Week of Oct 21-25, 2013

Week of Oct 21-25, 2013

·         Thanks to all the parents for attending Parent-Teacher Conferences. It was a pleasure to meet with you and share your child's progress.

·         A BIG THANK YOU to all of you who ordered from the Small Hands Montessori catalog. Your orders will be arriving before the holidays. We’ll keep you posted.

A Peek at our Week

·         Pumpkin Scrubbing

·         Apple estimation- the children had to guess the number of apples, we had about 50 apples

·         Apple Tasting- we tasted Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples

·         Favorite Apple Graph- the Red Delicious apples were by far the most favorite apples and won by 13 votes.

·         Johnny Appleseed

·         Lifecycle of an apple

·         Parts of an apple

·         Bats

·         Parts of a Skeleton

Song

Knock, Knock

Trick or Treat

Who are you?

I am a cowboy, I am a little cowboy

Knock, Knock

Trick or Treat

Who are you?

I am a cowboy, I am a little cowboy

(Then the children act out the part)

Repeat chorus

(Ghost, Pirate, Monster, Ballerina)

Sound of the week

‘h’- Honey the horse( Slap both sides of your thighs, suggesting a horse galloping. Say the letter sound ‘h’.

Reminders

• Halloween will be a fun-filled day in our room. We will celebrate Halloween with fun themed centers and have a special snack at Circle Time. Please remember no costumes at school.
• No school on Nov 4^th for 3 and 4 year olds, as all of the ECE team will be at a CPR/First Aid Training. The kindergartners will work in Ms. Therese’s room and we will have two subs for that day. Please drop off and pick your child through Ms. Therese’s door on that day.

Parent Resources

Here the link to the newsletter, if you would like to see pictures of children working in the classroom, I am unable to post pictures and send it through emails.

http://mssheela002.blogspot.com/

http://www.loveandlogic.com/t-Free-Articles-and-Handouts-for-Parents.aspx

http://www.starfall.com/  - Use this site to practice letter recognition, letter sounds, rhyming words, word families, and many more literacy concepts.

 

Happy Halloween!!!

Apple Counting

Apple Sorting

 

How many apples long?

 

Brown Stairs and Knobless Cylinders

 

Creative exploration with the Triangle Box

Week of Oct 7th to Oct 18th

I plan on sending a newsletter at the end of every week, as this was a short week I am combining last week and this week's information.
Parent-Teacher Conferences are scheduled for Tue, Oct 22 and Thu, Oct 24
from 4 to 8 pm, please sign up, on the Signup Genius website, http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C054DA5AC2CAA8-october if you haven't done so already, parents of new students who started late Sept or Oct, I will meet with you at end of Nov/Dec to talk about your child.
We talked about some of the changes that happen in Fall/Autumn, and why leaves change color.
Cultural Topics
Fall
Living/Non Living
Plant/Animal
Vertebrates/Invertebrates
Mammals
Leaf/Fall Walk- Full Day students went on a Leaf walk
Van Gogh- Introduction to the famous paintings of Van Gogh


Songs/Finger plays
Five little Pumpkins sitting on the gate
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late"
The second one said, "There are the owls in the air"
The third one said, "But we don't care"
The fourth one said, "Let's have some fun"
The fifth one said, "
Then Whoo went the wind and off(clap) went the lights
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Art
Fall Trees- using torn paper
Sunflowers inspired by Van Gogh
Sound for next week –'g' - Gordo the Gorilla
We practice Zoo Phonics sounds as a large group activity; these are animals that represent each letter/sound of the alphabet, they have a little rhyme and an action that goes with it. For example for the letter 'a', the rhyme is Allie the alligator, 'a', 'a', 'a', and the action is arms extended out to represent the teeth of the alligator
a - Allie the alligator-Extend arms out to form alligator mouth, open and close mouth ay the a sound
b - Bubba the bear- Reach an arm above head to an imaginary honeycomb and bring the honey to your mouth
c - Catrina the cat- Pretend you are a cat washing your face with your paw
d - Dede the deer- Use two fingers of each hand to form deer ears in head
e – Ellie the elephant- Clasp hands and swing them from side to side as a trunk
f – Francie the fish- with hands in front of you place the palm of one hand on the back of the other hand to form a fish, wiggle thumbs
We are getting ready to begin a new and exciting unit on Johnny Appleseed/Apples, and we need your help! We have a lot of fun and educational activities planned to teach us everything from graphing, patterns, measurement and cooking applesauce.
In order to do all this we will need lots of apples! We are requesting that each student bring in at least one apple of any kind by Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013.
We are looking for a variety of types of apples for our various projects, so we'll take anything we can get.

Talking to your preschooler about school

Some great opener questions to start a conversation about school with your child might be:

• What work did you like the best today?
• Did you work with anyone?
• Do you remember any songs you sang today?
• Did you do a sorting work?
• Did you do a pouring work?
• Did you do a number work?
• Did you do some art work?
• Did you do a matching work?
• Did you do an animal work?

Matching the Color Box with Objects in the classroom

 

 

Story writing with the Movable Alphabet

 

Addition with the Bead Bars

 

 

Chair Scrubbing

  

 

Plant Care   

 

 

 

 

Sounding out words with the Movable Alphabet

   
 



October Newsletter

Ms. Sheela’s Classroom

                                                                          October Newsletter

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Parent/Teacher conferences are set for the third and fourth week of October. I will send the link to sign up for conferences by tomorrow.

I will also have a signup sheet on the clipboard at drop off and pick up, if you would like to come in to observe your child in the classroom before conferences,

 In class we have been talking about:

Leaves/Trees

Seasons/Fall

Living/Non Living

Continents and Oceans

Work Period in a Montessori Classroom

 In Montessori schools the activities are called "work" so that children will associate positive feelings with the term which will hopefully carry over into their adult lives. During the work period the children are free to choose anything they have had a lesson on. Teachers give new lessons, assist and observe. By now each child has had lessons in every area of the classroom. They are encouraged to practice each skill again and again as teachers look for areas of special developmental interest for each child. Much of the work period up to this point has been spent remembering to put work away, push in chairs, use "inside" voices and feet, use "careful" hands, use words rather than hands when a problem arises with another person, and respect the work of others.
                                                                           

Circle Time

We finish each class with a "circle" lesson including songs, calendar, and weather and sharing (the opportunity for each child to have a turn to talk). At circle time we usually read a story, sing songs or play a game. The first weeks of class were spent focusing on routines, rules, good manners and the concept of "community”.

Picture Day

Friday, Oct 5 at 10:10 am

Montessori Services Fundraiser

We are going to participate in the Montessori Services Holiday Fundraiser again this year.   Montessori Services is a material supplier to Montessori families and classrooms.   The fundraiser will begin soon.   Depending on our total order, the participating classrooms will receive between 10% and 15% to spend on materials for their classrooms.   I will also be posting wish lists, if parents would like to purchase materials for their child’s classroom.   The Montessori Catalogs will be sent in this Thursday’s folder.

Thank You’s

Bella (Nika’s mom) and Kebbie ( Zach’s mom) for taking care of our laundry(towels and nap sheets)every week.

 Crissy, Alicia, Kebbie, Joe, Lisa and Nathan for coming in to listen to our students read.

 “What do you like about Fall?”, when asked of our students-

Nika-color of the leaves

Cameron-Jumping in the leaves

Adrian-Jumping in the leaves

Mazie-Halloween

Jack-Burying myself in the leaves

Sydney-Jumping in the leaves

Teagan-when the leaves fall

Zach-Jumping in the leaves and Halloween

Marley-Halloween

Clio-Jumping in the leaves

Madeline-when leaves fall

Spencer-Jumping in the leaves

Maddox-apples