This past week we talked about the five food groups: fruits, vegetables, dairy, proteins, and grains. We learned about MyPlate which is a healthy guide that shows how much to eat from each food group every day. As a group the children created a food group pyramid and listed a variety of foods in each group. We also talked about how being active plays a big part of being healthy. They learned that kids should get at least one hour of exercise daily and eat healthy foods, and of the people with skin problems they can find deep scar removal home remedies online.
Work Time
Metal Insets: This child is tracing the metal insets developing her eye hand coordination and fine motor movements. She is also learning how to control a pencil (pincer grip, pressure and steadiness).Golden Beads: These children are doing static addition (a sum without exchanging) problems using the golden beads. They are discovering that addition simply means to take two small numbers and to put them together to get a larger number.Spindle Box: This child is matching the correct quantity of spindles to each numeral symbol. She is also being introduced to the concept of zero and what its symbol looks like, while also seeing the natural sequence of the numerals.Sandpaper Numbers: This child is learning the symbols for the numbers through the sense of touch and sight. He is also retrieving objects of the named numeral learning what each number physically looks like.Puzzle Words: These student are completing the words by moving and rotating different letters to fit in the correct order.Human Skeleton: This child is forming a skeleton and labeling its different parts such as: skull, clavicle, sternum, ribs, humerus, radius and ulna, spine, pelvis, femur, tibia and fibula, feet and hands.
Guest Readers
Reminders
November 15, 2017 | Bring Your Parent to Work-Time
November 17, 2017 | Parent/Teacher Conferences | NO SCHOOL for students
November 21, 2017 | Harvest Party
A look into next week: Indians/Pilgrims
The children will learn about the items Pilgrims used long ago.
The children will learn that life was difficult for the Pilgrims in America and that everyone including the children had to work hard.
The children will learn where the Pilgrims left from and where they were headed to in America.
The children will be reading and learning about the very first Thanksgiving.
Many of you might be seeing “Checkerboard” written on your child’s work plan and wondering to yourselves, “What is a checkerboard and how is it teaching my child math?” This week, I wanted to share with you one of the most popular materials in any Montessori Elementary Classroom – The Multiplication Checkerboard. This material is used in different stages to multiply whole numbers throughout Lower Elementary and then with decimals in Upper Elementary. Montessori Math can be confusing to many of us because it is not taught the way we have experienced learning mathematic and geometric concepts. In most of our schooling, we were taught the quickest and shortest way to come up with the correct answer, often leading us to be confused about where a number came from and feeling like we’d never use that information again. Imagine if we had all been given the time and opportunity to discover formulas and concepts on our own, instead of solely copying down what we were told!
Dr. Montessori wanted her materials to help children develop a “Mathematical Mind.” This meant the goal of math in Montessori schools is not to come up with the correct answer the quickest, but to learn how to think critically and logically. The focus on math in the classroom is on the process of what they are learning, instead of the product. Brain research from “Math Works” by Michael Duffy, shows that Montessori Math materials engage all four lobes of the cerebrum simultaneously, connect the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and actively engage the prefrontal cortex.
The first lesson with the Multiplication Checkerboard is reading numerals. Each square on the Checkerboard represents a value that students learn in their initial lesson. Students place bead bars in each box to read numbers into the hundred millions. The Checkerboard is set up to use up to a nine-digit multiplicand so practicing reading large numbers is important to set students up for future success.After students are comfortable with reading large numbers, they are introduced to multiplication with the Checkerboard. Students begin with a unit multiplier. In each box that corresponds to a numeral in the multiplicand, students place the amount of bead bars the multiplier requires. For example, if the student has the equation 345,126,712 x 4, they will place four bars of 2 in the units’ place, four bars of 1 in the tens’ place, four bars of 7 in the hundreds’ place, etc. After laying out their bead bars, students will begin simplifying by adding up the bars in each square and exchanging them until there is only one bead bar in each square – their final product.After a teacher observes a student confidently and independently completing a multiplication equation with a unit multiplier, they are introduced to two, three, and four-digit multipliers. This stage of the Checkerboard takes the longest. During this stage, students are also introduced to recording partial products of their equation. This means they will complete the unit multiplier row, simplify, and record what they have. They will continue that process with the tens’ multiplier, the hundreds’ multiplier, and then the thousands’ multiplier. This part of the Checkerboard is leading them to abstractly multiply on paper. When the student is done multiplying on the Checkerboard, they add their partial products on their paper, then add the beads on the board to check their work.The final stage of the Checkerboard is abstractly multiplying. This is when a student is able to multiply solely on paper, without materials. While it would be faster to just show the child this method first, practice with the concrete materials gives them a deeper understanding of what they are doing and what those numerals represent. Often the students at this stage will check the work of students still using the materials, as you see in the photo.
The Multiplication Checkerboard is one of the many materials in our classroom that gives your child the opportunity to learn and grow at their own pace, while being challenged. The concrete materials used in Montessori classrooms give students a deeper understanding and a sense of confidence when they come up with their own formulas or solutions to problems.
A Peek into Next Week
Next week Lower Elementary students will talk about factoring, the fundamental needs of early humans, and bisecting angles. Upper Elementary students will look at the characteristics of cells, commas and apostrophes, and the five kingdoms. All students will work on Text-to-World Connections in Reader’s Workshop and will participate in new States of Matter lessons.
REMINDERS: 11/16 OCC Packing. Information was sent home on a flyer and in email!
11/17 Parent-Teacher Conferences – This is a NO SCHOOL day for students. If you haven’t yet, you can sign up here.
11/21 Harvest Party – Parents are invited to come join us for tea and desserts. Come hear what students have learned about the Mayflower. Please arrive at 1:00 pm. More information to follow by email.
This week our class focused so very hard on respect and what that word truly means. We also worked on grace and courtesy lessons. We spent a lot of time working on a lot of our ground rules for our classroom as well.
One of our students is working on the lowercase initial stroke pages we have in our classroom. These strokes help the child at the begining steps for cursive writing. When you think of lowercase letters you notice that all of them start and end the same way. This work helps to prepare them in this way.
Another one of our friends is also working on her form drawings. She is tracing the different forms on lined paper. This work also helps prepare them for cursive.
When working on the 100 board the children are learning linear counting, and number recognition. Our friend here is also writing out 1 to 100. This helps with fine motor skills, number formation, and also with linear counting.One of our kindergartener’s is working on static addition with the golden beads. The purpose is for the child to understand that the process of addition is simply the combining of equal or unequal quantities to form one large quantity.
Take A Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we will be focusing on manners, sharing, how to talk to friends, ground rules, and grace and courtesy.
The past two weeks in Handwriting, we have been working on answering a question of the day and writing our answer in cursive. Some of our questions have been, ” What will you be for Halloween?” and ” What did you have for lunch today?” and ” What is your middle name?”. The children are also working on spelling their answer phonetically.
Something to practice with your child at home is writing their first name in cursive! I’m so proud of how our Kindergarten student’s handwriting has come along so far this year!
Line Time Lesson: This week we creeped and crawled and learned about insects, arachnids, and invertebrates. We first looked at insects. The characteristics of an insect are they have three body parts, head, thorax, abdomen. The also have six legs and two antennae. We sang the song “Head, Thorax, Abdomen” to the tune of Head , Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. Some examples of insects were ants and crickets which can be found, enclosed not free, in the classroom. Also, the mantis, bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. Arachnids are eight legged creatures that have a head and a thorax. Some creatures that are arachnids are spiders (tarantula named Charlotte) that is in the classroom, scorpions, and the tick. Both creepy crawlers are invertebrates which means they do not have a backbone or a spine or a bony skeleton but actually have an exoskeleton. An exoskeleton is is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal’s body. Other invertebrates are earthworms, jellyfish, and crawfish.
Cultural Subjects: We can now count to ten in 13 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, and Swedish).
Bees… bzzzzzz:
Pastor Kirk has several bee hives and talked about bees and brought in his equipment. The children tried on a protective mask, touched (an empty) hive with wax, and saw real live bees (in an enclosed hive).
A Peek In The Classroom:
We’re a happy family. The babies are growing, mom is doing well, and the aunties are accepting the litter. Anyone want pet rats????The old colored water with with flower experiment. As you can see we chose dark purple (which did nothing to the flower), green (which turned the flower yellow), and blue (which turned the flower blue).My kindergarten students tracked the color changes in their personal binders. We came up with possible reasons why the purple did nothing. We thought maybe too much coloring couldn’t get up the stem. The yellow maybe had more yellow in the coloring.Line Time… The aim is to increase body control and concentration. The child sits criss cross, hands to themselves, and are quiet. This is an exaggerated picture of catching a bubble (no talking), safe hands (hands to ourselves), and sitting on the line calmly. My morning line time can last up to thirty minutes and your child sit nicely for the duration of this line time. At line time I present information about days of the week, months of the year, the date, the weather, we count to ten in different languages, my weekly theme, and announcements. Also, as a bonus they get to hear my morning banter.The child needs to practice, perfect, and consolidate the body’s movements. For this reason, Dr. Montessori began using the “Walking on the Line” as a Practical Life exercise. This exercise helps the child control his body, develop balance and perfect equilibrium, as well as to strengthen the mind’s control of its body’s movements. No pushing, no cutting, and no running across to the other side of the line. We play a classical piece of music, Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor, which is exactly five minutes (4:57). After I ring the bell and the children stop, look, and listen, they proceed to clean, and walk the line. After the music ends the children sit nicely on the line.
A Peek Into Next Week:
Line Time Lesson: Dinosaurs and the unique things of select dinos.
11/17/17 (Friday): Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN) Follow the link to sign up. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-2017
The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning both static and dynamic addition using the golden beads. They have even started working on more abstract materials like the stamp game and dot board to solve problems.
Equivalence: The students are learning that the word equivalence means to be equal or equivalent in value . They are discovering that 10 units are equivalent to 1 ten, 10 tens are equivalent to 1 hundred and that 10 hundreds are equivalent to 1 thousand.Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.Dynamic Addition: This child is doing dynamic addition using the golden beads. Dynamic addition simply means addition where we need to carry over an amount. The process is similar to static addition except if the child has a group of ten he/she will need to exchange. Exchanging takes place when the child is combining the beads.
A Look Into Next Week: Continue Dynamic Addition (exchanging)
Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes
Color changing flower:We took white roses and placed them in water with food coloring. The next day the children discovered that the flowers had taken on the color of the food coloring they were placed in: yellow, blue and red. The reason the petals of the roses changed colors was because the food colored water had traveled up the stem and into the petals.
Tabletop hovercraft: We hot glued a bottle cap to an old CD and then blew up a balloon and attached it to the bottle cap. When we slowly opened the bottle cap air flowed out of the balloon creating a cushion of moving air between the CD and the table. This reduced the friction allowing the CD to hover freely over the table.
Every Tuesday we have music with Miss Lisa. Half of our classes go in the morning and the other half goes in the afternoon. Here is what we have been up to this month!
This month we started off with learning the terms ‘adagio’ and ‘andante’. Adagio means slow and andante means medium. We also learned the term ‘Allegra’, which means fast. We practiced these different speeds with the song “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” and playing the tambourine.The second week of October Miss Lisa introduced us to a couple of new songs involving counting and hand movements! We sang Allison’s Camel, Knick-Knock-Paddy Wack, The More We Get Together and 3 Little Monkeys. We loved using our fingers to count the different things in each song! We also learned a few new dances that went along with these songs. We love all the movement that Miss Lisa incorporates into her lessons!We all have really started to learn the words to the songs and are having so much fun singing along with Miss Lisa. We also reviewed the words ‘piano’ which means soft/quiet and ‘forte’ which means loud. We also had a short discussion about how all of the music words we are learning are Italian. Miss Lisa’s music class is a wonderful enrichment on Tuesdays and we are looking forward to what we will do next month with her! Thank you Miss Lisa!
As one of our first graders said this week, “There’s no way it is already November!” We can’t believe we are already heading into lower temperatures and Christmas Show preparations! Research projects are in full swing in our classroom. First and second year students are researching dinosaurs, third year students are learning about the human body, and fourth year students are beginning cell theory and classification of early humans. We have ended our North America Continent Study and are talking about animals, musical instruments, and capitals of South America.
First and second year students are diving into their Dinosaur Research. Each student chose one Saurischian dinosaur and one Ornithiscian dinosaur to learn about. They are researching the diet, habitat, size, and other facts about each dinosaur before creating a poster to display their findings. One thing students must be comfortable with before beginning research into any topic, is using the index of a book. This student is using the index to find information about her Saurischian dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.This first year student asked to join a second year lesson about the Conventional Protractor. The concept behind measuring angles is introduced through lessons about triangles. Students then move on to using the Montessori Protractor which is a complete circle with measurements from 0 to 360 degrees. After practice with that material, students draw lines and measure their angles with a Conventional Protractor. Students that have practiced adding on paper, will add up their angle measurements to check their work. If the sum of their supplementary angles is 180 degrees, then they know they did accurate measuring.These students have been independently researching guinea pigs. They used books and the internet to complete a research template. After compiling their research, they wrote a rough draft, including an introductory paragraph and a conclusion. For their final draft, they had to include a cover page and a bibliography. The students chose when to present their information to the class and took questions at the end from their peers.This week the second year students did a lesson where they matched many adjectives to three nouns. A few of the adjectives were words that the students didn’t recognize so we used the dictionary to find the answer. Something Montessori always said to teachers and recommended to parents was, “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed,” so you will often see in a Montessori classroom children being led to find their own answers instead of being given the answer. When you are learning networking, it is handy to visit Subnet-Calculator.org for free subnet mask calculatorThese students are working on “Button Classification.” This is the first lesson before the study of Early Humans. The students are given a large amount of various buttons and have to separate them based on characteristics, just like a scientist would when discovering a new species. These students started with two groups: small and large. They further separated those groups based on holes in the buttons, texture, color, and other characteristics.
A Peek into Next Week Next week our Lower Elementary students will be continuing their research, looking at the difference between a point and a solid, and will beginning studying the fundamental needs of humans throughout history. Our fourth year students will continue learning about cells, look into different categories of pronouns, and will classify living things.
REMINDERS:
Parent-Teacher Conferences are Friday, November 17. This is a NO SCHOOL day for students. Please sign up for a conference here.
Cultural Subjects: We have been counting to Ten in 11 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, and Romanian).
Peeking Into The Classroom:
This is an action shot of a student sorting. Inevitably, our reading books get mixed and become out of order but this student is assigned every day to put them in order. This set of books has four sets of ten and she enjoys the responsibility of doing and completing this task.
Rolling a mat develops O.C.C.I (order, concentration, coordination, independence) and development of muscles. The mat is to be rolled tightly and with even ends. Also, the purpose of the mat is to give the child his / her own personal work space while working on the floor.
The reason for this picture is not the material but how a student who is four years old is presenting and showing his peers how to use this work. Kindergarten students are not the only ones that present materials to others. All students have the potential to show others how the work with materials.
Did you ever wonder how the teachers keep track of all our students with all those materials on the shelf? The answer is a Montessori tracking program called MRX (Montessori Records Express). It tracks the individual student with the materials they are working on and mastered. It also exports that information to our progress reports and tracks attendance. We use MRX with our tablets.
This assessment this student is working on is called the Albanesi Assessment. This test is a bridge between the Montessori works and a traditional test. We give these tests to our kindergarten students and old preschool students.
Peek Into Next Week:
Next week we will learn about insects, arachnids, and invertebrates.
