k-1
Lead Teacher :: Jill Bittinger :: jbittinger@mdpsc.org
Co-teacher :: Thi Ngo : tngo@mdpsc.org
MONTHLY UPDATE 1-27-12
Welcoming in the third quarter, the K-1 class has moved into a rhythm in which the children work with increased focus and concentration, are better able to communicate their feelings through their words – including using the peace table as an important tool for one on one communication – and are simply springing forth into new capability in reading and math every day. Other points of interest have included:
A successful Holiday show and party with the parents
In December, the students acknowledged a variety of cultures through learning about the different names of holidays celebrated at this time around the world, and how to wish it to the parents. One of our holiday songs included the lyrics: “Feliz Navidad” with “I want to wish you… a Merry Christmas…. a Happy Hannukah…. a Happy Kwanzaa….an Eid Mubarrak…. Happy Diwali…. and Ya he te Kesh Mesh (Navaho).” As well, we sang “Jingle Bells” in both English and French! We noted the theme of celebrating the light as a common element to all–a timely lesson in also learning about solstice marking the time of the sun’s light now increasing again as it travels to our planet Earth.
Continued cross-curricular connections that are deepening learning and honoring the whole child
December was a time of learning about the Polar Regions of our Earth. Through the books in our literature study we were cooperatively able to create a group Venn Diagram in which we examined the qualities that are different between the North and South pole, and what qualities are the same. Did you know that both have auroras? And that only polar bears live in the Arctic? And only penguins live in the Antartic?
We also enjoyed reading various books by Author Jan Brett, including revisiting an old favorite–this time not about a gingerbread man, but about a Gingerbread Baby! The children loved the fun of reading predictable parts together, reading and sequencing sentence strips, making masks for the animals that were part of the story–and then acting it out! As part of our math and practical life, we did measuring and following a recipe to make gingerbread dough, then baked and decorated the cookies to serve at our class party. A fun time was had by all!
January arrives:
After a two week break, the students were eager to return to school and see their friends and return to the quiet, focused work that we’ve established in our classroom environment. Each wrote and drew pictures about what they did over break, as well as shared about it with their friends through guided cooperative interaction. This month we have been studying Asia. Highlights have included: Parent presentations about their home country, learning gesture dance from India, celebrating the Chinese New Year with Ribbon dance and Dragon Dance and music, and a field trip to Lee-Lee market, to which we all walked together with the many parent volunteers. Additionally, we have enjoyed parent lesson contributions about Conscious Discipline from Ms. Trisha and Music Appreciation from Ms. Terry.
Truly, we are blessed to have a community so rich with not only bright, eager students–but a wealth of talent and energy within their parents who are willing to share it! We celebrate the goodness of life together, and welcome making the year 2012 one of the best years yet!
MONTHLY UPDATE 11-30-07
It is hard to believe that we approach the end of our second quarter already as the children are all so concentrated on their work that the days speed by. Special highlights have included:
- An outstanding success in our International Day performance. Students sang the Montessori Day School Theme song, Thanks a lot by Raffi, and Peace is the World Smiling (in a round). They also did rhythmic stick dancing to Brazilian, Mexican and Israeli dance tunes. Parents and children alike dressed in authentic clothing from cultures throughout the world and also enjoyed a true feast from this multiplicity of cultures. What a fun day!
- Continued cross-curricular connections that are deepening learning and honoring the whole child. Examples begin with the literature study of Stellaluna by Jannell Cannon, leading to a Venn Diagram to study the differences and similarities of bats and birds. This also launched our study of the many kinds of mammals in the world—along with their unique qualities. Then, study of bats and spiders and our bodies’ skeletal systems tied science work, artwork, and Halloween celebration together nicely. Similarly pumpkin study connected math concepts of weighing, measuring, estimating the number of seeds, and tally marks to vote on the kind of face we wanted for our class jack-o-lantern. And what fun it was to bake and eat the seeds after we counted them—314!
- November cross-curriculum study gave wonderful opportunity to learn more about the unique qualities of our continent of the month, North America—beginning with a song to name the countries. Of course this gave opportunity to tie in learning more about Columbus and his discovery of the “New World”–which, in fact, was already inhabited by the many indigenous Tribes people already here! Personal presentations by two of the students’ parents—rich with objects, language, stories and song—gave students a meaningful personal experience in this territory. We tied it in with learning about the Pilgrims that traveled from England on the three ships and what their early life was like—significantly connected to the friendship and assistance of the Native Americans. As part of our Thanksgiving week celebrations, students were invited into an imaginary experience, outdoors, being part of tribal life, feeling their connection to the Earth and the web of life upon it. Drumming and chanting were an enjoyable part of it. For the feasting, we tied it into a new literature study, Growing Vegetable Soup. We used this text for sequencing sentences, writing in journals and identifying conventions, then further tied it into identifying vegetables in our own garden, peeling and cutting vegetables in our practical life work, and then making those very same vegetables into a class soup! The vote was that it was delicious! Further cross-connections came through identification of the cornucopia, a symbol of the celebration of Harvest, and labeling all the names of the fruits and vegetables in it—a connection back into the experience of that first Harvest celebration in 1640.
As can clearly be seen, the Montessori philosophy embraces the experience of the whole child through developing their coordination, their appreciation for and ability in the arts, their whole language and phonics skills, their math in facts and real-life application, and finally, their verbal and social skills, with sensitivity to other cultures and big-picture thinking.
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MONTHLY UPDATE –10-14-11
What a wonderful Field Trip we had this past week! Childsplay Theater Company brought to life three books by Kevin Henkes that we’ve been reading as part of our daily author study. The play wove the different scenes together to make a story that the children could understand and identify with—and one that entertained the adults present as well! We were fortunate to have a question and answer period after the performance that allowed the children to see that the actors were real people who have chosen the arts as their career. We were encouraged to go to their website for more follow up activities that integrate children’s literature and the AZ State Standards.
Our new author that we’ve begun studying is Lois Ehlert. As we read her books about gardens and butterflies, we are creating wonderful cross-curriculum connections by learning about plants and their parts (roots, stems, leaves, and flowers), preparing the soil for our garden, bringing in seeds and seedlings to plant, and learning about the importance of plants for our planet the Earth. Learning of the wide variety of flowers and their colors has provided a rainbow bridge to learn color words and ordinal words in the process. The garden study has then naturally extended to insects, learning about their parts and the names of different ones—especially the butterfly. As we tie home and school together, parents are asked to watch the butterfly life cycle at home on You Tube with their children. We are studying it in concept, and one parent has volunteered to bring in real caterpillars so we can witness the process in real life!
All parents were invited into the classroom to become the student to their own “Child as Teacher” experience! We are happy to report that we had an excellent turn-out to this event and were so pleased to hear all the good feedback about the students’ learning in the process. It made for a wonderful community day.
CURRICULUM NOTES:
As always, our room is rich with Montessori Materials that provide for hands on experience to support foundational understanding. In Math–quantity, place value, geometry, relationships between numbers, strategies in addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and even division concepts. In addition to the use of these materials that are ever present, we are also specially focusing on using pictographs to understand some of the particular statistics of our particular set of children in the classroom.
In Language, we begin with the sand paper letters and sand tray to reinforce letter sounds. These progress to use of the moveable alphabet in the use of world building, working with one vowel sound, or spelling pattern, at a time. provide leveled readers and individualized phonogram books to improve the students’ confidence as they graduate from the early sensory experience of the movable alphabet, increasing in fluency and recognizing spelling patterns. Language bridges to the science area as we read about and make books about different animal groups: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds.
HOMEWORK;
Official “Memory Day” assessment has begun. Every Friday, please look for a paper in your child’s folder that will give feedback on their progress in understanding letter sounds and how they fit together to make words, as well as their success in learning important sight words. lease continue to reference the monthly homework assignments that were sent home in the homework journal. Cut each week’s assignment’s apart and tape into the journal, then respond to them. Many of the students need lots of support in writing their letters correctly and clearly understanding which are tall, small or fall. Have them keep practicing! Read together every single day and encourage your emergent reader to read to you. Please keep supporting the earlier learning as it applies to real life: coin recognition and its value, time, shapes in our world around, patterns, etc.
CLASSROOM NEEDS
We welcome regular parental contribution in the class through either helping make materials, or, especially important is the physical presence of parents whose schedules allow them to come in and do individual reading/letter work with the children. The timing especially good for this is the 9:30-11:30 time slot each morning. Additionally, some parents have special talents to share in terms of musical gifts, cultural presentations, domestic, gardening or building skills. We welcome your gifts!
THANK YOU to all of the parents who have participated so actively in our class!
HELPFUL LINKS
Great Reading practice:
www.Starfall.com
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MONTHLY UPDATE 9-16-11
September is well underway and we are making excellent progress. Thank you to the parents that came to our Parent Education night. The subject of how we integrate peace into our classrooms, and also into our lives at home, is an important and significant one as we seek to help build a culture of tolerance and respect in our world. This is a timely subject as September 21st brings an opportunity not only to celebrate the arrival of fall, learning the reason for the seasons in the process, but also marks the International Day of Peace.
CURRICULUM NOTES
Our classroom continues to effectively utilize opportunity for cross-connections. The September literature study books: A House for Hermit Crab and then Wemberly Worried both speak to the power of friendship . It provides excellent opportunity for teaching points that utilize language development skills while also embracing quality subject matter about the value of friendship in our lives. We often reinforce the fact that we are all friends in our class and utilize times of group movement in the circle to see how we can cooperate and work together. Students’ pictures and writing in their language journals provide opportunity to draw and receive support in writing about the students’ own particular ideas in order to share special times of feeling friendship that they want to share. Reading from these at the end of the day on the “Hot Seat” is especially enjoyable for many of the children as they share work they are proud of. Others choose to share books they’ve made in the classroom, or artwork they are especially proud of. Our Art projects have utilized different styles of art including making hand puppets in order to role-play the stories at home, using tissue paper to replicate the Eric Carle kind of art, and squeeze paints as we start to name and paint different kinds of dinosaurs.
We continue to learn about our solar system, asking for students to remember and name the planets to their parents as part of our homework. As well, remembering the names of the months is a natural area for home-school connection. This includes the writing of the months as they come to remember the names. Such work is but one area of the on-going Home-School Connection Journal that is now established through the weekly homework folder going between school and home. Using the clocks that went home to continue telling time is another example of supporting this relationship essential to the childrens’ best learning.
Good manners and ways of showing respect—to yourself, your friends, the teachers and the environment—is of course an ongoing arena that we reinforce, always striving to have the students understand and implement self-control. Having them understand that they are making choices is a big part of this. When feelings are hurt, we use the peace table and talking crystal to help take turn in sharing feelings. When poor choices are made, we use the Responsible Thinking Process to help guide the children to process their choice of action and the consequence that resulted from it.
All beginning of the year assessments are complete and students are now grouped with others on similar levels in order to provide the appropriate level of scaffolding, or support, to challenge them, yet not frustrate them.
As always, our room is rich with Montessori Materials that provide for hands on experience to support foundational understanding. In Math–quantity, place value, geometry, relationships between numbers, strategies in addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and even division concepts. In addition to the use of these materials that are ever present, we are also specially focusing on using pictographs to understand some of the particular statistics of our particular set of children in the classroom.
In Language, we begin with the sand paper letters and sand tray to reinforce letter sounds. These progress to use of the movable alphabet in the use of world building, working with one vowel sound, or spelling pattern, at a time. We provide leveled readers and individualized phonogram books to improve the students’ confidence as they graduate from the early sensory experience of the movable alphabet, increasing in fluency and recognizing spelling patterns. Language bridges to the science area as we read about and make books about different animal groups: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds.
HOMEWORK;
Please continue to reference the monthly homework assignments that were sent home in the homework journal. Cut each week’s assignments apart and tape into the journal, then respond to them. Many of the students need lots of support in writing their letters correctly and clearly understanding which are tall, small or fall (i.e., hang down). Have them keep practicing! Read together every single day and encourage your emergent reader to read to you. Scholastic book orders are due September 22nd. There are excellent beginning phonics readers available in the Bob book series and others, and are well worth the price.
CALENDAR & EVENTS
Our field trip to go see the play Lily’s Plastic Purse is set for Wednesday, October 12 at 10:30 a.m. We will leave in the morning, going together in parents’ cars after meeting at the school, and will return to eat lunch at the school. We could yet use more parent drivers!
CLASSROOM NEEDS
We welcome regular parental contribution in the class through either helping make materials, or, especially important is the physical presence of parents whose schedules allow them to come in and do individual reading/letter work with the children. The timing especially good for this is the 9:30-11:30 time slot each morning. Additionally, some parents have special talents to share in terms of musical gifts, cultural presentations, domestic, gardening or building skills. We welcome your gifts!
THANK YOU to all of the parents who have participated so actively in our class!
WEEKLY UPDATE–9/2/11
We say good bye to August and Hello to September.
With it, we eagerly await the departure of the extremely HOT days!
Thank you for the extra water bottles for the students. We are encouraging extra water drinking!
CURRICULUM NOTES
Wonderful cross-connections are at work within our environment. Our Literature Study this past week was on Eric Carle’s “The Grouchy Ladybug.” Through it, we’ve had opportunity to discuss kind vs. unkind choices. We’ve reviewed the powerful magic words “Thank you”, “Let’s Share”, and “You’re welcome.” We’ve received new vocabulary in written form for the 12 animals introduced in the book, and many students have found either a miniature version of that creature in our classroom, or a picture of one in one of our library books. We’re learning to tell time, each student bringing home a clock they decorated personally. It provides a perfect opportunity for a home-school connection and your child will greatly benefit if time can be reviewed with the use of the clock. Even the challenging references of 5:15, 5:30 and a quarter to six were made into specific lessons where the children made the time on their individual clocks. As well, we were able to see the relationships of ¼ or a quarter…. of a whole fraction skittle (a Montessori material), or a whole dollar, or a whole hour.
After assessing, we have formed into color-coded small groups, all a color of the rainbow. Each group has 5 or 6 students and we work together on the level that is appropriate for each. Whether just trying to make letters, or learning about the vowels and how they work together to make long vowel sounds, each student is being challenged according to his or her ability.
As always, our room is rich with Montessori Materials that provide for hands on experience to support foundational understanding. In Math–quantity, place value, geometry, relationships between numbers, strategies in addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and even division concepts. In addition to the use of these materials that are ever present, we are also specially focusing on using pictographs to understand some of the particular statistics of our particular set of children in the classroom.
In Language, we begin with the sandpaper letters and sand tray to reinforce letter sounds. This progresses to using the moveable alphabet to build words, working with one vowel sound or spelling pattern at a time. We provide leveled readers and individualized phonogram books to improve the students’ confidence as they graduate from the early sensory experience of the movable alphabet, increasing in fluency and recognizing spelling patterns. Language bridges to the science area as we read about and make books about different animal groups: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds.
Other curriculum highlights: We’ve been studying about the Universe, Milky Way Galaxy, our Solar system, and our planet Earth. We’ve been learning how unique life is to our planet, and that you can’t see borders from outer space—so, it’s clear, we all just have this one planet to share. We talk about how to help it and not hurt it… and how to help, not hurt, each other.
HOMEWORK
We are just underway with establishing a new format for “homework” this year. It will still take place through the receiving and giving back of the “homework folders”, but will contain written prompts with ideas for ways to support, at home, what we are learning at school. Folders will be handed out on Wednesday, September 7th, and one of the parents, Amy Markos, will be helping to explain them as they are given that day.
CALENDAR & EVENTS
We’ve set the date for our first field trip in October! This will be to attend a play from one of the books we’ll be reading in our literature study. The permission slip should have already gone home. Please make sure that you sign it and send it back by Wednesday, September 7th. We usually get a great turn-out of parent helpers/drivers for our field trips and hope that this year is no exception. Please make sure to express your interest for this role to our Office Assistant, Colleen.
CLASSROOM NEEDS
We welcome regular parental contribution in the class through either helping make materials, or, especially important is the physical presence of parents whose schedules allow them to come in and do individual reading/letter work with the children. The timing especially good for this is the 9:30-11:30 time slot each morning. Additionally, some parents have special talents to share in terms of musical gifts, cultural presentations, domestic, gardening or building skills. We welcome your gifts!
THANK YOU to all of the parents who have participated so actively in our class!
HELPFUL LINKS
Great Reading practice:
WEEKLY UPDATE –8/21/11
We are off to a great start of the 2011-12 School Year!
With all of our classroom community-building activities, the students are quickly learning one another’s names and making new friends. The students who are continuing MDS students from last year are acting as confident leaders to help to welcome the students who are new this year. We are affirming that “We are ALL friends” within our class–our “school family.” The Peace Table has already been implemented as a wonderful communication tool for working with challenging feelings that may come up and we are consciously instilling times of silence as a balance to the very busy and productive classroom that we have going.
CURRICULUM NOTES
The first week of school is largely devoted towards establishing classroom rules and procedures in order to help all students take a vested interest in the upkeep and preservation of an organized, clean and calm classroom environment. These procedures include a classroom discussion around what rules should we have inside and outside–boiling down to a single word: Respect: respect for one another, for our environment and for the materials. Procedures also include a strong emphasis on hygiene, with many different times given throughout the day to wash hands–along with a lesson on how to do this effectively. We talk about ways to keep the environment clean and as germ-free as possible. Students have been timely and ready to start at our 8:30 a.m. beginning of the day with music and song. This is followed with an individual welcome to each one as we announce our presence to the class, putting our “little person” into the treasure box and sealing it up with the “Safekeeper” poem, helping us to remember that our job is to keep one another safe.
All feelings are acknowledged throughout the day, never making anyone wrong for having them. It is a big adjustment for some of the new students to be in school all day and we consciously seek to create a nurturing atmosphere by having time to greet one another shaking hands, or dancing together, or acting out songs about feelings–songs that affirm that we all have feelings, that feelings can change, and that feelings are not “bad.” We introduced a “talking crystal” as a communication tool at our Peace Table to help with taking turns to listen and respond.
We are beginning to decorate our room with student artwork and birthday posters from August birthdays. If your child had a July birthday, we welcome that celebration at the beginning of our school year as well. We are also paying attention to our environment by reinforcing the importance of care for the materials, with clear attention to the slow, methodical way of working with the rich materials that characterize the Montessori environment.
Assessments are taking place in order to place students in the appropriate group for small group lessons that will particularly relate to their skill set. We purposely set professional goals of challenging all levels, appropriate to their level–whether it be a first grader reading fluently and working with numbers in the 1000′s, or a beginning level kindergartner just beginning to learn their letter sounds and to write them. In learning writing, large movements are given first priority, an example being the large painting of laminated numbers on the easel. Or, moving the whole hand as we write out the individual letters and numbers in the sand tray. The small muscle control required to write small letters and numbers is strengthened through many of our practical life activities that require a three-finger grasp as well as the popular “metal inset” work that has sturdy metal shapes used to make individual student designs with colored pencils. Students are also given support through tracing work, and sometimes “hand over hand” work with the teacher to reinforce the correct way of making letters and numbers.
As always, our room is rich with Montessori Materials that provide for hands on experience to support foundational understanding. In Math–quantity, place value, geometry, relationships between numbers, strategies in addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and even division concepts. In addition to the use of these materials that are ever present, we are also specially focusing on using pictographs to understand some of the particular statistics of our particular set of children in the classroom.
In Language, we begin with the sand paper letters and sand tray to reinforce letter sounds. We then progress to use of the moveable alphabet to build words, working with one vowel sound, or spelling pattern, at a time. We provide leveled readers and individualized phonogram books to improve the students’ confidence as they graduate from the early sensory experience of the movable alphabet, increasing in fluency and recognizing spelling patterns. Language bridges to the science area as we read about and make books about different animal groups: amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds.
Other Curriculum Highlights for the month of August:—-
Beginning August 22, we will be working with Reading Specialist, Lisa Wyatt. Lisa has her MA from UCLA in Reading and will be mentoring the new implementation of a regular classroom addition, “Literature Study.” This kind of instruction complements the strong phonics base that the Montessori materials provide by cultivating a love for what quality literature can bring to the world of children and adults alike. Sharing in that joy is one of the most important contributions a parent can make as they help to educate their children. This month we are beginning with two books by Eric Carle, A House for Hermit Crab, and The Mixed-Up Chameleon. Extensions on the literature study will include creative arts and crafts work, dramatization, choral reading, think-aloud webbing with follow-up writing opportunity and discussion on topics that relate to the book themes. Examples in this case are: sharing and caring with our friends, and the value of being oneself.
We are also beginning the study of our “Geography” by first looking at the big picture of the Universe, then coming in to our Milky Way Galaxy, our Solar System, and then to our Earth and what it is made of.
Our Peace studies will include recognition of the Inner Light within each one and what helps that to shine brighter, or, what shadows it. How we can help our own, and one another’s, Light that is within to shine the brightest will be a regular reference point throughout the year.
HOMEWORK
At this point, homework is to read to your child nightly, or, let them read to you. Discuss books. Talk about ideas that they generate from their school activities and make a bridge to real-life as to the value and use of reading and math.
CALENDAR & EVENTS
Put the date on your calendar now for the “Parents as Partners” education night coming up September 15th! The stronger the link between school and home, the higher quality is the education of your child!
CLASSROOM NEEDS
We welcome regular parental contribution in the class through either helping make materials, or, especially important is the physical presence of parents whose schedules allow them to come in and do individual reading/letter work with the children. The timing especially good for this is the 9:30-11:30 time slot each morning. Additionally, some parents have special talents to share in terms of musical gifts, cultural presentations, domestic, gardening or building skills. We welcome your gifts!
THANK YOU to all of the parents who have participated so actively in the beginning of the year’s activities!
HELPFUL LINKS
Great Reading practice:
www.Starfall.com
More to come!