Peek In Our Week ~ Mr. John ~ Week Of February 5th, 2018

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Best friends, besties, BFF’s, call it what you will but the camaraderie in the Montessori Classroom runs deep.

 

Happy Birthday:
The Primary Montessori Classroom is comprised of students ranging ages from 2 1/2 to 6 years.  Here are my newest 5 year old student, 6 year old student, and our 29 year old teacher.

                                                

 

Healthy Teeth:
We had a Dental Hygienist visit our room and she explained the importance of brushing and flossing.  Also, the students played a game of healthy/unhealthy foods for your teeth.

   

 

Cultural Subjects:
Your children can count to ten in 20 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, and Welsh).

 

Line Time Lesson:
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, because everyone love their clasiq cars now a days, some even get special protection for their windows as you can see in this website for more information, 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.

 

Peak In Our Room:

Kindergarten Students have deadlines of work that is assigned. These girls are feverishly working to get their work done before the deadline or face “The Wrath Of John” . Just a play on words for you Trekkies.  For Non -Star Trek Fans it’s the movie named “Wrath Of Khan”.

 

This boy combined two weeks of lessons by putting together Elvis The Pelvis and placing internal organs where they are supposed to go. I did not teach him this and he came up with this himself. The Montessori classroom gives the child room to explore and create.

 

This student is receiving a lesson on The 9 Tray. He was in awe with how tall the thousand cubes stacked and this may have been an “ah ha” moment where he physically sees “how big/much” nine thousand is compared to nine units.

 

These two students are practicing writing cursive with the sand tray and writing on paper. The uninterrupted movements of the hand may make cursive letters easier for children to form, and for this reason, Absorbent Minds Montessori School introduces children to cursive writing first.

 

What’s Next:

Line Time For Week Of 2/12/2018: Presidents of the USA
Letter Of The Week:  T t
Rhyming Word Of The Week:  bed
Language:  Dutch/Flemish will be added

 

Mark your calendar

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~~~~   Daddy/Daughter, Mommy/Son Dance ~~ Saturday February 10, 2018, 2 pm to 4 pm  ~~~~

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An email was sent for information for the second round of Parent Observations

Follow the link below to sign up to observe in my classroom.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mrjohns3

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Valentine Day Party on 2/14/2018- 1:00pm to 2:30pm

Follow the link for the information.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mrjohns4

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NO SCHOOL 2/16/2018 (FRIDAY) AND 2/19/2018 (MONDAY)

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Lunar New Year commonly known as Chinese New Year 2/15/2018  Year of the Dog

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek into Science | 1/29 and 2/5 | Tallmadge Campus

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Exploding Lunch Bag: We combined warm water, vinegar and baking soda in a Ziploc bag. As soon as the bag was sealed shut it started to fill with air (carbon dioxide). Eventually, the Ziploc bag could no longer hold any more air so it popped. We learned that this is called an acid based reaction when you combine these two chemicals together.

Good/Bad egg experiment: We filled a bucket full of cold water dropping eggs in one at a time. Some eggs floated and some sank. We discovered that when an egg is laid by a chicken an air cell is formed inside the egg. As the egg gets older the air cell becomes larger and acts like a buoyancy. We talked about how this meant a good egg will sink and a bad egg will float. We cracked one good and one bad egg open to see the difference. The only  difference we could see was that the yolk wasn’t as round in the bad egg as the good egg.

A Peek at Our Week | Ms. Courtney’s Classroom | Week of January 29th

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Zoo Animals:

The students learned that a zoo is a place where all types of animals are displayed for the public to see. Especially animals that they would never get the chance to observe otherwise. We also talked about how zoos try hard to keep animals in enclosures that replicate their natural habitat because, the animals seem to do much better when they are in their natural environment. We discovered that zoos create educational programs and tours in order to provide an educational opportunity for everyone. A lot of them even have  petting zoos where adults and children are allowed a close-up look of the animals and their babies. We learned about tigers, lions, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, penguins, bears etc.

Work Time

Color Box 4: These children are grading different colors from darkest to lightest, while also refining her sense of sight.
Pattern: This child is creating specific patterns using different colors and shapes.
Clock: This child is reading the time “quarter till 7” and demonstrating two different ways  it can be written on a dry erase board.
Writing Name: This child wrote her name in bubble letters and colored them in. She developing her eye hand coordination and fine motor movements. She is also learning how to control a pencil (pincer grip, pressure and steadiness).
Flag Stamps: This child is exploring the individual flags of different countries, the meanings of the flags, and gaining an understanding of national pride.
Knobbed Cylinders: This child is able to visually discriminate the dimensions of each cylinder to find its correct placement in the block.

Guest Readers

Reminders

February 10 from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm | Father/Daughter and Mother/Son Dance 

February 15 from 9:15 am – 12:00 pm | Valentine’s Day Party

February 16  | Teacher In-Service Day | No School for Students

February 19  | President’s Day | No School 

A peak into next week: Farm Animals

Peek In Our Week | Mr. John’s Class | Week of January 29, 2018

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Cultural Subjects:
Your children can count to ten in 19 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, and Kiswahili).

 

Sister Love!

 

 

 

Line Time:
This week we learned about Internal Organs.  We learned the brain is the control center of your body that sends and receives.  Our lungs help us breathe, the heart pumps our blood and the stomach begins to digest our food with acid.  The small intestines digest the food and send nutrients to the rest of our body and the large intestines push through the waste that creates our bowel movements. The children were fascinated that our kidneys process the body’s water and the liver filters toxins, that’s why is important to take lots of water, even when you’re outside home, which you can do if you get a branding custom water bottle from https://customwater.com/.  The children learned where the organs are located with the help of our Living Internal Organ T-shirt.  The shirt helped the children find the organs location by velcroing the organs to the spot on the t-shirt. 

 

Internal Organ T-shirt Work:

 

 

Peek In The Classroom:

“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.”– Maria Montessori…… In the classroom gross motor movements would include movement around the room (moving tables and chairs, walking), lifting and pouring, practical life activities like window washing or table scrubbing, walking the line. We try to go outside for recess as much as possible but we have the gym in the event of inclement weather.

 

These two students are working on the Bead Chain (7) and were excited to lay the chains out and do the work.They went into the hallway so they had more space for the long chains. (These chains help children learn linear counting, skip counting and multiplication.) These two girls worked together on the seven chain, and were very proud of themselves when they finished putting out the number tags and writing down each multiple of seven.

Next week we will be surprising them with a special party for all the good behavior during the last weeks. Everything is regarding the expanding of their creativity, so there will be walls just for them to paint, lots of materials to put new things together, huge puzzles on the floor and boardgames for them to try them out, also a couple of jumpers from Jumper’s Jungle Family Fun Center, as every kid loves to jump and have fun in one of this awesome entertainment systems. Also there will be food for the day, all green and colorful with fruits and vegetables to motivate them to eat correctly and healthy as well as having fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These students are working on my Continent Box (N. America) which includes flags and pictures of landmarks from countries from that continent. These students are matching the landmarks to the countries flag. They figured the matching by themselves.

 

I ring the bell to get the students attention. Usually the ringing of the bell is to ready for line time or a transition. When the bell rings the students “stop, look, and listen”. They catch a bubble to be quiet and use safe hands then I give directions. These students are using safe hands but hammed it up for the camera and were not able to catch a bubble while laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

What’s In Store For Next Week:

Line Time For Week Of 2/05/2018: Pollution/Recycling
Letter Of The Week:  S s
Rhyming Word Of The Week:  bup
Language:  Welsh will be added

 

And Beyond:

______________________________________________________________________________________

++++   Daddy/Daughter, Mommy/Son Dance — Saturday February 10, 2018, 2 pm to 4 pm  ++++

______________________________________________________________________________________

An email was sent for information for the second round of Parent Observations

Follow the link below to sign up to observe in my classroom.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mrjohns3

______________________________________________________________________________________

Valentine Day Party on 2/14/2018- 1:00pm to 2:30pm

Follow the link for the information.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mrjohns4

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

A Peek into Elementary Enrichments | January 2017

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January has come and gone, but with it came some outstanding enrichment experiences for our Elementary students. This month carried a theme of revisiting old skills and techniques, both in the content and activities. Fueled by the energy of a new year, students celebrated what they have already accomplished, and prepared for all the new things to come. Let’s take a look inside the enrichment classrooms for this month.

 

In Art, students took a step back in history and became a team of time traveling artists. They researched ancient art forms, including cave painting and hieroglyphics. After their research, students created their own cave paintings by hanging canvas on the walls and painting while standing up. These painting included traditional bison, mammoths, symbols, and stick figures, along with some current millennia surprises. Through this alternative approach to painting, the students internalized some of the real life struggles that went into cave painting, i.e., there is nowhere to rest your elbow, and how difficult it is to portray complex ideas through symbols. Returning to their time machine, the students later created self portraits in the style of ancient Egyptian carvings. These portraits were challenging for the students in a different way than the cave paintings in regard to the flatness and perspective. Though these works are still in progress, the students are proud of their work and in overcoming these artistic challenges. As in all Art education, this connection to the past is essential to developing their current skills, and in understanding where these skills originated from.

 

 

In Latin, students focused their attention on Zeus, Hades, Pan, and Dionysus. This interesting combination of characters led to fascinating conversation among the students and sparked interest, which led to independent research. Students depicted these characters interacting with each other, and made pseudo-comics based on historic paintings and woodcuts. Alongside this research, students also completed word searches, crosswords, and word scrambles regarding the gods and goddesses. It is obvious through their works that the students are not only learning the facts about these historic figures, but also thoroughly understanding their roles between each other and in this ancient culture.

 

 

In Music, the students celebrated their fantastic performance at the Christmas show with a party in Music class, it was a great party withy music and a bouncing castle from Jumpers Jungle. They sang along to some of their favorite songs, played freeze dance, and appreciated their peers as they played songs they have been practicing on the piano. Later in the month, they took a step back and practiced the fundamental skill of singing simple songs with emphasis on ascending and descending notes. The task of singing in front of their peers was occasionally unnerving, but with the help and support of the class, each student felt encouraged to participate. Is has been proven that musical therapy works really good for special education,  here you can find special education teachers job opportunities. Toward the end of the month, the students were very excited to rediscover the bucket drums in a more creative setting. They practiced rudimentary cadences, played “repeat the beat,” and bucket drum telephone. The students also took this opportunity to explore all the different sounds the buckets could make when set on their side, facing each other, etc. This exploratory setting allowed the students to revisit an instrument they truly enjoyed playing, but in a way that was driven by their own curiosity.

 

January’s Enrichment classes all came with their own form of a time machine- revisiting an instrument in a new way, recreating ancient art through ancient techniques, and researching ancient cultures. This retrospective was a great way to welcome the new year! We can’t wait to explore what February has to offer in Art, Latin, and Music. For more information regarding our classroom work you can contact us via phone or through our new help desk that we’ve begun using thanks to these help desk solutions.

Academic Enrichment | week of January 22nd | Tallmadge

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Telling Time: The past week the students have been learning how to tell time to the hour, half past, quarter past and quarter till.

This child is reading digital time and then creating it by herself on an analog clock.
This child is reading quarter till times and demonstrating what that would look like on a clock, by drawing it on a paper clock book he is creating.

A Peak into Next Week: Using a ruler to measure inches and centimeters

A Peek into Science | 1/15 and 1/22 | Tallmadge Campus

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MLK Jr. Brown/White Egg Experiment: The students used their five senses to observe the similarities and differences between brown and white eggs. After cracking both eggs they came to an understanding that people and eggs may look very different on the outside but are the same on the inside.

Balloon Rocket: We tied string between two chairs and placed a straw on the string. Then, we blew up a balloon and taped it to the straw. After that we released the blown up balloon and watched the balloon shoot to the other chair. As the air rushed out of the balloon, it created a forward motion called thrust. We talked about how thrust is a pushing force created by energy. That is why the balloon was able to move between chairs.

A Peek At Handwriting| Ms. Kristen| Week of January 15

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Durring the past two weeks in handwriting we have continued our study of lower case letters. We have been working on the letters u, w, q, l, b, k, m, h,n, and f. Our Kindergarten student’s handwriting has really progressed and I’m so proud of all of their hard work durring the past few weeks!

Peek Into Our Week | Mr. John’s Classroom | Week Of 1/22/2018

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Cultural Subjects:
Your children can count to ten in 18 different languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, and Irish).

 

Happy Birthday:
A Montessori Classroom has a mixed age groups of children ages 2.5 to 6 years old. Here is our newest 4 year old student, our newest 6 year old student, and our newest 3 1/2 year old student.

 

 

 

 

 

Saying Good Bye:
It is always sad to say good year to a friend.  It was this boy’s last day at Absorbent Minds Montessori School complete with a pizza party!

   

 

Line Time:
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.

 

 

Peek In My Room:

This student is working on the United States Puzzle Map. This material’s purpose is to identify the location and shape of the individual shapes of the states. The control chart will help in the naming of the states. This student has traced the states and is labeling the name on the traced states.

 

This Kindergarten Students is drawing and labeling our skeleton work “Elvis the Pelvis”. Doing this in her Kindergarten Binder reinforces this lesson of identifying parts of the Skeletal System.

 

In the Montessori Classroom some of my older students go through a right of passage by losing teeth and they are very proud of this life event. How much does a tooth go for now a days?

 

This child has completed doing the Nine Tray. The reason for this picture is how he is putting away the material. The child in a Montessori Classroom is taught to choose a work, work with the material correctly, complete the lesson, and put away the material where he found it.

 

Upcoming Events:

Line Time For Week Of 1/29/2018:  Internal Organs
Letter Of The Week:  R r
Rhyming Word Of The Week:  but
Language:  Kiswahili will be added

##### Daddy/Daughter, Mommy/Son Dance — Saturday February 10, 2018, 2 pm to 4 pm #####

An email was sent for information for the second round of Parent Observations

Follow the link below to sign up to observe in my classroom.

www.SignUpGenius.com/go/4090B48A8A92DA6F94-mrjohns3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of January 22

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Finally, our first full week of 2018! The first year students have enjoyed reviewing measuring, practicing their facts with the Multiplication Snake Game, learning the use of a direct object, and mapping a farm! Second year students have worked to read decimal numbers into the millionths, have read the origins of the names of the months, and have been introduced to pictographs. Third year students were so excited to learn how to do long division with the Racks and Tubes AND on paper! Fourth year students discovered how cells react to solutions, found the differences in cerebral cortex size among primates, and wrote paragraphs using hyphens. Together, we are all researching Europe, including a 14-Point Study of countries chosen by each group. Look for this research to be displayed mid-February!

This student is writing her final draft of the letter you received about our upcoming “Going Out Experience.” In order to plan this trip, our two students in charge had to submit a proposal that answered questions about location, price, directions, and reason for attending. After their proposal was accepted, they had to call the Greater Cleveland Aquarium and speak with the field trip coordinator to make all the plans. After the phone call, they met with Ms. Kelly to make sure they had the information needed for the permission slips. Finally, they edited their original letter to parents and made a final copy!
This fourth year student is labeling the parts of a plant cell. He has already worked with materials to learn that cells are the building blocks of life, the parts of a cell and their function, and how cells react to certain solutions. All of these lessons will lead up to a home assignment to build a model of his own plant or animal cell to share his knowledge with the class!
Our second and third year students studied the origins of the names of the months. This student chose to learn about July. He found out it was named after Julius Caesar and is creating a drawing of him to display near our classroom calendar.
For Writer’s Workshop this week, we talked about “Persuasive Paragraphs.” We first defined persuasive, then talked about times we might try to be persuasive. Negotiating bedtime seemed to be a common occurrence! After our discussion, we settled on the topic of “Follow-Up Work.” We listed reasons to have it and reasons to get rid of it. Then we took a blind vote to decide which students would argue which side in their paragraph. After splitting into our pro and con teams, the groups worked together to write their persuasive paragraphs. They will be shared after gym Friday!

A Peek into Next Week

Next week, Lower Elementary students will practice using currency to build quantities, will continue measurement lessons, will add and subtract time in word problems, and will create family timelines! Fourth year students will create a geometric decanomial, classify early humans, discuss forces of nature in the universe, and continue working on research skills.

REMINDERS:

  • In your email, you have received a “Going Out Experience” permission slip. This is an optional field trip for Elementary students. If your child would like to attend, please turn this in by Monday, February 5th.
  • Mother-Son/Father-Daughter Dance invitations and tickets were sent home this Monday in your child’s Spelling folder. If you are planning to attend, please remember to turn the ticket into the office dropbox!
  • TKD Session begins Monday, January 29!