Early Childhood East Classroom News

The Early Childhood East teachers are Cindy Brechmacher and Jennifer Sigurdson. The education aide is Holly Smith and the intern is Sarah Rochowiak.
Contact them at east@montessorischoolbg.org.

Practical Life

February 3, 2012

The children are practicing independence with dressing themselves using our dressing frames. The snapping, buttoning, zipping and velcro frames are available to choose. Other practical life work in the classroom includes squeezing water with a tea strainer, a garlic press, weaving lace through a frame and building those muscles in the hands by popping bubble wrap! Our new sensorial unit focuses on the sense of smell. Children will match different scents by using only their nose. A special math unit this week is the greedy duck. This unit focus on the value of what is more and what is less.
* Next week is Valentine's Day. In celebration of this holiday the children will decorate a bag to hold Valentine cards. We ask that the children only sign their name on the cards that they give their friends; it is not necessary to personally address each card to a specific friend because everyone will get one. If your child is a morning only child they will need 22 cards. If your child is afternoon only child they will need 19 cards. If your child comes all day then they will need 24 cards. Thank you :)

Chinese New Year and 100 Days of School Assignment

January 26, 2012

We discussed the Chinese New Year. In celebration of this holiday the children will make lanterns and drasgon masks. At the end of the week, we will parade through the school. Other art work involves discovering the positive and negative space of a snowman. New practical Life works are brushing a kitty, putting barrettes on a wig, putting batteries in a flashlight and pipe cleaners in holes.
The movement shelf will host a resistance band that the children will have access to for large motor and muscle development. The numeral rods are the new work for the numeration shelf. Next Thursday is the 100th day of school. We are sending home a zip lock baggy for the children to select and bring in 100 objects from their environment. They can choose any object or material that will fit in the baggy and bring it into school by Monday, January 30 for a special activity on Thursday. Please remember to check your child's cubby for updated clothing appropriate for the changing weather.

Dinosaurs and Fabric Matching

January 19, 2012

We hope that you enjoyed your three day weekend. Today we discussed Martin Luther King, Jr. by reading a book and having a discussion about his message. Dinosaurs are out on the Science and Culture. The children are exploring with the shape and form of different dinosaurs and matching body forms with bones. Wednesday the children will practice sqeezing water from 1 to 1. On Thursday, fine motor skills will be enforced with nuts and bolts and using a screwdriver. The new sensorial unit this week is fabric matching. The children will use the sense of touch to match different fabric materials to each other.

Uses our senses

January 13, 2012

This week we are introducing the C- Major Scale with the sensorial bells. Also on the sensorial shelf the children will be experimenting with mixing play-dough colors to make a new color and sorting photos according to original, black and white and sephia. On the movement shelf the children will invite a friend to join them at the movement rug and take turns rolling a medicine ball back and forth. The metal insets will be coming home with lines this week. More concentration and pencil control is used to make lines inside the shape! Please remember to have an extra set of clothing in your child's cubby. On Friday, they will be working with water. We are demonstrating sponge squeezing into a bowl.

A new year!

January 5, 2012

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed the holiday break and had a Happy New Year. We certainly did and are excited to be back. We are reviewing some ground rules and classroom procedures, for both a refresher and to help our new friends in the classroom. We have two new students beginning this week. Allison is a full day student and Luke is with us in the morning. Our classroom is very excited to meet new friends and we welcome their families to our community! A new sensorial work will be introduced on Thursday. This work will introduce the concepts horizontal and parallel. The children will explore these concepts with geoboards and rubberbands. A new math unit will be out on Friday. The children will explore with money. They will be introduced to the different coins and bills as well as their worth.

Happy Holidays

December 15, 2011

This week we are introducing the holidays of Hannakah and Kwaanza. Erin Labbie, a parent from the West classroom is giving the children a presentation Hannakah and how their family celebrates. On the art shelf the children will make the Star of David with sticks and glitter. For Kwannza they will use paper and paint to create the Kinora and Myron Ruffin will come in to present customs. We are bringing water into the classroom work! Sponge squeezing in Practical Life. The metal insets may come home looking a little differently. We are demonstrating adding lines to the shape. This challenges them a little more challenge with a work that they love to do. They will also be making candy canes with pipe cleaners and beads. Happy Holidays! We are grateful for you!

Holiday Celebrations

December 9, 2011

We introduced the holiday of Christmas. We read a story about the first Christmas and the children explored with a manger scene and decorating a Christmas Tree. We are starting writing folders with the older children this week. These lessons will be given in small groups, two times a week. The younger children will have individual writing lessons, two times a week, at the easel. The art shelf will be busy. The children are marble rolling to make a Christmas tree and making a candy cane with chalk. They will also be creating a reindeer with sticks. A block will be used for the kids to practice wrapping presents! They really enjoy this work. The red rods are joining the knobless cylinders to create a sensorial Christmas tree!

Food Units

December 2, 2011

Welcome back! We hope everyone enjoyed the holiday break. We certainly did. It was nice to end the week having conferences with all of you. We truly feel blessed to have such fabulous families to work with everyday. Thank you for all your support and appreciation.
This week in the sensorial area the children are exploring rough and smooth work. They are using their hands to differentiate between the two textures. The triangle box is also being demonstrated. This shows how different geometric shapes, when put together, can form a triangle. The new work on the practical life shelf is cutting vegetables in half, in thirds, in fourths, and in eighths. We are using artificial food and utensils for this practice, but later in the year they will explore with the real thing! Our new Science unit is food. We will introduce them to healthy and non-healthy food choices. Also, they will put together meals and classify what food group is involved. An art project for this week is the paper chains. You can use these to decorate your house!

We are thankful

November 18, 2011

We are looking forward to meeting with you at your child's conference. This is a time when we can share all of our stories and observations with you about the many fantastic things we experience with your children during the day. We encourage any questions that you may have. The children are looking forward to Thanksgiving and the days they get to "sleep in." We are going to have a feast with both early childhood classes on Friday. The menu consists of turkey lunch meat that they rolled and stuck a toothpick in, applesauce that they helped to smash, and rolls that they also rolled and bake in the oven. They are ready to be big helps in the kitchen now. ;) We will see you on Monday or Tuesday for conferences and then we wish you a happy and safe holiday.

Preparing for Thanksgiving

November 10, 2011

This week we are talking about the first Thanksgiving and what things we are thankful for in our lives. The children are making applesauce on Monday. Please remember to bring in two apples before then. On the Practical Life shelf the children will be arranging a cornucopia with a basket and fruit. With paper and tissue paper, they will create one to bring home. Also, in Art, turkeys! Using feathers and playdough, they will be designing a turkey. The napkin rolling, silverware sorting and place setting work will help when the children set the table for the classroom feast on Friday. Both Early Childhood classrooms will be having the Thanksgiving Feast together. The new Science unit is Land, Air and Water. A new movement on the movement shelf is touching knees with the opposite hand. This is practice crossing the mid-line which is in preparation for writing!

Many new works!

November 3, 2011

This week the children practiced putting bandaids on an injury using a babydoll. This was Miss Jennifer's original lesson for her training program. To go with the new apple unit, apple prints are on the art shelf. Napkin rolling, place setting and silverware sorting are new works in the Practical Life area. Miss Amy has provided the classroom with materials to practice animal and color words in Spanish. These materials require the children to match an object with a picture and the label written in Spanish. Please remember that our school is nut-free and to check that candy sent in lunchboxes for dessert is also nut-free. Thank you :)

Plucking Corn

October 27, 2011

This week we have a new science and culture unit on apples. They will be exploring different types of apples, talking about the parts of an apple and how they grow from seed to apple. We are excited to have field corn in the classroom for the children to pluck. This is a great way to continue to work on fine motor skills. We will use the plucked corn for later art projects and feeding the deer. In preparation for writing we are introducing another movement on the movement shelf to strengthen the muscles in the hand. The children will roll dice and squeeze a soft ball in their hands that number of times. The entire geometric cabinet is out on the sensorial shelf. The children are exploring a wide variety of geometric shapes and sizes. We would like to thank all of our families for the generosity to the classroom. We appreciate the supplies, donations and contributions. We are very thankful for the loving community that we are fortunate to have.

Harvest Fun!

October 20, 2011

On the art shelf we have some new activities such as using thumbprints as leaves on a tree, blending yellow and red oil pastels to make an orange jack-o-latern, and stenciling pumpkins. On the practical life shelf, Miss Jennifer will demonstrate her original activity of changing an empty toilet paper roll(definitely something my household needs to practice;)). Also, pounding golf tees into a pumpkin...they love this work! On the writing shelf, tracking with a dry erase marker will help get the children prepared for writing. The cube of the trinomial is out on the sensorial shelf. This activity uses a variety of prism shapes and cubes that are of different colors. This encourages the children to discriminate size and shape and use reasoning skills to construct a cube.

Art Activities

October 14, 2011

The new work on the sensorial shelf will be the red rods, which introduce the children to grading from longest to shortest and the demonstration geometric cabinet tray, which introduces the shapes of circle, triangle, and square. On the practical life shelf the fine motor skills will be practiced by stringing beads and hanging tiny pumpkins on a hook. Also, sweeping ants into a square on a tray encourages concentration and hand control. Art activities for this week are pumpkin stencils and making a spider web by rolling a marble in paint! FUN!! The children are taking care of our environment by watering the plants in the classroom.

Living and Non Living!

October 6, 2011

The children are noticing the changes in the leaves and weather. This week we will discuss living and non-living objects. We plan to take a walk on the trail and collect items that we will discuss and use on the art shelf. We will also go outside and label things in our environment as living or non-living. Thank you for the sunflower donantions. The children are working on building concentration and finger muscles by tweezing out the seeds in the sunflower. Also, the sensorial shelf is introducing them to what is BIG and what is little. Partnering with the sensorial bell is the damper. Ask your child to tell you what the damper does to the bell. The children will also be using scissors to cut on lines and Miss Sarah is demonstarting one of her original works of putting pictures in a photo album. We are continuing to work on our classroom ground rules. This year has been FANTASTIC!

Author Doug Beehler is coming next week!

September 29, 2011

Next week, the children will be hammering golf tees and little tacks into clay. Their fine motor coordination will be challenged by the pin punching work on the writing shelf. New work on the sensorial shelf are the geometric solids and the monomial cube. The new science and culture unit is living and non-living classification. On Friday (Oct. 7) our class will be hosting an author visit, where the children will be read a story about nature. You may have the opportunity to purchase a copy of this book, signed by the author, at this time as well!

Exploring!

September 22, 2011

Im the sensorial area, the brown stairs and the color unit available. We are introducing the color box colors of primary red, blue, and yellow! The children will be experiencing oil pastel art this week. Also on the art shelf is cutting clay with scissors. This is getting them ready to cut on a line. On the number shelf the red rods are being demonstrated. In practical life the children will be practicing folding washcloths and matching and rolling socks. You can have them help you with the laundry!:)

Busy Room!

September 15, 2011

As a classroom and a school we would like to mention the appreciation that we have for our men and women of service. The children are drawing pictures and writing words of thanks to Miss Jennifer's brother and the men and women serving with him currently in Afghanistan.
This week we will introduce the peace rug and another peace activity to the classroom. The pink tower will be demonstrated and the first sensorial bell will be out. Spanish is on Wednesday mornings and we are very excited about that. Magnets are the first Science and Culture unit for the children to explore in our classroom.
September 21st is International Day of Peace and each child at the Montessori School will be designing a flag that illustrates what peace means to them. We will come together as a school community and combine our individual flags at an assembly on that day. This project will be displayed on our school grounds.

New 'works' in the classroom!

September 6, 2011

We have many more works in the classroom! We are gluing the torn paper from last week and making a collage. The practical life shelf will continue to help children develop fine motor control and concentration. This week, clothespin work and tonging work will be available. The writing shelf is opened. Metal insets are an important geometry work that challenges children's creativity and their creations will be going home in their backpacks. The movement shelf is introducing two new movements: tiptoeing on the line and hopping!

Classroom Community!

August 31, 2011

This week we opened up the sensorial shelf and worked on the knobbed and knobbless cylinders. The pre-language shelf offered work of matching pictures and objects, sorting, assosiation, rhyming, and sequencing. The number shelf introduced 1-5 and 1-10. We also demonstrated the peace rose and are preparing to make our classrom peace stick bundle as a sign of community strength and togetherness. Next week we are introducing to the classroom a new shelf. The movement shelf will offer small movements for the children to do anytime during work time. We are starting with practicing walking on a line. They will be tearing paper for art. In preparation for writing, they will use two fingers and tracing the formation of letters in rice. Twisting, snapping, and zipping containers will be the new practical life work.

Welcome to the 2011-12 School Year!

August 24, 2011

We would like to first and foremost welcome our families, both returning and new, to a new school year. We are very excited! It has been a wonderful orientation week and would like to thank all our families for their cooperation. The children have been working on becoming comfortable in the classroom, making friends and learning the ground rules. They are slowly being introduced to the classroom work areas. This week they were shown work from the practical life shelf. Next week we will introduce them to the peace area of our classroom, sensorial, pre-language and numbers shelves. We would like thank Andrea Wojciechowski for volunteering to be our classroom PTO representative. We are looking for a volunteer to be in charge of our Scholastic Book Orders. Also, a reminder if you choose, to bring in bug spray with a written permission slip to apply it to your child. As an early childhood classroom we always have playdough out for the children to work with. It can become very expensive to replace this throughout the school year and would appreciate any donations.