Welcome back to school everyone!! Lol I think everyone was so happy to be back! This week was all about hibernation and migration. The kiddos had such a fun time learning about what these two words meant with fun books, special games, and crafts. It’s only Thursday and they have already grasped the concepts!!!
One of our friends has just started learning to read in one of our phonics folders!!! So proud of her!Our friend here is working on the cards and counters. The purpose of this work is for the child to arrange the numerals in the correct order, to be able to place the proper quantity beneath each numeral, and to use the visual and muscular impression of odd and even numbers.One of our kindergarteners is working on the small bead frame. This material is more of an abstract way to do the different math operations. This work is leading the children towards pencil to paper work without a material to help them.The continent map puzzles purpose is to provide the names of the countries/states/provinces of each continent and the bodies of water that surround the continent.
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we will be learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The children will be doing a variety of activities that will teach how just because our skin color can be different from others we are still the same. We will also talk about his life and how he helped people. Throughout next week we will also talk about Rosa parks. It’s one of my favorite weeks!!
Melting Ice and Salt: We sprinkled a handful of salt over a block of ice, immediately the students started to notice the ice melting and rivets appear. Then, we added droplets of food coloring all over the top of the ice and salt. The food coloring started to highlight the patterns, tunnels and rivets the salt had created. The students learned that the salt lowered the freezing point of the water. Therefore, the ice started to melt, as the ice melted, energy was drawn from the water making it colder.
Blubber Glove: We made a blubber glove so we could get a better understanding of why polar animals can be exposed to the frigid Arctic and Antarctic waters. First, each child had the chance to put their hand in a bucket of ice water. Then, each child had the chance to put their hand in a bucket of ice water wearing the blubber glove (Crisco between two gallon sized Ziploc bags). We discovered that the blubber on the polar animals helps to insulate them, because blubber requires very little blood supply, allowing more blood to be circulated to skin surfaces that are more directly exposed to the cold temperatures.
The students discovered that animals that live in the Arctic (either full time or seasonally) are adapted to extreme conditions. Many animals like the arctic fox have a coat that thickens and changes color to white during the winter as camouflage in the snow (blending into the background).
They even learned that some animals hibernate during the cold season (skunks, chipmunks, and some bears); they go into a very deep, sleep-like state in which their heartbeat slows down. These animals often hibernate in an underground burrow or pit.
They also discovered that many animals like the arctic tern spend the summer months in the Arctic, but leave as the weather turns frigid and food becomes scarce. These animals return again the next summer, repeating this pattern year after year (migrating).
Work Time:
Log Numbers: This child is memorizing the sequence of numbers from 1 to 10. While also refining her fine motor skills by stringing the numbers onto the rope.Circuit Board: These children are creating a circuit (a pathway made of wires) that electrons can flow through. The batteries are giving the power source the electrons needed to move. When the electrons get to the music player it gives it the power needed to make it work.Continent Animals: These children are becoming familiar with and learning to identify different animals from around the world from each continent.Spooning: This child is further developing her focus, concentration, visual and fine motor skills by spooning Christmas ornaments from one bowl to an other.Big/Small Snowflake Match: This child is developing his understanding of big and small by matching the same snowflakes of different sizes together. Understanding concepts of big and small are important for math readiness. A main concept of mathematics is understanding degrees of big and small.
Reminders:
1/15/18 | Martin Luther King Jr. Day | NO SCHOOL
1/30/18 | Bring Your Parent to Work-Time | http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-bring
Girls Just Want To Have Fun– and so do boys… Sometimes we just get goofy in the classroom.
Cultural Subjects: Your children can count to ten in 15 different languages (English, Latin, Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, and Korean).
Happy Birthday: A Montessori Classroom has students ranging from 2.5 to 6 years of age. Here are the newest 5 year old students.
Peeking Into The Classroom:
Doing Chores in the Montessori Classroom is a staple activity. Here you can see students emptying the trash, sweeping the floor, and wiping the table tops. Everyday a child is given a different task to do. Doing chores helps the child enhance focus and confidence, gives them a sense of accomplishment, gives them self-reliance and purpose, increases empathy by learning to be responsive to others’ needs, instills a work ethic, and improves a sense of belonging.
This student is working on equations with the Stamp Game. The Stamp Game is a tool for learning and reinforcing knowledge of the four maths operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is just more abstract, yet concretely demonstrates the maths process to students that are ready for this material. This student is working on equations of multiplication, with multiple carry overs in all columns. For example 654 x 6.
This student is working on one of my Science Boxes (frogs and toads). She is reading a book on frogs and toads and has four pieces Jelly eggs, tadpole, froglet, and frog. She puts them in order to reinforce the life cycle of a frog/toad.
Here are two friends working on the sandpaper numbers. The aims of sandpaper numbers are to give the child a sensorial impression of the form of the symbol. To show the succession of numbers. To show base 10 Recognition of numerals 0-9 Preparation for writing numbers.
Upcoming Stuff:
Line Time Lesson: The 5 Senses
Letter Of The Week: P p
Rhyming Word Of The Week: bun
Reminders: Family Trees
Recess Attire
Chinese New Year
Our new story Me First by Max Kornell is about a family who is learning about cooperation, and different types of games. This story takes place in a small town and the type of genre is fantasy fiction. These past few weeks the children have been working hard on session 1,and 2. In the first reading the children listened as I read the story, then they were able to share their questions about it. When students share what they wonder about it is the first step to understanding it. In our second reading we read the story aloud again, then we did a few activities that helped them think more deeply about some of the key details from the story. With this activity the children had to think about a situation that happened in the story. The purpose of rereading a selection or story helps us discover new things about a story. I have really seen such a difference in all of our friends thoughts and sharing questions these last few weeks! Super proud of them!!!
During the past two weeks in Handwriting, we have continued learning the Lower Case Initial Strokes. We focused on the letters r, p, u, w, and s. All of these letters begin with the same initial “swing” stroke of the pencil. I am very proud of our Kindergarten students and how hard they have worked the past couple weeks!
This week, to kick off the month of December and our holiday program right around the corner, we decorated trees in the forest! Each student cut out three triangles for trees, added garland, decorations and then glued the trees to their background of chalk pastel rubbings. To finish off the holiday trees, we added silver and gold paint last to add some sparkle!
Week of December 11th
To begin class this week we each made a jingle bell bracelet using pipe cleaners, beads and a jingle bell. The students worked hard stringing the beads onto the pipe cleaners and were excited about their finished work! Using our jingle bracelets, the students helped read The Little Reindeer by Nicola Killen. During various parts of the story, the students helped shake their bells so Ollie could find her reindeer friend.
Next we created a reindeer of our own, set against a snowy black sky (just like Ollie’s reindeer in the story!). The students worked hard to cut, glue and added painted snowflakes to their art work. Each reindeer turned out so cute and different!
December was filled with lots of practice in our classrooms for our 2017 Christmas Show! In Miss Lisa’s music class we practiced performing our songs and she taught us many popular Christmas carols and songs!
Here is a friend examining a large jingle bell. Miss Lisa brought a variety of different bells for us to practice with. The two main songs we played the bells with were Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock.
One of our favorite games with Miss Lisa is freeze dance! It doesn’t matter what song is playing, we love to dance! The most important skill in this game is listening. We have to listen very closely for when the music stops so we know when to freeze our bodies.
Here is a picture of a friend waiting patiently to play her tambourine. We all know that instruments can’t play on their own, so we have to wait patiently until Miss Lisa tells us it is time to play.
A new instrument we enjoyed exploring with was the maracas! Maracas are used in many Latin and South American songs. We shook these maracas while singing along to Feliz Navidad.
We had a fantastic month with all of our festive singing! Don’t forget to order your copy of our 2017 Christmas Show DVD so you can hear us singing some of our favorites!
