Germination: We talked about how germination is the process of seeds developing into new plants. They learned how certain conditions need to meet in order for this process to take place. We discussed how there needs to be a lot of water so the seed can fill up starting the imbibition process. Which is where the wateractivates special proteins, called enzymes, that begin the process of the seed growth.
We had fun this week looking into the world of art. Most of the lessons were a review of what Ms. Renee had taught the students. 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, and Andy Warhol.
Peek In Our Classroom:
Absorbent Minds Montessori School has a relationship with the University of Akron where Field Students come into the room. This week they are working with their “Roo Buddy” on letter recognition and letter sounds.
A scene from Practical Life where each student is concentrating on their works. Practical Life enhances the child’s fine motor skills and focus to name a few skills.
Your little Michael Angelos recreating what Michael Angelo went through when painting the Sistine Chapel.
This is the continuing tracking of one of my plants. In one week the shoot we are tracking grew from 6 inches to 18 inches and 15 cm to 43 cm
Cultural Subjects:
Your children can count to ten in 25 different languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo Croation, Cebuano, and Malay).
Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time Lesson- Landmarks of USA/The State Of Ohio
Letter Of The Week- Y y
Rhyming Word Of The Week- bac
Adding The Language Of Hindi
Upcoming Events:
Spring Break 3/26 to 4/2, returning 4/3/2018
Pizza Lunch 3/23/2018 (Friday). You do not have to bring a lunch !!!! Also pajama day and show and tell.
This week we learned about nouns and verbs. A noun is a person, place , or thing. A verb is an action word or something that you do.
The students picking out their favorite verb…
Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 27 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, Hindi, and Farsi).
“The greatest gift we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.” -Maria Montessori
This week we have worked to prepare for the Science Fair. Students have finished collecting data and keeping track of their plants. We have started compiling our information for our trifold boards and some have completed their displays. We are practicing what we will say to visitors to our projects and are excited to show what we know! This week we also enjoyed a trip to the Lake Metro Parks Farmpark. We learned a lot about portion size and why we should put fresh food into our bodies instead of processed food and follow the best healthy delicious premium menus. We had two more kindergarten visitors that we were excited to help!
Our kindergarten visitors joined our first graders at a Decanomial lesson this week! This lesson is a physical representation of a multiplication table. Students work together to build each equation out of beads. Students then record their equations on Decanomial paper. Look for your child to bring this home this or next week!We really enjoyed our time at the Farmpark! We learned about portion size, how much of each food group we should be eating, how cheese is made, how a cow is milked, origins of different pizza topping plants, how grains are grown and cooked, and had the opportunity to pet so many animals!This student is petting one of the piglets. We were excited to see how large a sow is!Our students enjoyed petting different animals. This student told us he found his “Spirit Animal” here.We learned how farmers were able to do things before electricity and took turns using some of the machinery. This student is grinding some wheat for dough.We were able to milk a cow at the Farmpark. We learned what cows need to produce milk and what the farm does after they extract it!The farmers showed us how homemade cheese is made with enzymes, cheese cloth, and a press. We then found out why cheese is dyed orange. Students were able to feel the squeezed and dyed curds!Our students are working hard to prepare for the Science Fair. These first year students are working on their trifold boards. Students are tasked with making neat, creative, and attractive displays to draw in visitors so they can explain their project and research!Some of our third year students have started doing more math without materials. In the Montessori classroom, we begin with the most concrete before moving into something abstract like multiplication on paper. The third year students have spent a few years working with just the materials, then they move on to doing work on paper alongside the materials. When they have a deep understanding of what they are doing, we take away the materials and just work on paper. This was a special event for our third graders! They are so proud of themselves and so excited to work on math!A few years ago, we visited Seneca Caverns to explore inside a real cave. The Caverns partnered with FS Nature Live to give us the opportunity to participate in a digital field trip about caves. Last week, we watched a video from the company about caves. We learned how they are formed, why they are important, what flora and fauna are inside, and what jobs people have inside a cave. We wrote down our questions and submitted them to the scientists. Wednesday we watched the scientists answer our questions live on video and live online! Students kept saying they were famous!
A Peek into Next Week
Next week, Lower Elementary students will continue work with polygons, will discuss pronouns, and will review Geographic Features. Third year students will continue measurement lessons by baking bread for the classroom! Fourth year students will do math with binomials and trinomials and will continue their bacteria studies.
REMINDERS:
Tuesday, March 20 – Elementary Science Fair from 6-7 pm. Please invite your friends and family! We will also be having a Bake Sale to raise money for our Hydroponic System! Let me know if you will be able to send in baked goods to contribute to our Sale.
Wednesday, March 21 – Pizza Party for Box Tops. The Elementary Classroom collected the most Box Tops and are celebrating with pizza (gluten-free will be available for those that need it) for lunch. We will also be having a dress-up day. Our students voted to dress as movie characters. Following the same rules we have for Halloween, please no scary characters, weapons, or masks.
Friday, March 23 – Pajama Day. Your child may wear pajamas for the day and bring a board game for the afternoon. We will not be having gym this day.
These last two weeks, we read a story called The Tin Forest. It was about an old man who lived far away from anyone and lived amongst trash. At night he would dream about a beautiful forest with plants and animals. He decided one day to build the forest of his dreams out of the trash. The students got to participate in vocabulary activities to enhance their understanding of the words, discuss questions about the strory, and complete writing prompts. They really enjoyed acting out the scene where the old man builds the forest out of trash.
A Peek Into Next Week
-The students will listen to a poem about a stormy night.
-The students will learn vocab words: howling, prowling, and whine.
Geometric Solids: The kindergarten students learned the names for all ten of the geometric wooden solids: triangular prism, rectangular prism, cube, cylinder, cone, triangular pyramid, square pyramid, sphere, ellipsoid and ovoid.
Identifying and labeling the geometric solidsIdentifying and labeling the geometric solids by touchIdentifying and labeling the geometric solids by touchIdentifying and labeling the geometric solids by touch
Plants and Flowers: We learned how plants grow in many places: parks, forests, yards, fields, deserts, lakes etc. We also discussed how all plants need sunlight, water, air and food to grow. The children learned the different parts of plants and their purposes. For example the stem helps move food and nutrients through the plant or flower in order for it to grow.
Work Time
Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the word of the object and phonetically spelling it. She is also practicing writing each word in cursive.Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing her name on a chalkboard. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.Pyramid Puzzle: This child is matching the different colors together in order to create the pyramid shape. This puzzle involves not only the ability to concentrate but the ability problem solve.100 Board: These children are memorizing where the tiles should go and be placed on the 100 chart, while also learning to identify names of the numbers 1 through 100 and how to write each number.Dollhouse: These children are identifying and labeling familiar objects around the house, while also being introduced to nouns.
Guest Reader
Reminders
March 23 | Pajama and Show N Tell Day
March 23 | Bring Your Parent to Work Time
March 26 – April 2 | Spring Break
A peak into next week: Butterflies and Caterpillars
This week our class was getting ready for our field trip to the Art Museum . We had fun learning about different artists,such as Vincent Van Gough, Andy Warhol, Monet, Picasso, and Jean Michel Basquiat. The children learned about their art work,the meaning behind them, how the artists lived and where you can find their paintings. Ms. Ame had fun doing different crafts with them and showing videos.
One of our newer friends is working on our What does not belong work. The purpose of this is to prepare a child for reading. The child must be able to focus and hold interest. A child will also work on critical thinking, which helps reading comprehension.The nine layouts purpose is to help the child become familiar with the quantities and hierarchies of the decimal system .Our friend here is working on our syllable work. Syllable awareness is one component of phonological awareness. Students gain the ability to hear phonemes that comprise words and explore speech sounds as syllables.Today our friend mastered tying her shoes!!! Tying shoes is placed in our practical life area. This teaches her life skills, focus and concentration, fine motor skills, and builds their confidence.
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week is all about Spring. They will learn all about what happens in spring, the different life cycles that happen during this time, the weather, flowers, and much much more!
This week was all about our five senses. Together we learned about each sense through a variety of fun books, games, and crafts that teach us about our senses. The kids had a blast!! Some fun things you can do at home is have a taste test blindfolded:) Go on a nature walk and draw all the things you see, place objects in a pillow case and have your child ( blindfolded) reach into the bag and guess what each object is. Have fun!!
Our friend is working on our Land, Water, and Air work. The purpose of this work is for the children to get a better understanding of grouping items,and categorizing, and also animal identification.This week I introduced sewing in our practical life area. Sewing develops and matures their finger dexterity and fine motor skills, builds self confidence, learns patients, and gives them a creative outlet for meeting and gathering friends.The purpose of the one hundred board is to consolidate the child’s understanding of written numerals from 1 to 100.Our two friends are working on our phonics folder 1 together 🙂Our friends decorating the boxes for our school’s book drive!
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week is all about art appreciation. Next week is also our field trip to the Akron Art Museum! Together we will learn the history of the different famous artists, create our own masterpieces, read amazing books, and admire the different paintings and sculptures.
This week we started our journey into the wonderful world of grammar. This week we started off learning what the vowels ( a, e, i, o, u) and consonants (the rest of the letters) are.
Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 26 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, Irish, Kiswahili, Welsh, Dutch/Flemmish, Polish, Serbo-Croation, Cebuano, Malay, and Hindi).