One of the underlying themes in the Montessori classroom, is the teachings of “grace and courtesy.”  This plays out in many ways in the classroom, from rolling up a mat so the next student can use it easily, to saying “excuse me” when bodies accidently bump into each other.

At lunch time, after hands are washed and lunches are laid out, we sing a song together called “The Earth Is Good to Me.” The teacher then says, “Bon appetit, now you may eat.”  

This is a daily reminder for the students to wait for the children around them to set out their lunches;  instead of devouring their food as soon as they get it out of their lunchboxes.

It also directs the children to think about how everything we need to survive comes directly from the Earth, and it allows them to experience gratefulness.

Here is the song in English:

The earth is good to me.

So, I thank the earth

for giving me, the things I need

the sun, the rain and the apple seed.

The earth is good to me.

Bon appetit, now you may eat. (spoken)

When Ms. Diana is managing lunch, we sing the song in Spanish.  

Here is the song in Spanish:

La tierra es muy buena.

Asi, que le agradezco

por darme a mi, lo que necesito

el sol, la lluvia y la semilla.

La tierra es muy buena.

Buen provecho, puede comer. (spoken)

Please encourage your child to sing this with you, especially the Spanish version, as it will reinforce our efforts in the classroom. Thank you!

Thank you to Karri (Gabrielle’s mom), Dana (Enaara’s mom), Janell (Sydney’s mom), and Ashley (Carsyn’s mom) for helping us with our Valentine Day celebration and to the families who donated supplies.  You made it very sweet for all of us!

February 16-26

(boxes will be located outside each primary classroom for your donations)

Help us support the Boulder City Senior Center!

           Food drive for the Boulder City Senior Center’s Food Pantry!

One of the many services the Boulder City Senior Center provides for local senior citizens is a food pantry. Each week senior citizens are given the opportunity to receive a free bag of food to help supplement their fixed incomes. This service allows for senior citizens to feel empowered and remain independent in their own homes. Unfortunately, the food pantry is on the verge of being shut down due to the lack of funds and food available. Help us make a mark in our community by donating food to their food pantry!

Ideas of food to donate:

*Any non-perishable food items

*Cereals              *Soups           *Peanut Butter

*Tuna Fish         *Noodles       *Spaghetti Sauce

Kindergartners cutting out fish to go on our “ocean wall.”

cutting out fish for our “ocean wall.”

REMINDERS

No school on Friday, 2/12 due to teacher in service.

rainforest cockroaches.

No school on Monday, 2/15 in celebration of President’s Day.

PTO family dance is on 2/19 starting at 5pm to 8pm at the Dragon Ridge Country Club.

Egyption animal assembly on Monday, 2/22 at 10am.

Trabajo de Espanol (Spanish work).

A big thank you to Steven and Alexander (and their families) for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our room.

The Montessori Preschool/Kindergarten classroom is typically organized into six areas, including:  Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math, Cultural, and Art.  There are seven areas in our classroom because we offer Spanish immersion.

The jobs are typically organized so the easiest job is on the top left corner of the top shelf progressing to the the most demanding jobs on the bottom right corner of the shelf.

The organization of the shelves helps develop a sense of order and predictability in the children as they progress through the materials.

 Montessori materials are also often presented in a left to right motion.  This pattern helps train the children’s hands and eyes to move from left to right in preparation for reading and writing.

Each of the areas are organized by the overall curriculum with different monthly themes that direct our attention to a particular continent, and subject matter such as space, oceans, or insects.

There is conscious effort, especially in the practical life area to use real household items and in science to teach nomenclature that is used by scientists. This empowers the student to learn correct usage of an item, or to clearly identify a plant, an animal, or an object by its full name.

Exploring some animals found in Antartica.

As the child matures and moves into higher grades, the foundation for relating to their world from a real life perspective has been laid.  Confidence grows when knowledge is rooted in real life, and the naturalness of the association of an object with its features and descriptions.

Contemplating the 1,000 chain.

We were so delighted by the turn out of our families who attended “Parent/Child Night.”  Thank you for sharing your enthusiasm and appreciation for your child’s work.  Having you step into their educational world reinforces your child’s view of themselves as a learner, and as a teacher!

We are wrapping up this month’s study of snow and ice studies, and what better way to do that then to make ice-cream!

Thanks to the attentive guidance of Ms. Ashley (Carson’s mom) and Ms. Jessica (Grace’s mom) we made “ice-cream in a bag,” and the children really enjoyed the process, as well as the results.

REMINDERS

Kindergarten enrollment information night is on Wednesday, 2/3/2016 at 5:00pm.  Come and get a sense of how and why the Montessori Kindergarten curriculum is so effective in laying a solid academic foundation for your child.

First grade enrollment information night is on Thursday, 2/4/16 at 5:00pm.  See for yourself the bridge between the Montessori pre-school/kindergarten class and the lower elementary class experience.  Meet the teachers and see where the process will lead your child.

Rainforest animals will visit us on Monday, 2/8 at 10am.

Valentine’s day celebration will be held on Thursday, 2/11 in the morning.  If your child wants to participate, please have them sign 26 valentine’s.  We encourage you to keep it very simple so that the distribution of the cards is kept easy.  With this in mind, please do not address the valentines with specific child’s names, and please do not supply candy or other “gifts” with the cards.

No school on Friday, 2/12 due to teacher in-service.

No school on Monday, 2/15 in celebration of President’s’ Day.

The PTO family dance is on Friday, 2/19.

THANKS

A special thanks to Carsyn and her family for providing delicious snacks, and beautiful flowers for our classroom.

We have settled nicely back into our school routine and find that the children are moving through the classroom with purpose and ease.  Our theme this month includes studying the solar system, stars, and constellations.

Solar system job demonstrating planetary distances from our sun.

As we gaze upward, the enormity of the universe begins to dawn on us and the children seem to grasp the idea that Earth is a planet (along with seven other planets) in our solar system and the sun is actually a star.

We encourage you to do a little stargazing with your child and let them experience the wonder of the night sky.

Now that the winter weather has arrived, please continue sending your child to school with jackets.  Mornings, especially in the outdoor classroom, are quite chilly and jackets are required if students wish to work outside.

Most of our younger students are mastering the technique of putting on their jackets.  We teach them a couple of ways of doing so.  If there is a hood to the jacket, we show them how to pull their sleeves out, put the hood on their head, then fit their arms through the sleeves.  

Another way is to place the open jacket on the floor, have the child stand facing the top of their jacket, bend down and place their arms in the sleeves, then flip the jacket up and over their heads.  You may want to have your child show you!  

Exploring some animals found in Antartica.

Zipping a zipper takes a lot of practice and we show students how the two pieces need to be lined up; once it is going, we hold the bottom firm so that they can experience the feeling of pulling the zipper up.

It’s also helpful to let your child practice buttoning their buttons. Once again, please make sure that your child’s jackets are clearly marked with their names.  

Counting by “5’s” using the Five Chain.

The Chinese acrobats entertained and amazed us this week with their supple flexability

and their deep levels of concentration.

Lighting a candle; using a lit candle balanced on her chin!

Thank you to the parent volunteers who helped escort our class to the Smith Center to see “The Cat in the Hat” performance.  For some of our students, that was their first theater experience.  We appreciate the focus and care that our volunteer parents brought to this important task.

Please mark your calendars to visit P1, on Thursday 1/28, and have your child show you three of their favorite jobs in the classroom.  From 4:00-4:45, we invite families (students and parents) who have last names starting with the letters A-M to come to school and let your child guide you through three lessons.  At 5:00-5:45 we invite all our families whose last names begin with N-Z to come to P1 and learn from your child.  This is truly a moving experience when you see your child sharing their favorite works with you.  We look forward to seeing all of you here!

REMINDERS

No school on Monday, 1/18 in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

Thank you to Vivian L. and Gabriel, and their families for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.

The desert winter has arrived, and bringing with it the chance to bundle up and wear sweaters and jackets.  Please take a few moments to make sure that your child’s jackets, sweaters and hats are labeled with their name.

We encourage the children to keep their jackets in their cubbies, but sometimes they fall out and without a clear name on the label, finding the right owner can be challenging.

Please send your child to school with a new set of clothes in a ziplock bag, and we will send the original set home.

Celebrate America Day was a huge success.  We are so grateful to the parents who helped supply our classroom with s’more makings and to those who helped facilitate the craft activities inside our room.

It was also very helpful to have the mom’s travel with us as the children migrated from area to area.

Thank you to all of our families who contributed to the Upper Elementary drive to collect new and gently used jackets and clothes.  It speaks to the generosity of our community that so many of you answered the call.

One of the science lessons we teach the children is the five categories of vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, fish, birds and amphibians). We started with mammals in October and then added reptiles in November.

Some of the key features of mammals are: they are warm blooded, they have hair or fur on their bodies, they breathe with lungs, and they give birth to live babies.  Reptiles are cold blooded, they have skin or scales, they breathe with lungs, and their offspring are hatched from eggs.

It is this kind of exposure to scientific facts at this young age, that helps our students to begin understanding the natural world around them.  It is also lays the foundation for them categorizing facts and information so that later in their education they will be able to recall those facts easily.

Learning about the silent “e.”

“Hop” changes to “hope” when the silent “e” is added.

Reminders

No School Wednesday, 11/11 through Friday 11/13 due to Veteran’s Day and teacher in-service training.

Australian animal assembly on Monday, 11/16 at 10:00am.

Kindergarten field trip to Red Rock Canyon on Thursday, 11/19, please be at school by 8:30am.

Picture re-take day is on Thursday, 11/19.

Half Day on Wednesday, 11/25 dismissal at 11:15am.  No school Thursday, 11/26 and Friday, 11/27.  Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving Day and break.

Thanks

A great big thank you to Dylan and her family for providing delicious snacks and beautiful flowers for our classroom.

Many of the Montessori works are truly hands on, with no paperwork trail to reflect the effort required to do the work.

 This is especially true in many of the math jobs, sensorial, and in the practical life areas of the classroom.

On the other hand, you may see small strips of paper with letters traced on it, pin punched papers, and even math papers referencing the color bead stair coming home, not knowing the source of this work.

Early letter recognition is practiced using the “blue stepboard.”  A strip of four letters is placed in the board and the student is asked to match the letter from the board to the strip.  When they  are correct, the letter fits; when it is not the right match, the letter will not fit.

The tracing paper is inserted into the board and the letters are copied.

As the child progresses in their recognition of letters, more demanding strips will be used and the student will be given the chance to fill in with the beginning sound of a word, then ending sounds of a word.  Finally, a simple picture is found on the strip and the student spells the entire word.

Pin punching looks deceptively easy when the work is brought home, but the labor and fine motor skills required are noteworthy.  Whether the child is pin punching a metal insert design (triangle or  square), or they are pin punching a seasonal shape (pumpkin or turkey), the level of concentration is immense.

The child is holding a push pin with the pincer grip (between the thumb and the first and second fingers) and is literally punching out consecutive holes around the perimeter of the shape.  If a student is deliberate in their work, the shape is easily extracted from the page.  If they have not sufficiently punched in enough holes, it is harder to remove it from its original page.

Often, a teacher will hold up the pin punching work to the window to check the quantity of holes before they attempt to tear it out effectively.  The child can then see if they have pin punched enough holes to tear it out easily.

Finally, you may have seen paperwork showing a progression of 1-9 where the numbers are traced and the corresponding beads are colored with their specific color.  For instance, the one bead is always red, the two beads are green.

The bead stair: 1-10

You are looking at a foundational Montessori math work.  One of Dr. Montessori’s chief insights into educating children was to recognize that a child will likely learn better and retain the information longer, if they are taught from the concrete (holding a one bead in their hands) then introducing the abstract (this is the number one).

The one to one correspondence begins to take hold, where the child realizes that they are holding “one” and that the name of that concept is the number one.  You will see papers reflecting this work when bead stair papers are coming home.

THANKS

A great big thanks to Dr. Montes (Gabrielle’s Dad) for bringing in his portable x-ray viewing machine and sharing several copies of broken bones and swallowed objects (pennies, keys).  The children are currently studying bones, so it was a wonderful addition to their studies.

THANKS

Also, we were treated to an informative and amusing presentation by Dr. Valencia (Gabriel and Lucas’ father) regarding the heart.  The models of the heart were quite the delight of the children, especially when the valves were easily removed.  Thanks to Dr. Valencia for giving a big lesson in easy terms that the children responded to.

Thank you to all of the parents who helped make our Celebrate America Day, inspiring and fun!  We appreciate your time, and the wonderful supplies that you provided.

A great big thank you to William and Enaara (and their families) for providing bountiful and delicious snacks, and beautiful flowers.

REMINDERS

No school on Friday, (10/30) in celebration of Nevada Day!

No school Wednesday-Friday (11/11-11/13) due to celebrating Veteran’s Day and teacher in-service days.

Australian animals will be here on Tuesday (11/16) visiting us in the Multi-Purpose Room at 10am.

Picture retake day is Thursday (11/19).

Kindergarten field trip to Red Rock Canyon is on Thursday (11/19).