Busy Friends

The knobbed cylinder work allows children to explore mathematical attributes by ordering cylinders based on diameter and depth. Baby washing work. Don't forget to wash the baby's bottom!

Morning snack and a rousing game of Candyland.

Playdough pancakes.

Building words with the moveable alphabet.

Working all morning to build a castle structure that uses all the blocks in the block area.

Solving problems with the addition strip board.

This smell matching work is harder than it looks.

Snow Bunny

Bumpkins loves the snow too!

Let it Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Reading and Writing

Reading and writing ... the magic of language unfolds as children unlock the secret code of letters.

Sandpaper letter excercises allow a child to explore the shape of the letter through touch while making the sound of the letter.

Tracing a name or word allows a child to practice letter formation and pencil grip.

Words are wonderful to collect. Here a child is writing the names of the countries in Africa on index cards so that he may carry them with him on a word ring.

Letters make sounds, sounds make phenomes, phenomes make words, words make sentences, sentences make stories and the power of language grows.

Learning to Read and Write...Montessori Language Workshop

Just a reminder this Wednesday, Novemember 12th there is workshop on how we teach language in our classrooms. The workshop is at the school from 7 to 8:30 and there is childcare available.

New Work !!!

Growing up in an Italian and Irish family my life and relationships often centered around food. My passion for food certainly overflows into the classroom. I enjoy sharing the skills of preparing food, the joy of tasting food, and the great feeling of sharing food with friends. Our food preparation works in the classroom allow children to gain the independence of preparing thier own snacks and feel the pride of sharing thier success with friends not to mention strenghtening thier fine motor skills, math, language, science, and cultural knowledge as well.

Toast making work in our food preparation area has been quite a hit. We went through two loaves of bread in the first morning! Children toast and butter a slice of whole wheat bread for a delicious snack. Since we don't have an oven at the school, I'm on the lookout for a bread making machine so we can start baking our own bread. We also have orange juice squeezing and banana slicing work in this area as well. We moved from sewing pumpkin and bat pillows to sewing puppets. After stiching the felt puppet the children can use scraps of fabric and yarn to decorate thier work.

Button sewing is another sewing activity also available on our shelves right now. This is a little more challenging than the puppet sewing work. Children must use a needle and yarn to stich a button onto fabric without prepunched holes. This activity also introduces an embroidery hoop as a useful tool in sewing.

In our geography, cultural studies, and science area we are studying North America. In our study we have been reading many books on Native Americans and learning about thier customs and traditions. One of the new works we have in this area is making a dream catcher. This combines the sewing and beading skills we have been practicing in a new, creative way which celebrates the cultural history of the some native american tribes. Our dream catchers are made from leftover paper plates, hemp thread, natural beads, shells, and feathers.

Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!

We kept our Halloween celebrations at school fun but low key. Noemi and her mom, Maya, shared some delicious pumkin muffins while we sang Halloween songs at circle. Children then put on thier costumes and took turns standing in the center of circle dancing to some music. We formed a parade line and sang our way through the toddler room out onto the playground and back to our classroom again. 'Vampire Bat Stan' tooks pictures for us and John (Eli's Dad) told me about this cool link where I could make this montage. However tempting, fun, and easy, I'll try not to over do the montage feature ;)

The toddler's enjoyed our parade and celebrated in thier classroom by painting paper pumkins and carving real pumpkins.

Halloween Montage 2008

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A Glimpse Into Our Day, Primary Class Pictures

A glimpse of what our days are like in the classroom. Building a tower with the knobless cylinders, these have the same height but different diameters.

Skip counting by nines...

The constructive triangle, building triangles with triangles.

Matching tools to their names...

Classifying animals and objects by land, water, or air ...

Washing the chalkboard, building core strength and coordination...

Solving a big addition problem using the bead stairs...

Beading work...

Stretching and moving in the big blue bag...

Leaf rubbings....

An older friend helping a toddler complete the parts of a flower puzzle...

Writing notes....

Singing with Dani...

Listening to books on tape...

Building in the block area...

Primary Classroom Friends at Work

"Building" the teens...practice in counting from 11 to 19...
Classifying animals by the environments in which they live...

Working on the map of Africa....

Fresh orange juice anyone? Just one of our "food prep" practical life activities.

Working on the map of the United States.

Using our fine motor skills:

Tonging... Peeling a cucumber...

Silver polishing...

Using the moveable alphabet to spell words...

Completeing the hundred board ...

Building a puzzle city...

Stretching our bodies as well as our brains...

Playing in the tall grass. Some friends were pretending to be deer creating a bed for the night while others were working on their camouflaging techniques.

Talking with Daphne-pizza our classroom cockatiel...

Seriating puzzle cards, beginning-middle-end...

Hammering work, practicing eye hand coordination....

Sewing bat pillows..

Practicing buttons...

We are using the treasures we collected from our walkn(leaves, pinecones, pods) earlier that morning to paint a group nature mural.

At the beginning of each circle time we take a moment of mindfulness. The sound of the singing bowl helps us to focus and calm our bodies. When we can no longer hear the sound of the bowl we take three deep belly breaths and recite our affirmation for the week.

When it's cold and rainy oustside we find ways to move inside. Casey is leading the children through a series of yoga poses, practicing balance and strength.

Teamwork...

Here some friends are working on the hundred board, seriating numerical tiles frome 1 to 100 using a contol guide.

"Beadwork" is quite a popular work in our classroom right now. Children place hundreds of very tiny plastic beads (Perler Beads) in a pattern on a frame. Teachers then fuse the beads with an iron to create a solid shape. It is a wonderful activity for strenghtening the pincer grip and fine motor muscles needed for handwriting. It is interesting to observe children working with this activity, some prefer to work alone in almost a zen like state of focus while others work with friends socializing as if they are members of a quilting bee sharing stories as they work.

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