong bond):
Peek In The Classroom:
A new found science box was put on the shelf which curious students explored. Look at that concentration pouring from a small pitcher in a funnel.This was not his mess and without being asked he recognized the need to sweep the crumbs.Someone really likes Geography!
Peek Into Our Week: Line Time- 5 Senses
Letter Of The Week- S s
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bup
Language Kiswahili
Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten: Weekly Themes: Cultural. Telling Time (to the half hour) Math.. Using a Ruler Language.. Conjunctions Geometry.. Geometric Shapes II, Geo Cards
Next Week: Weekly Themes: Cultural. Telling Time (quarter past) Math.. Addition Math Facts Language.. Conjunctions Geometry.. Geometric Solids
Synonym Of The Week: FAT, overweight, big, bulky, heavy, plump Sight Words Of The Week: more these
Kinders are tracking this plant’s growth.On 1/17 6in 15cm, 1/23 15in 38cm, 1/29 22in 58 cm. And it may be ready to bloom soon. We have guesses if it’s going to bloom green, red, or yellow.
Friday 2/16 :NO SCHOOL Teacher training/In-Service Day
Monday 2/19:NO SCHOOL President’s Day
Friends, Frolic, and Fun:
Some one shouted “Milky Way is moving!” of course a bum rush to the nature center ensued. Another sighting in the classroom of the elusive boy.Just a goofy expression.They kind of look scared?????
Your Children Say The Darndest Things (Pokemon is my fave):
Line Time: Skeletal System- (Last Week)This week we looked at the skeletal system and if we didn’t have a skeleton we would be one messy blob on the ground (insert a flagellant sound). We learned the skull protects our brain, the rib cage protects our lungs, and the spine keeps us sitting and standing straight. We learned technical terms for our arms, leg and our digits which is a funny name called phalanges. We brought our life sized foam puzzle into our room. His name is Elvis because we learned about the pelvis and it was a cool rhyming name.
Elvis sitting up and hanging out.
This week we learned a bit about the internal organs. We started with the brain which is like the computer of the body. It tells our body how fast to breathe and how fast our heart should beat. We discovered the lungs help us breathe and puts oxygen in our blood. Our stomach digests food, the small intestine take nutrients out of our food and large intestine gets the remaining water from indigestible food and creates waste (poop)(that word produced laughter) or as I referred to a bowel movement. The kidneys process excess water and creates pee (more laughter) or urine. The liver removes toxins from the body. We found out that the largest organ of the human body is the epidermis. The liver is my fave internal organ. What is yours?
They are working on the internal organ wok.
Did You Know?: One in 18 people have a third nipple. Known as polythelia, the third nipple is caused by a mutation in inactive genes. Didn’t Chandler Bing on friends have a third nipple. I dare not post a picture of this.
AMessage From Mr. John (I “heart” Grandparents Day):
Cultural Subjects: Your children can now count to ten in 18 languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic in the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Irish).
Know Your Languages (Irish):
The Nature Center:
Feeding time for the roaches. Madagascar Hissing Roachesare herbivores and dine on fruits andvegetables.
Grandparents Day:
Scenes from science class on grandparents day.Proud grandparents
Peek In The Classroom:
The cards and counters reinforces the knowledge that each number is made up of separate quantities. The child will see the sequence of numbers and how many separate units go to form each number. Great practice to show the odd and even numbers as well.They traced Elvis and are labeling his bones.We are giving students going in kindergarten and first grade the Albanesi Assessment. This assessment is a link between Montessori and traditional assessments.Animal puzzles are wonderful for hand-eye coordination and for developing the fine motor muscles of the hand. These puzzles provide a hands-on opportunity for a child to learn the anatomical parts of an animal. Tracing and labeling the parts are a popular activity.
Peek Into Our Week: Line Time- Internal Organs
Letter Of The Week- R r
Rhyming Word Of The Week- but
Language Irish
Academic Enrichment aka Kindergarten: Weekly Themes: Cultural. Telling Time (to the hour) Math.. Using a Ruler Language.. Adverbs Geometry.. Geometric Shapes II, Geo Cards
Next Week: Weekly Themes: Cultural. Telling Time (half hour) Math.. Using a Ruler Language.. Conjunctions Geometry.. Geometric Shapes II, More Geo Cards
Synonym Of The Week: NICE, kind, pleasant, delightful, good, helpful Sight Words Of The Week: first than
The kindergartenersare tracking the growth of this plant. On 1/17 it was 6 inches and 15 centimeters. On 1/23 itwas 15 inches and 38 centimeters.
This was everyone’s favorite week! We learned all about Dinosaurs! Ask your child what type of teeth meat eaters and plant eaters have, see if they can tell you the special words we call each of those dinosaurs. (Hint – carnivores and herbivores.) We learned that dinosaurs lived millions of year ago and that they are now extinct. We talked about the theories scientists have about what happened to the dinosaurs, and the class decided the best theory is that there was an asteroid that hit our planet. We ended the week learning about paleontologists, and now that is the current career plan for many of our littles!
Grandparent’s Day!
A huge thank you to all of our grandparents for visiting us on Thursday! It was such a pleasure for us teachers to meet you, we always hear so much about you from the children! We hope you enjoyed your science lesson, being introduced to our classroom space, and learning all types of concepts with your wonderful grandchildren!
The 100th Day of School is Coming!
We are so close to the 100th Day of School! We will be having a 100th Day of School Party on Monday, February 5th. Your child is invited to dress up like they are 100 years old on this day. (It’s my favorite day of the school year!) We will play games, sing songs, complete a special craft, and enjoy a special picnic lunch with our friends! AMMS will be providing the pizza, but if you would like to contribute to our lunch, you can sign up here. https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4CA5A628A3F4CF8-47513235-100th
Fun in the Gym!
We added a new gym game to our repertoire – the parachute! We learned how to handle the parachute with care, how to keep our listening ears open while having fun, and played the best game ever – popcorn! We can’t wait to play more games with the parachute!
Art with Ms. Lindsey!
We had a special guest art teacher this week – Ms. Lindsey! Ms. Lindsey introduced us to the wonderful Piet Mondrian, an artist who worked with lines, shapes, and colors. We practiced creating our own Mondrian inspired artworks by pasting black lines onto paper and filling in the shapes with red, yellow, and blue crayons.
We’re Learning Big Things!
At this point in the school year, our Blossoms begin working on more challenging concepts in small groups or with partners, and they also begin to work on projects that can take a few days to complete. This is such an exciting time in the classroom, because these children just glow with pride when they accomplish new things! We are so proud of them!
Peek into Next Week!
Next week, we begin our study of the Human Body. We will spend several weeks learning all about our bodies – what they look like inside, how to keep them healthy, and the function of all of the different systems. It’s a popular unit of study!
Focus Lesson: The Skeletal System
Important Dates:
Monday, February 5 – 100th Day of School
Thursday, February 15 – Valentine’s Day Treat
Friday, February 16 – No School – Teacher Inservice Day
