February Weeks 2 and 3

Hello Families,

Since the last post was a long one, I will make this one short!

The students are doing well and mostly busy doing interested-based projects as well as the “regulars” that we ask them to keep working on and practicing.

We had a great celebration of Mardi Gras on 2/13 followed by Valentine’s day on 2/14 when, as you know, we wrote letters and cards to loved ones. For Mardi Gras, we made crepes, whipped cream and cut up strawberries. We had some helpers from upper elementary come and help hull the strawberries and oversee the cutting up! We also made masks and talked about Mardi Gras, also known as Carnival, in other countries around the world. Of course, the crepes went over well; we had them at the end of day!

The students worked very hard on their letters. Most of them did at least one draft before the final letter. It was quite an undertaking for them (and a learning experience for me) to write a personal letter. Now, that they have some basics down, we will write more.

Last week, we introduced a new book on our Peace Table: Making Peace in our Montessori classroom. We did this so the students can be more independent in solving their conflicts. So far, it has been a good process.

We have a new area for yoga, listening to calm music and practicing breathing. Its more popular with some than others but always there for everybody.

Our latest song we are learning the very traditional French song of ”Alouette” –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hFw_cWg9U

Our new Practical life exercises include pouring molasses, screwing phillips screws into a block of wood, sanding a piece of wood, a transfer activity with a strong clip that really have to work to open and close with their hand!

Both last week and already today (Monday), we had so many works going on when the morning work cycle was over that we decided all together to eat on the floor so as to not have to put our work away. Fun for them and exciting to see so much enthusiasm to continue work in the afternoon!

Finally, our Field trip to Dodge Nature Center was a huge success. Thank you for heeding the requests for gear and the lunch. All went very smoothly. The children loved it and spent a good amount of time outdoors. They say so many live animals from turtles to snakes indoors and deer in the woods on our path!

Housekeeping items

1.       Jennifer Gessner has volunteered to take over the Ambassador role for the classroom. We have a meeting this week and will update you soon.

2.       Please put a plastic bag (or 2) in your child’s backpack so we can put wet snow pants in there at the end of the day. This week will likely have very wet and dirty gear as melting is in the forecast.

3.       Readers: if any readers have come home to you, please SEND them back to us in the Thursday folder. Thank you in advance.

4.       Conferences are coming up. Please sign up and we look forward to seeing you again and showing you their copybooks with all their work and practice.

Lessons:

Math: we continue to do clock work with some students, operations, factions, measuring. A few students were introduced to decimals and we watched an video clip of an Olympic Ski Race to see how important tenths and hundredths are!

Language: several of the children are really moving along in learning all the phonograms; the latest ones have been: ow, ce/ci; ge/gi and tion. We have a little literary circle who have completed their chapter book and are now beginning on their book report. Letter writing, printing and just reading and more reading!

Practical life: ironing, sewing, knitting, cleaning – still !

Cosmic : we had a very contagious event happen this past week - EVERYBODY wanted to paint a continent and oceans of the Earth map! It is a several step project that took many days for some students. Some are just completing them this week due to absences last week.