Pumpkin to Jack-O-Lantern

In October we had great fun with the many pumpkin themed works throughout the classroom. 

We had many opportunities to connect this unit with other areas of the classroom. The photo on the left is secret number work. A child chooses a secret number written on a slip of paper, he/she then has to fetch that number of pumpkins from a basket on another work mat. When he/she returns a second child guesses what number the first child chose. The photo on the right is the sets basket work. The basket contains sets of objects for numeration work 1-10. After the child has sorted the objects into sets, he/she counts each set and places the objects under the numeral card for that quantity.

We also brought the pumpkin unit into the Practical Life Area of the classroom. The photos above show two friends hammering golf tees into a pumpkin. These friends are practicing concentration, coordination, independence, order, and safety while having fun! This was a very popular work!
The photos below show two other Practical Life works; transferring colored water with a baster and stringing pumpkin beads onto a pipe cleaner. Love the concentration and determination of our friend stringing the beads!

We read several books in the science area of the classroom about pumpkins. We learned a pumpkin is a squash. Many of us think of a pumpkin as a vegetable but botanically speaking it a fruit. We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin plant. After the seed is planted if it gets water, the right temperature, light and air it will germinate and a seedling comes up, which grows into a vine. Yellow flowers grow on the vine and as the flower dries up a green pumpkin begins to grow. The pumpkin is ready to harvest when it ripens to orange.

"Pick a pumpkin from a vine

Pumpkin round, pumpkin fine.

Pick a pumpkin from a vine. 

Let's pick pumpkins"

Before Halloween we carved our classroom pumpkin. Some friends enjoyed removing the "guts" from the pumpkin, while other friends were less than interested in that step. After the pumpkin was carved, we rinsed and dried the seeds, we spread them on a baking sheet, and sprinkled on some cinnamon sugar. YUM! After Halloween, we placed our Jack-O-Lantern into a large glass container and sealed the top. We have begun to make observations of our decomposing pumpkin. We will talk about how decomposers such as bacteria and fungi break down the pumpkin into tinier parts. We can put the pumpkin out in the compost bin. Rotting old plants provide food to grow new ones. 

Reading buddies

Throughout the year each full day friend in the primary classroom will be assigned a reading buddy from the elementary classroom. So far it has been a wonderful experience for friends in both classrooms. We began the reading buddy project by making "mail boxes" by decorating large envelopes to place at the back of our reading buddies cubby. The "mail boxes" will be used throughout the week to trade letters and drawings with our reading buddy. Once a week we meet to read to each other. 

Happy Halloween

"Stirring and Stirring and Stirring the brew
Tip toe, tip toe, tip toe
BOO!"

Connecting science and cultural units to the practical life area

"I climbed up the apple tree
 All the apples fell on me
 Apple pudding
 Apple pie
 That was very good
 Oh my!"

The last few weeks we have been studying apples. We sang apples songs, talked about the parts of apples, and learned about Johnny Appleseed. Most of our cultural and science units are carried throughout all curriculum areas. While we were studying apples, the practical life area of the classroom had beautiful apple bowls, apples for scooping, and apples for stirring. Here's a glimpse of the the practical life shelves.

There are three practical life shelves. The shelf pictured  to the left is for pouring, scooping, and squeezing activities. The next shelf pictured below is for twisting activities, sewing and threading, and care of self. The third shelf is for care of the environment; sweeping, plant watering, window washing, etc. (sorry no photo).

The practical life materials aid in the development of coordination, concentration, independence, and order. As with all areas of the curriculum, the materials are carefully prepared to isolate a particular skill, be attractive, complete, and allow a child to work independently.

The materials are arranged on the shelves from left to right and top to bottom by order of the sequence of skills.
                                                                                 A favorite work was using an apple hole punch
to make a "bushel" of tiny construction paper apples to take home. We do love to collect
things! And though we don't realize it we are
also strengthening our hands and developing our fine motor skills in the process.

pom pom squeezing

Another favorite work was using putting pom pom "apples" into individual apple shapes in an apple ice cube tray. This work helps to practice using a pincer grip for writing, while building concentration and a sense of order. One of the tenants of the Montessori philosophy is repetition. Repetition is very important in developing fine motor coordination.

Using the apple cutter with play-do helped us to get ready for food
                                                         preparation with apples. We have already practiced rolling a ball   during prior play-do lessons. After rolling a ball of play-do, a child carefully centers the apple cutter over the play-do and presses down to create perfect "apple" slices.

apple cutter with play-do 

apples with cinnamon recipe

Sitting with a friend; enjoying conversation and the apples with cinnamon that they prepared

                                                                                 

International Day of Peace

On Friday September 21, 2012 Meadowbrook Montessori School celebrated the International Day of Peace with a school-wide peace walk. The primary class created peace flags with their thoughts about peace and the elementary class lined West Street with Pinwheels for Peace. We walked from West Street to LLBean, where we sang "Light a Candle for Peace". 

Peace education is the foundation of the Montessori philosophy. Dr. Maria Montessori said "Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war". In the primary classroom the peace curriculum starts with the introduction of the classroom ground rules, how to be respectful of the Earth and each other, and how to resolve problems respectfully using peaceful language. We have also begun talking about peacemakers with a story of Maria Montessori. The elementary classroom has been talking about peace during class meeting. They have talked about using peaceful language, getting your voice heard respectfully and listening. 

Click to see more photos of our International Day of Peace Walk

Wow, time certainly flies when you're having fun! The first two weeks have flown by. Old friends were reunited and new friendships have been made.

Our second and third year students settled right in to the classroom routines. They have been great models for the younger friends to learn the ground rules and routines of our days together. We are learning grace and courtesy. We practiced interrupting a teacher or friend politely by putting a hand on his/her shoulder. We practiced bathroom etiquette (knock before you enter, one friend at a time, flush, wash your hands, and turn off the light). We practiced taking a work mat out, carefully unrolling it and smoothing it on the floor. We practiced walking around the work mats so we can be safe with the materials and respect our friends work. We are very eager to learn from all of the materials!

serious meditation

This week we had music on Tuesday with Mr. Andrew. We sang a few songs that the class learned last year, including our favorite, the "Crawdad song". We are also learning to sing "Sing Peace Around the World." We will sing this song after the school wide peace walk to celebrate the International Day of Peace. We started yoga on Wednesday afternoon. We had yoga outside on the playground and began with quiet meditation, followed by learning mountain, down dog, and tree pose. Lastly we had free pose-the children can show a pose that they created or share a traditional pose that they have learned.

Working with the geometric solids. We found objects in the classroom that are cones, cubes, and spheres then we graded them from smallest to largest.

Writing words using the moveable alphabet that have one or more consonant blends

Working on building coordination, concentration, independence and order while strengthening his pincer grip for writing

Pineland Farm Trip

Thank you to Erin and Marlene from the Education Center at Pineland Farms! We loved our hands-on farm yard exploration. 

We introduced ourselves to the cows in the dairy barn. 

The dairy cows took a break from breakfast for a caress on the head. 

Rain or shine, there's work to be done on the farm.

Marlene explained the rules of the hen house. 

Hello

We filled three of these baskets with very fresh eggs. Many of them were still warm. 

Practical Life-cooking

As with other areas of the classroom, snack time provides many learning opportunities including: how to care for self, food preparation, independence, coordination (using cooking tools, setting the table, serving self), order (following a sequence to prepare snack and clean up), and cooperation (waiting your turn, eating with a friend). Everyday nutritious snacks are provided that the children serve themselves at a time of their choosing during the morning work period. Our small group of friends that attend Friday mornings, cook a snack together. Some of the snacks we have made are: guacamole, pink lemonade, pancakes, jam, noodle soup, carrot pennies, oatmeal, and bagel faces.

This week the friends made toast and added toppings. Some friends just wanted to spread on butter, some had sunbutter, and others piled on sunbutter with banana slices and raisins.

The Mathematical Mind

"That the mathematical mind is active from the first, becomes apparent not only from the attraction that exactitude exerts on every action the child performs, but we see it also in the fact that the little child's need for order is one of the most powerful incentives to dominate his early life." -Maria Montessori

The sensory impressions that the child gathers through his/her work with the practical life and sensorial curricula are retrieved during work with the concrete apparatus of the math curriculum. It is through the use of the Practical Life activities, such as the fine motor exercises, that the child's inner concentration, cooperation, independence and sense of order are developed. The child's senses are prepared through the Sensorial materials to discriminate between materials, such as working with the length rods creating a sensory impression of increasing and decreasing which is later used in the mathematics curriculum with the numbers rods which increase by units of one.

The mathematics materials like the other curriculum areas are logical and ordered. There is a natural progression of challenge from one lesson to the next, which follows the natural instincts of the child. This logical, ordered curriculum not only isolates a particular mathematical concept with the use of a particular lesson, but each lesson uses the skills that the child has attained through previous work and builds on those skills.

Numeration 1-9 1:1 correspondence

linear counting with the hundreds board

Decimal System (base 10) place value, correspondence of the bead material to symbol

 Passage to abstraction -using the stamp game to add complex numbers.

Mother's Day Tea

Mother's Day Tea bunting made by the children using the triangle metal inset

The children made tissue paper flowers with help from our friends from Freeport Middle School

treats

Eating and enjoying the violin music by the elementary students

The elementary students volunteered to play a concert for us.