We were so excited to end last week with a walking field trip to Tallmadge Circle. This week we had parents visit for “Bring Your Parents to Work Time,” continued to practice our play, and enjoyed a new science experiment about decomposers. This week, Lower Elementary students worked with the Small and Large Bead Frames, measured in grams, discussed the Mesozoic Era, and worked with the Constructive Triangles. Upper Elementary students worked with multiples, homonyms, prepositions, and angle word problems.
On our walking field trip to the Tallmadge Circle, students had to practice safe walking rules by staying together, staying on the sidewalk, and being aware of their surroundings. We also discussed the purpose of crosswalks.While at the Circle, students sketched each direction around the circle. They had five minutes to sketch each direction. At school this week, the students are putting their sketches together around a circle, representing where we were sketching, drawn on a poster board. They will color these sketches, add a compass, and a map key to complete their map of the Tallmadge Circle. Look for a Remind message about when these will be available for display.These students are helping each other in reading group. This reading group came up with the rule of raising your hand if you know a word someone is struggling to read, instead of just telling them. This gives the child an opportunity to sound out a word or choose to get help. One of our favorite things to see in our environment is students coming up with solutions to problems without a teacher’s help.First and second year students are beginning to study dinosaurs. This first year student knows a lot about dinosaurs already, so she joined me to present the lesson and information to the other students. Before this lesson actually took place, we had to plan together which one of us would talk about certain things and how we thought the lesson should go. During the lesson, this student practiced her public speaking skills and gained a lot of confidence!During one of our “Mindfulness Moments” this week we tried Deep Listening. We discussed how you know someone is really listening to you, how it feels when someone takes the time to really listen, and how we can practice that with our friends and family. After our discussion, we partnered up to share something that we’ve struggled with, something we are looking forward to, or how we were feeling. Elementary students often struggle with feeling like they are not being treated fairly or not fitting in. One way parents and other friends can help is to take the time to truly listen, even if the conversation seems insignificant, and give examples of when you’ve felt that way and how you’ve handled it.These third and fourth year students had a blast measuring angles with a protractor. They taped angles onto (and under) our science table, then used dry erase markers to record their measurements. The Montessori classroom allows students to spend more time on work they are interested in, instead of only allowing a certain amount of time per subject. Although these students appear to only be working on Geometry, they are also learning to work together and delegate tasks. They spent two days on this project!
A Peek into Next Week
Next week Lower Elementary students will continue their dinosaur research, practice writing different lengths, learn about proper adjectives, and talk about surface tension. Upper Elementary students will change improper fractions to mixed fractions, work on commas as interrupters, practice note taking, and finish their review of prehistory.
REMINDERS:
10/23 Box Tops are due
10/25 All Halloween Party supplies should be dropped off by this date.
10/25 Parent Education Night Parent Education Night at 6:30pm (Tallmadge Campus) click on the link to register:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b48a8a92da6f94-montessori
10/27 Halloween Play and Party – Remember to drop your child off at the Cuyahoga Falls Campus by 8:15 in regular clothing. Children will change into their Halloween costumes when we return to the Tallmadge Campus. They will need the regular set of clothing for gym this day.
