Our Week

We spent a lot of time doing work outside on our deck this past week to take advantage of the sunshine. Here are photos of some of the work happening inside and outside the classroom lately.

Variation of the numerals and counters materials for 1:1 correspondence 

Practicing coordination and grace and courtesy for Mother's Day Tea

Transferring tiny eggs from a nest using tweezers

making a hanging bead stair 

addition with the decimal (base 10) system materials, also known as the golden beads

working with the positive snake game

Researching the definitions of the parts of a caterpillar

addition with the number rods

making a diagram for the parts of an insect

push pinning a triangle traced from the triangle metal inset, a writing preparation material

examining a blue jay feather in the nature basket

decorating invitation for Mother's Day Tea

Spring Practical Life

The daffodils bloomed in Maine this week and provided inspiration for the practical life area. 

pouring from one cup to another

transferring eggs from a nest using tweezers

scooping eggs into a basket

transferring water droplets with a pipet

pouring pom pom balls from one cup to two cups

stacking nesting boxes

pinning flowers to a line

hanging up seed packet print fabric using cloths pins 

Sensorial Curriculum

creating patterns by matching the knobbed cylinders to the knobless cylinders 

Problem solving and using visual and tactile discrimination to build the trinomial cube 

A snow globe makes a beautiful center piece for an extension to work with grading the colors in Color Box 3.

The ability to categorize, organize, and analyze requires higher level thinking and builds a strong foundation for mathematics. 

How long are the red rods lined up end to end? These students used various materials in the classroom, including their own bodies, as units of measurement to answer that question. 

Dr. Montessori believed that there is nothing in the intellect that doesn't first exist in the senses. Children are constantly taking in information from their environment. Their brains analyze the information and form impressions. From the ages of 0-3 the process is unconscious. From the ages of 3-6 observations of the environment are conscious and intentional. During the age of 2-3 there occurs a great push from the child for independence, with the child often asserting him/herself in the choices that he/she makes. He/she takes the impressions that he/she actively gets from his/her environment using his/her senses to classify information. Children from 3-6 years old need to have order to process the myriad of impressions gathered through their senses to be able to form connections between things and situations. Development as seen through brain research is a process. Repetition of exercises in a consistent environment help strengthen networks of connections in the brain.

Dr. Montessori described man's hands as the instruments of man's intelligence. The materials in the Sensorial Curriculum involve the use of the hands in a classifying act. The hands and the mind work together making a mental connection between an abstract idea and its concrete representation. The sensorial materials are concrete pieces of information that can be organized into meaningful patterns. Work with the didactic material helps to develop a strong foundation for mathematical concepts.

Geography

North America 

South America

Africa

Asia 

Eurrrrope!

Don't forget Australia

Don't forget Antarctica!

The continent globe introduces the idea of the continents. Earlier in the year we did a lot of work with the land, air, and water globe. On the continent globe each continent is painted a different color (North America is orange, South America is pink, Africa is green, Europe is red, Asia is yellow, Australia is brown, Antarctica is white, and the oceans are blue.) We sang the song printed above to learn the names of the continents. 

Last week a new work was introduced to the geography shelf to relate the spherical continent globe to the two-dimensional map as a way of representing the Earth. The continent globe and a container of playdo were brought to the work mat. We remembered that the globe is a sphere and represents the Earth and shows where places are on the Earth. It was explained that maps are another way of showing where places are on the Earth, but maps are flat, not spheres. When we look at a globe we can only see the side that is facing us. To make a map, a mapmaker has to flatten a globe. The playdo was rolled into a sphere and then cut in half and flattened to give the children an initial impression of the relationship between a globe and a map. The planisphere puzzle map was then introduced. First we found North America, where we live. We then named and traced each continent with our fingers before placing the puzzle piece into the map. We will begin using the puzzle pieces and the control chart to trace and label our own continent maps. We will also match animals to their continent on a cloth map. Soon we will begin a cultural unit on Africa.

I saw a little bird going hop, hop, hop. I said to the bird will you stop, stop, stop. He flew to the window said, "How do you do?". He shook his tail and away he flew.

Making books of birds

Tracing the parts of a bird puzzle

We have begun our studies of the five vertebrates with the study of birds. We talked about the parts of a bird and did writing work to make a book or traced the parts of a bird puzzle to make our own diagram of the parts of a bird.While doing this work, we were also strengthening our pincer grips by tracing the puzzle pieces and coloring, we added many bird names and words to our vocabularies, and we practiced careful handwriting. We talked about the characteristics of birds that make them different from the other vertebrates. We also talked about the characteristics of bats that let us know that they are mammals and not birds. There was a listening center with headphones on the science table for listening to real bird sounds. At circle we read Flute's Journey: The Life of Wood Thrush by Lynne Cherry. It is the story of a young wood thrush's first migration-across thousands of miles-from his nesting ground to his winter home in Costa Rica.

Listening to bird songs

We hung several bird feeders around the school.

The squirrels appreciated the bird feeders too.

Busy Fall

Hi Everyone!

The fall is flying by! It was wonderful chatting with you all at conferences. As always, feel free to email, call, or send a note in the morning with any questions or information to aid your child's experience in the classroom. The Fall Festival was a huge success! We had a great turnout from the Meadowbrook community and met families from our larger community who came for the open house. I especially enjoyed watching a few of the primary students decorate their parents faces at the face painting table! Thank you to everyone who contributed to the festival.

Thank you to everyone who has brought flowers for the classroom! Many children have chosen the flower arranging work and have taken great pleasure in caring for our classroom by decorating with their arrangement.

I'm sure many of you have noticed the lovely flower boxes around campus. You may not know that these boxes have maintained all season long by Ina (Matt's mom). Anna and I are very grateful for all of her hard work & for donating flowers. Please remember to thank her next time you see her.

Ames' 5th birthday

Ewan's 4th birthday

 We began our sewing work with a group "sewing circle". The first and second year friends sewed two foam pumpkins together and added stuffing before sewing them closed. The third year students began their sewing by practicing with a circular stitching board. They then attempted designs with an orange pumpkin shaped sewing board. The children were very proud of their finished projects.

On Friday mornings, we have been cooking our snack to share.

We read the book Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. It is about three friends making pumpkin soup together. It illustrates the difficulties that can occur with friendship. The Cat slices up the pumpkin, the Squirrel stirs in the water, and the Duck tips in just enough salt. But one day the Duck wants to stir instead, and then there is a horrible squabble, and he leaves the cabin in a huff. The Cat and the Squirrel start to worry about him and begin a search for their friend.

peeling potatoes

peeling an onion

Finally we joined the elementary classroom to share our pumpkin soup.

Many of the children have been very interested in the math work available and we are happily moving along through the math sequence. Each of the children are moving at his/her own pace through the sequence from working with the number rods, to numeration work and one to one correspondence, and then to the bead chains and linear counting. This work prepares them for the work with the operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). 

Two of three math shelves

working with the teens boards

 

one to one correspondence with a sets basket

counting a squaring chain

one to one correspondence with the sets boxes

The children are also very interested in any work that leads to writing. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons are devoted to writing time. We read at circle and then the children choose  independent writing work. Sometimes they chose to work on themed paper. We have used leaf themed paper, pumpkin paper, and solar system papers. They are recording their work in sensorial, math, and language. Many of the children have also chosen to copy books and information from our pre-cosmic education unit on the Universe. The Universe boxes were introduced to the children at circle. This is a lesson to show the children their place in the Universe. The Universe boxes are nesting boxes, the largest showing the Universe, then the Milky Way Galaxy, then our Solar System, Earth,  North America, The United States of America, Maine, Freeport, Meadowbrook Montessori School, and then in the box of Meadowbrook Montessori School is someone very, very special.

Universe box work 

Our work with the Universe Boxes led to a unit on stars and galaxies. We talked about how Earth orbits the Sun, which is the closest star to Earth. We are now working on learning about the planets in our solar system. We have been singing a Solar System song.  The lyrics to "The Family of the Sun" can be found here.

matching work with models of the Sun and planets.

A few more photos of classroom work.

writing words with the moveable alphabet

knobbed cylinders

matching color box II

punching out a star with a push pin