As my last post mentioned, we start off the school year slowly...learning the routines & procedures are key to a successful year! Doing this with 20 3, 4 & 5 year-olds can prove challenging at times but it is also a beautiful thing to see it all come together. In order to acclimate all the students to the classroom work environment, we typically have the older preK & K students (most of who are returning students) work in the classroom with me for the first few weeks. We review our work habits & expectations for working as well as going over old & new lessons. During this time, our new preschool students are typically working in a contained environment out in the hallway with Mrs. Mikhail. Everyone did great during this introduction/review time & this week, we finally combined everyone into one happy, classroom family! Here are some photos of the great work that took place when we did: (click on the photos to enlarge) Each morning we start off with our morning meeting. This is a time for us to do the calendar while exploring math, literacy, science & social studies standards. We spell the name of the month, sing about the days of the week & talk about yesterday, today & tomorrow. We count the days, check our pattern on the number cards and graph the weather. After the calendar, we begin our morning message. This always begins with completing the following sentences: Today is (day), (month) (date) (year). It is (weather). We explore various language standards by filling in the missing sounds, writing in sight words & putting periods in the right places. After this part of the morning message, there is always another activity. Sometimes it is related to a theme. Sometimes it is a math/language activity. For the the last few weeks, we've been focusing on our sounds. Each morning, we sorted pictures by their intial sound. Here are some examples: Another time we take advantage of is during dismissal. We often spend this time using online resources to incorporate our learning standards. This week, we've also been exploring graphing in order to learn more about ourselves. We graphed our eye color, hair color, if we have brothers/sisters/etc, and how many letters are in our name. Check out our graphs below: Hope you've enjoyed this little peek into our days! Check back soon for more!
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The first few weeks of school can be such a whirlwind! New students are joining our community; old friends return. There is a lot of adjusting that needs to be done before the classroom can run smoothly. As a result we spend much of the first weeks (and even months!) reviewing procedures, expectations and rules. Returning students need reminders about how we are expected to behave at school and what procedures we follow. Our newest, youngest children have so many new procedures & rules to learn! Consequently, repetition is key to making sure these behaviors and expectations become second nature. In the Montessori classroom, you will often hear people talk about "Grace & Courtesy" lessons. These lessons refer to the way we teach children these behaviors/procedures as well as other common expectations for good manners & behavior. Often as adults, we forget that we before we can expect children to know how to act properly, we must teach them. These grace & courtesy lessons include how to greet someone, how to push in a chair, rolling a rug, walking around other students' work, how to interrupt, etc. We introduce these lessons and practice them often through role playing as well as when the opportunity arises within the school day. I would encourage you to incorporate this practice at home as well. One of the most important lessons we practice is how to wait/interrupt appropriately. In the classroom, we encourage students to either place their hand on the teacher's shoulder and wait quietly or simply stand and wait quietly next to the teacher. We often discuss how calling across the classroom or interrupting a teacher who is engaged in a conversation/lesson with another student is disruptive to other student's learning. You can put this into practice at home, too, by expecting your child to wait QUIETLY when you are talking with someone else or on the phone. Each day begins with our morning meeting. After the pledge/announcements, we explore our calendar. During this time students learn to spell the names of the months, count the number of days, explore the pattern on the calendar and learn concepts such as yesterday, today & tomorrow. We graph the day's weather which allows us to discuss the graph results--which has more/less, etc. After the calendar, we complete our Morning Message. The morning message has a variety of purposes--students are able to learn the conventions of writing such as capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and punctuation. Students practice writing by helping to fill in missing sight words or letters. Part of the morning message always highlights a specific skill/standard. Sometimes it's a math/language skill such as word problems or identifying rhyming words. Other times it focuses on a theme or science/social studies topic. Often our morning meeting is also accompanied by a story, song or new Montessori lesson. Below are some examples of our Morning Messages from the last week or so: I will leave today's post with some photos of the work we've been doing this week. I am always excited and encouraged by the eagerness the students bring to school at the beginning of the year. They are so excited about these new learning opportunities! I will post again soon--this week, we will be learning about the Five Senses! So, here's what we've been up to the last couple of weeks... First, we learned about the First Thanksgiving. Students used these story pictures & objects to retell the story of the Pilgrims & Native Americans. Children also wrote stories about what they are thankful for using the movable alphabet. Our class made our community soup which was a big hit as always! (Sorry, I didn't get an photos as I was too busy monitoring the cooking!) We read Stone Soup before we cook the soup. I'm always amazed by how they gobble it up--even the ones who claim to not like vegetables!!! We also talked about what each child was thankful for and made our thankful turkey (hanging outside the classroom). When we returned from our Thanksgiving Break, we began focusing on patterns. Each morning, we practiced a new pattern: AB, AABB, AAB, ABC, etc. We made all different kinds of patterns--patterns with sounds (clap, snap, clap, snap...), with colors, with shapes, with objects & more. We explored patterns each morning as part of our morning message and continued with independent practice with materials on the shelves. Once the students were comfortable and confident working with patterns, we turned our focus the concepts of more, less and equal to. I also have begun pulling a small group of pre-K students each day to do a small group lesson. So far, we've been focusing on letters/sounds. The students have been working on the letter name, the sound it makes, identifying words that start with that sound and practicing writing the uppercase and lowercase letter. We will continue to work on these until they are mastered. Once your child knows most of the letter sounds, we will begin learning sight words & then as they begin to read, we will start guided reading groups. I will also use these small groups to focus on other skills/concepts such as number recognition, rhyming words and more. This week, we are beginning to learn about The Gingerbread Man. We will work on seqencing activities, learn about characters & setting and more! We will also be getting a special visit from the Nashville Public Library's Puppet Truck!!!!
Well, we had a great first week back at school after Fall Break. The kids were all eager to be back and school and ready to learn lots of new lessons. Our morning meetings focused on fall---what happens in fall, what it looks like in fall, etc. Here are photos of our mornng messages from this past week : As you can see, we use our morning message each day not only to review the calendar and explore our current theme, but also to work on critical literacy skills. Students learn about the conventions of writing such as using punctuation and where to put a capital letter. They also explore concepts of print such as tracking words from left to right and top to bottom and putting spaces in between words. It is amazing all of the important standards & skills that can be covered in this quick, simple activity! There are also lots of new practical life activities on the shelves using materals related to fall such as miniature pumpkins, acorns, leaves, etc. Students are painting pumpkins with watercolor paint and punching out leaf shapes which are all great fine motor strengthening activities. Here are a few photos of some students in action: I will be back later this week with more photos of fall-related activities. I hope you enjoy this peek into our classroom!
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