Tea time

This week several children had a dry cough. It isn't rare in Maine in March when the air is still dry and the day might be in the mid 50s and the next in the low 30s. Tea work was introduced in the classroom earlier in the school year and a child may offer tea to a guest, but it's been awhile since a child has made tea for him/herself. The tea making work got a lot of use this week and eased many dry throats.

Excited for honey lemon tea!

Squeezing out the tea bag.

Waiting is the hardest part.

Function of Words

Our third year students are word lovers and have been soaking up the function of words lessons. "In the function of words lessons the child is given a sensorial experience as each kind of word is named functionally; that is, to concretely describe what it actually does in a sentence. Dr. Montessori united a symbol to each one of the parts of speech. This is an example of the concept in Montessori of 'concretized abstractions'. In speech, each word has a proper function and there are two important centers in speech: the noun and the verb. Around these two fundamental centers, all the other words rotate" (NMI, 2008). There are two great "families". The family of nouns include the noun, article, and adjective. The family of verbs include the verb, adverb, and pronoun. The children have been introduced to the family of nouns and will now be introduced to the family of verbs.

Noun: the naming word 

The symbol for the naming word is a large, black, equilateral triangle. 

 Therefore the shape of the symbol for the naming word is triangular, as are the sides of the pyramid. The pyramid may be the oldest human made structure.It is believed by many that the first mineral discovered was carbon, therefore, black has been chosen as the color. In 1900's Europe when Maria Montessori was designing the materials, coal was more of a commodity than it is today. 

In the first lesson with nouns an oral game is played. A large felt triangle is laid out on a work mat. The teacher asks a child to bring a pencil. When the child returns with the pencil, the teacher asks "How did you know what to bring me? Yes, I told you its name." The teacher continues asking the child to bring things, but occasionally asks for commands that are not nouns, such as "Please bring me yellow." The child will later work with written labels for objects and will be introduced to sorting nouns that name a person, place, or thing. Small objects, Pre-printed labels, large, black, felt triangles, and strips of paper are included in a black, triangular, wooden box for independent work. 

Article: the specifying word

The symbol for the specifying word is a small, light blue, equilateral triangle. 

The article only precedes the noun, so it is the same shape as the noun. It gives the least information so it is the lightest in color and the smallest. 

The article is also first introduced with an oral game. The teacher asks for an object using the correct article. The teacher then asks for an object using an incorrect article. "Please pass me the ladybug. Oh, there's more than one ladybug, I should have said a ladybug." The child then works with written labels. Objects (some in quantity), preprinted noun and article labels, felt triangles, and strips of paper are included in a light blue, triangular, wooden box for independent work. 

Adjective: the describing word

The symbol for the describing word is a medium, dark blue, equilateral triangle. 

The adjective is used to modify the noun so it is the same shape as the noun. The adjective gives more information than the article, so it is darker and larger than the article, but it's not as important as the noun so it lighter and smaller than the noun.

A game is also played with the adjective. The teacher asks for an object from the classroom, such as a pencil. When the child returns with a pencil, the teacher says "Oh, I'm sorry, that's not the one I wanted; I didn't describe it carefully enough. Please bring me a yellow pencil". The game is repeated, each time emphasizing that the object was not described carefully enough. The child then works with written labels. As with the noun and article, a box containing felt symbols, labels, paper, and objects is available for independent work.      

Working with written labels and symbols for the article and noun.

This friend is recording the work.

Article, adjective, noun work with the farm animals.

Beautifying the Classroom Environment

Throughout this year our classroom parents have taken turns bringing bunches of flowers each week. The children use the flowers to make flower arrangements for their classroom environment. Flower arranging is a work that is included in the Practical Life curriculum for care of the environment. The direct aim of the work is to build coordination, concentration, independence, and order. The children are unaware of those aims, but they do appreciate the beauty of nature and are proud of the ability to create a something beautiful to display in the classroom. I have provided step by step instructions below. I encourage parents to try this work at home this spring to promote independence and appreciation of nature.

The work is set up on a table with several choices for a vase, a watering can or pitcher, a funnel, scissors, plant food in a bowl with a small scoop, and a sponge for wiping spills.

The funnel is placed in the chosen vase and water is poured in from the watering can. One scoop of plant food is poured in the vase. 

A flower is selected. The flower is placed in the vase to see the desired height and then the stem is trimmed with the scissors. 

Place flowers in the vase until a pleasing arrangement is created.

Place vase of flowers on shelf or table of choice. 

Green Eggs and Ham

We made green eggs and ham on Friday to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday. We made a healthy version by adding spinach to scrambled eggs and had low fat ham on the side.

Each child added spinach to this little blender and pushed down to pulverize the spinach.

     

Then each child cracked an egg.

Next they whisked in the pulverized spinach. Finally they cooked the eggs in our electric skillet.

Thumbs up!

Dr. Seuss

March 2nd was Dr. Seuss' birthday. Dr. Seuss' books are treasured by families around the world. Most of the children at Meadowbrook had already been introduced to the stories and fell in love with the rhyme, rhythm, characters, and silly plots. The week before Dr. Seuss' birthday the primary classroom was prepared with many works in all areas of the classroom that were inspired by Dr. Seuss' books. In addition to the activities below and reading Dr. Seuss' books, we did Dr. Seuss yoga from Omazing Kids Yoga and made green eggs and ham. I'll post about  green eggs and ham cooking work in a separate post.

 Practical Life Work

Left foot, right foot work was inspired by The Foot Book.

Clipping toenail work was in the care of self area. This work was also inspired by The Foot Book.

Cat in the Hat pom pom transfer with tong work was inspired by the Cat in the Hat. The idea of this work came from Living Montessori Now.

Green Eggs and Ham Egg cracking and whisking work was inspired by Green Eggs and Ham.

Blue fish squeezing and scooping work was inspired by One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. 

 

 

Not pictured: balancing apples while walking on the line work inspired by Ten Apples Up On Top.

Sensorial Work

The Nose Book by Al Perkins is written in the style of Dr. Seuss and is a Random House Beginning Reader Book. It is the inspiration for this smelling jar work in the Sensorial area.

This Cat in the Hat matching work was created for the Sensorial area. The pdf file is available from Joyfully Weary.

Language Work

The idea for There's a Wocket in my Pocket alphabet sorting came from The Princess and the Tot.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is filled with antonyms. I wrote the antonyms from the book on fish and created this antonym matching work. The antonym pairs include happy/sad, fast/slow, high/low, old/new, left/right and hello/goodbye.

The Seussville site has many printable activities related to Dr. Seuss books. I cut up this Hop on Pop worksheet and created a hands on language activity.

This is also a worksheet that can be downloaded at Seussville and altered to create a Montessori language work. I cut apart the words on the worksheet so that a child can select the noun that completes the sentence to match the picture.

These alphabet tracing cards were found at Michaels and just needed to be laminated to create a dry erase tracing work.

Math Work

This is a One Fish, Two Fish counting activity. The pdf can be downloaded from obSEUSSed.

This addition work was downloaded from AtoZ Teacher Stuff. I also made addition equation cards to be used with the work. 

This is a measurement work. A child has to select a blue strip of paper that was measured in inches. The child measures the selected strip using the ruler and then constructs a hat out of legos that is the same length.