Snowy Fun in the Sun

This is my first week back after a number of years. Let me say it is a pleasure to work with Tammy and Brigette. They are so caring and helpful. I am so enjoying your children.

This week we spent some time going over the basic rules of the class; how to carry a rug, how to walk, how to talk softly and how to say excuse me without bumping another person.

Tammy did a great unit on the solar system. We have been worked on singing, movement and differentiating between a minor and a major scale. We are working on matching pitches with the bells and identifying, at the moment, two composers, namely Bach and Beethoven.

We worked with many of the basic materials from the sensory area. We had a couple of beautiful sunny afternoons and the children really enjoyed the sun and snow. It was a great week. Please enjoy your vacation week and if you are traveling in different areas it would be great if your child could keep a little journal with drawings.

One request; if you know anyone who plays an instrument and has time to visit school we would truly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Gerry

This week we enjoyed learning about birds. We read bird stories and learned that the Purple Finch is the state bird of NH. We also looked at pictures of other birds that may visit our bird feeders. The children enjoyed making their bird feeders and hopefully everyone is able to find a spot to hang them in your yard. Help your child identify any birds that come to your feeder and make sure you send in your bird sightings! Each child has a bird journal that they will be recording their bird sightings in by tracing the name of the bird or drawing a picture of it.

We continued exploring percussion instruments during music. We played different drums that we have in the classroom, listened to a drumming CD and identified/colored instruments on our percussion worksheet. On Thursday, February 17th, our afternoon students will be walking to the Congregational Church to see and learn about percussion instruments. Please see me if you have any concerns/questions.

This week we read stories about Chinese New Year. We learned that the holiday celebrates the coming of spring and and is celebrated with family gatherings, gift giving and eating symbolic foods and plenty of festive decorations including Chinese lanterns.

We also learned that dragons are a popular symbol for Chinese New Year. The children were interested to learn that people dress up in dragon costumes and dance down the streets in parades and some of the dragons are 100 feet long! We then made our own Chinese New Year dragons:

Gung hay fat choy!

During music we discussed and read about percussion instruments. We learned that a percussion instrument vibrates and produces a sound when it is hit, shaken, rubbed, etc. We experimented with drums, triangles, maracas, rhythm sticks, tambourines, tone blocks and cymbals. Most children said the cymbals were their favorite although they were, "very loud!"

Last week we read, "Snowflake Bentley" and learned that no two snowflakes are exactly alike and saw some close up pictures of snowflakes. On Tuesday, our afternoon students examined some snowflakes with a magnifying glass and tried a snow melting experiment. We put snow in plastic bags and the children worked with a partner to try and melt it using their body. The children reported they were most successful when they squeezed the bag with their hands or stepped on it.

Our Friday students have been enjoying playing Sight Word Bingo and learning all about money! We are learning how to make change to one dollar.

Construction on bird feeders will begin this week. If you are able to hang your feeder at home make sure to send in your bird sightings!

Reminder: Valentine's Day card swap will take place on Tuesday, February 15th.

"The wind it whooshed, the snow it whirled/ / Bare trees shook like chilly bones./ Children grumbled in their homes." Sound familiar? We had the cure for the winter blues though...On Tuesday Magda came to read a story called, "Sun Bread" about a baker who bakes sun-shaped loaves of bread to brighten up the town during the dreary winter. After the story, the children got to make their own sun bread. They kneaded and rolled out the dough and made some very beautiful and yummy looking sun bread. Thank you Magda! It was such a great experience for the children and the perfect activity for a winter day.








On Thursday we made butter from whipping cream. We placed some whipping cream in a jar and observed the change from cream to butter as we took turns shaking the jar. We sat in a circle and each child had two turns to shake the cream as we sang "The Butter Boogie"

Shake it up
Shake it down
Shake it, Shake it all around
Shake it high, Shake it low
Shake it, Shake it to and fro
Shake it over, Shake it under
Pretty soon we'll have butter!

And we did! Halfway through the process we opened the jar to see our progress and after a few more times around the circle we had delicious butter! We spread it on crackers and shared it at lunch and afternoon snack time.

Shaking, shaking...




Halfway done....



Butter!






Our back classroom is decorated with our beautiful Chinese lanterns and we're ready for Chinese New Year!



North Country Community Band Concert:
The North Country Community Band will hold it's 2011 winter concert on February 1st at 7 PM at the Lancaster Town Hall. Admission is free, donations are welcomed.

Week of January 16th

We had a great week investigating the sense of touch. The students felt the different textures of feathers, sand, salt, rice, sandpaper, cotton balls and paper and then pasted them to make beautiful touch collages.




At circle we looked at "Vase with 12 Sunflowers" by Vincent Van Gogh and read a bit about the artist. After reading a bit about Van Gogh, and looking at some of his other paintings we set up the activity so they could draw their own sunflowers. They are looking beautiful! I'll try to post some of the children's drawings next week:



Our Friday friends enjoyed making footprint snowmen, reading "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and writing/drawing their own purple crayon adventure.




Other pictures from the week:

Our first Show and Tell went great and it was neat to see the different objects the children selected to demonstrate the five senses. If your child did not bring anything on Thursday, they are still welcomed to bring in a "five senses item" to share at circle.

On Tuesday we did a tasting jar activity. We read a book about the sense of taste and learned about the four types of taste: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Then we broke into two groups and did our tasting jar activity (or tasting cups in our case). The children tried spoonfuls of water with salt, water with sugar, water and lemon juice and water with coffee (decaffeinated, of course). We didn't tell them what was in the cups until the end, so they enjoyed trying to guess, as well as identify what type of taste it was. They did a great job of identifying each taste and decided that the sugar and water was, "yummy," but the salty, bitter and sour produced a lot of funny faces and exclamations of ,"Ew, gross!"

We were also busy making and decorating our classroom windows with beautiful paper snowflakes:

We enjoyed a new bubble making activity in Practical Life. To do this work, the child grates some soap and empties the grated soap into a pan of water and uses the whisk to create bubbles. Lots of fun!

We noticed the children had been looking for animal tracks in the snow outside so this week we made animal track books. We hung control cards on the wall and placed the booklets and worksheets on a table. The children were able to cut out the animal picture and match it to the track and paste it in their book. We discussed this at circle and tried to think of what type of animal tracks we may see in New Hampshire and which ones we probably wouldn't see around here.

The children were also busy with many other math, language, Practical Life and art activities.

Working with the Metal Insets:

Puzzle work:

Happy New Year!

The children returned well-rested and eager to get back to work. We had many students busy building and writing words, working with the Bead Material, Chains, Sensorial Extensions, puzzles and Practical Life activities. We had been so busy practicing our Winter Celebration songs during December we didn't have much time for other music activities, so we were happy to get out our instruments this week and play along to a familiar song and do rhythm activities with the really big drum.

We've been talking about the five senses during circle time. We used a mystery bag with many different objects inside and observed these objects using our senses. We found out how they felt: rough, smooth, sticky, soft; if they made a sound or had a smell. The children also made many visual observations. As an art project we made paper flowers with lavender oil that they were able to smell, see and touch.

The wonderful thing about Montessori classrooms is that materials are introduced to the children through their senses. They feel and see the difference between long and short, smooth and rough, small and large. There are materials and activities to develop auditory, gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell) senses. Sensorial materials help refine the senses so that the child learns colors, sounds, tastes and texture. It increases their desire to explore and make sense of their world.

Show and Tell is back! On Thursday, January 13th please have your child bring in an item that demonstrates one (or more) of the five senses. For example, they may bring in something that makes a sound, has a smell, has a texture they could describe to the class, or maybe even has a taste! While making a selection, discuss with them what sense their item could demonstrate to the class.

Reminder: Parent/Teacher conferences will take place on January 14th. There will be no school that day. Please sign up for a conference time on the bulletin board in the back classroom. Thank you!