Summer Enrichment 7 - Bugs!

Learning about bugs - connection videos

Monday - What's an insect? -  Let's begin our exploration of bugs! Some bugs are insects - do you know how we can tell if it is an insect? We'll learn the body parts that all insects have, put it into a song, and then see if you can help me decide which animals are insects or not insects. I am excited to show you what I discovered when I picked up a brick in my backyard! What do you think was there?
Follow-up ideas:

• Video - All about insects: https://youtu.be/rKQfJFAHW8Q
• Snack - make Ants on a log
• Exploration - look under a brick or rock and see what you find! 

Tuesday - Butterflies! - Today our focus is on butterflies. Do you know what hatches out of a butterfly egg? We'll talk about the lifecycle of a butterfly, learn a new poem, and sing the insect song.

The little Caterpillar poem
The little caterpillar curled into a J 
It turned into a chrysalis and slept for many days
While it was sleeeping, it dreamed that it could fly
Later when it woke up, it was a butterfly!

Wednesday - Ladybugs! 

Word of the day: Metamorphosis! Ladybugs go through metamorphosis, as do butterflies and many other insects. Do you know what ladybugs do that is helpful to plants and people?
Follow-up ideas:

• The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle: https://youtu.be/Jr3ha03MsK0 
• The Ladybug song (Frank Leto): https://youtu.be/qjhSgMqsAfM

Thursday - Bees! I went to visit some very important insects - you can see their hive behind me. Also a hint for finding ladybugs on your outdoor explorations. Some video links below will show you what is happening inside the hive and how bees are so important to people: 

• Mystery Science mini-lesson: How do bees make honey?  
  
• Time Lapse Photography Video of a Bee’s Life - see the larvae hatching out of the eggs and then their metamorphosis into bees!
• Kids Learn Why Bees are Awesome (Nat. Geo video) 
• A Beekeepers Life (Nat. Geo. "Weird but True" video)

Books: 

• Are you a Bee? 
• The Beeman: 

Mindfulness: "Bee breath"

Friday - a few more bugs! We finished our week learning about insects and other bugs with a special invertebrate that is not an insect. It has a long, soft body and turns compost into "food for the earth" - do you know what they are? Also an easy activity you can do inside or outside to make your own insect. Just make sure it has a head, thorax, and abdomen! Don't forget the 6 legs coming out of the thorax or the 2 antennae on its head!

Exploration

Make a bug catcher (container & cardboard)  

This let’s kids transfer bugs from inside back out to their natural habitat :-)

Make your own bug!
Can you make a bug out of playdough? Legos? Leaves and sticks?

Movement

Can you move like an insect?
- hop like a grasshopper
- fly like a bee
- crawl like a caterpillar
- scurry like an ant

Act out the Butterfly life stages: (curl up like an egg, crawl like a caterpillar, hold still and rigid like a chrysalis, fly like a butterfly!

Online Read-alouds 

• Bugs, bugs, bugs!
• “Waiting for Wings” (Ehlert)
• A ladybug larvae grows up
• Are you a bee?
• The beeman

Eric Carle books:

• The Very Clumsy Click beetle
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• The Very Grouchy Ladybug
• The Very Quiet Cricket
• The Very Busy Spider

Summer Enrichment 3: Our Amazing Earth

This week we will explore some introductory geography ideas with songs & experiments. Have fun and encourage exploration!

Experiments with water

1. The shape of water 

• Demo video (experiment starts half way through

• Concept: Liquids take the shape of their container 
• Supplies: containers of different sizes and shapes, water

2. Where does rain go? (Demo video)

• Concept: Water flows downhill 
• Supplies: watering can, pitcher or container of water

3. Evaporation (Demo video)

• Concept: Liquid water evaporates into the air (yes, 4-6 year olds can understand this concept!)
• Supplies: 2 identical containers, measuring dish, lid or plastic bag & rubber band (to cover one of the containers) 
• Learning about Earth

Land & Water - on the sandpaper globe 

The earth is made up of land and water, and more of it is water than land. Here's a song (tune: My bonnie)

The Earth is covered with oceans;

The Earth is covered with seas;

The Earth is covered with oceans;

More water than land, you can see

Water, water, there's water all over the world, the world

Water, water, there's water all over the world.

What are Natural Resoures? 

(connection video)

• What are things that all people need?
• Where do they come from? Everything can be traced back to Natural Resources that come from the earth!
• Try going on a gratitude walk today - what do you notice in our amazing world that you feel grateful for?

How can we care for the Earth? (Earth Day everyday!)

This video also introduces cone, cube, sphere, cylinder, and rectangular prism

• What are things your family ALREADY does to care for the earth?
• What are some ideas of other things you could do?

Where does rain come from?

Where does the rain come from? And how does it get there? A kid-friendly introduction to the water cycle.

Learning with songs and rhythm 

(This video includes the watercycle chant, 7 continents song, and a counting song - 5 green & speckled frogs)

We do many songs and rhythms to help children remember vocab and concepts. You'll be amazed what young children are capable of!

Our water cycle chant (video): 

Liquid to gas is evaporation;

Gas to liquid is condensation;

When it falls down, it's precipitation!

Seven Continents Song 

There are 7 continents;

Asia, Europe, Africa

Australia, North America,

South America, Antarctica

Five Oceans

(Once your child has mastered the 7 continents, add the oceans!)

There are 5 oceans;

At-lantic ocean

Pacific and Indian oceans,

Arctic and Southern oceans

Think like a scientist:

Kids often have lots of questions! Encourage your child to ask questions about the world around them,. Try not to just give them an answer, but ask them questions back to help them think about it and come up with some of their own "hypothesis" first. Is there a way to test their idea or research to find the answer? 

Your curious kid might enjoy the "But Why?" podcast

Summer Enrichment 2: Let's Explore Outdoors!

The Outdoors have limitless opportunities for learning and exploring!

Morning Connection Videos:

Monday - This week we're introducing learning activities to take outdoors - sorting & classifying skills, sink or float experiment, a twist on an active vocab game, and a poem - A house is a house for me

Tuesday - For the months of the year song, ignore my motions and raise your arms for this month! A house is a house for me poem, A beginning sounds game (can also be done with rhyming words, ending, or middle vowel sounds), and making patterns.

Wednesday - Today we introduce "3 words" rhyming game, review finger spelling, and sing the number writing song. Remember that these kinds of language games are one of the best ways you can prepare your child succeed with writing and reading skills.

Thursday - Today we'll sing the seasons song (make sure your child knows it's summer now!!), compare two flowers - dandelion and daffodil, and introduce some sequencing activities. 

What flowers can you find outside now that it is summertime?

Friday - Happy Friday! Today we're singing "Days of the Week" in English and Spanish, and a tossing game with socks that also practices position words ("inside" and "outside") and partitioning 5.

A few outdoor activity ideas:

Sweeping a porch, patio, or sidewalk is fun and great exercise

Sink or Float - Find 6-10 objects outside, make a hypothesis on if they will sink or float, use a bowl of water to find out!

Fun with rocks - collect a few rocks outside, scrub them clean. Draw or paint on one! How many can you stack?

Flowers - How many different kinds of flowers do you see outside? Learn the names of 3. How do they smell?

Paint with Water - Have an old paintbrush? Dip it in a container of water and "paint" outdoors!

Patterns with Nature - collect objects outside (rocks, leaves, sticks, petals, etc) and use them to practice making patterns (how-to video), or try making more elaborate designs (examples)

Outdoor writing - Write with a stick in the dirt, or use sidewalk chalk (or a brick or rock!)

Other math and language resources and ideas on our Montessori at Home page

Montessori Classroom News May 4, 2018

Outdoor Classroom

We enjoyed working in our shaded outdoor classroom space Wednesday morning. Highlights included building with our brand new outdoor block set, learning some introductory woodworking skills (hammering and drilling), and planting in our garden beds. 

Making a trellis for the pea plants (our gardening is in partnership with the Center for Environmental Transformation - cfet.org)

Frogs!

We have been learning about the life cycle of frogs and the different stages of their metamorphosis (and practicing that big word!) This week we also enthusiastically welcomed some real tadpoles as guests to our classroom. Thank you, Mr. Don for providing us this amazing learning opportunity

This week we also sampled pea sprouts we grew with extra seeds. Most of the children wanted seconds!

This song is a current favorite. You can find a recording online and sing along!

All I Really Need 

By Raffi

Chorus: 

All I really need is a song in my heart
Food in my belly,

 And love in my family

All I really need is a song in my heart,

Love in my family

And I need the rain to fall
And I need the sun to shine
To give life to the seeds we sow
To give the food we need to grow

All I really need is a song in my heart

And love in my family
(chorus)

And I need some clean water for drinking
And I need some clean air for breathing
So that I can grow up strong,

Take my place where I belong

All I really need is a song in my heart
And love in my family
(chorus)

Montessori Classroom News April 18, 2018

A special activity we introduced this week was planting seeds. Everyone helped with different parts of the process

With a small wooden tool, the older children can make little pots out of newspaper strips

Ready for planting!

Demonstration of how to fill newspaper pots with potting soil

Filling the pots

Adding a seed to each pot

Watering

Cleaning up the spilled soil at the end of the morning

The Sound Game 

(“I Spy”) 

To become effective readers and writers, children need a strong awareness of the sounds that make up words. We play this game often in the classroom, with 4 levels to match to each child’s developmental stage. More practice at home is helpful, as long as it feels fun and playful for your child – the key is that they feel successful.

In the classroom we have a special box of objects
we use for the "I Spy" game

Level 1: You say the beginning sound of an object and the child identifies the object. 

Start simple! (“I spy something you’re holding that starts with ‘fff’” when a fork is the only thing in their hand) and gradually make it more challenging (”I spy something on your face that starts with ‘nnn’” )

Other variations to try at home:

1) Sound out the names of objects around your house and in your daily life with your child.

2) Sound out the name of an object without saying the whole word and have your child blend it back together to find what the object is (e.g. “ch-ee-z” or “sh-ir-t”)

Important Dates 

(some changes to the school calendar)

Friday, April 20^th– Half Day (12pm dismissal, no aftercare)

Wed. May 23^rd– 12pm dismissal

Parent-Teacher Conferences 1:30-6pm

Friday, June 15^th

Montessori end-of-year program – 9am

Join us in the classroom for refreshments, a slideshow, and some of our favorite songs & poems from the year. 

This is our last day – no school for Montessori students June 18-20th

Last call for Pennies for Peace

Send in any coins you have collected by Friday!

Montessori Classroom News March 28, 2018

There was a lot happening in this very short week of school!

 On Wednesday we prepared egg dyes and each child dyed an egg in the color of their choice.

A new science material - sorting natural & human-made materials

Enthusiastic samplers for dragon fruit!

A new collage work choice on the art shelf - adding cherry blossoms to the tree branches

Springtime

We’ve watched the daffodils in front of the school progress over the past few weeks and were excited to see the first few flowers open last week. We have read books about daffodils (“That’s not a Daffodil!” by Elizabeth Honey & “The Bulb: See How it Grows by Pamela Nash) and examined the bulbs of onion, garlic, and flowers. This week the children helped plant some flower bulbs in the park.

The children enjoy this silly poem where we imagine that the daffodil is a person.

Daffodowndilly

by A.A. Milne

She wore her yellow sunbonnet;

She wore her greenest gown

She turned to the south wind

And curtsied up and down

She turned to the sunlight

And shook her yellow head

And whispered to her neighbor,

“Winter is dead!”

Lent & Easter

We have heard several bible stories during lent. We often tell a simple version of the story, focusing on the most important details and the aspects that children can relate to. Children readily understand emotions, so we sometimes pause to discuss what the characters might be feeling.

         In past weeks we heard about Jesus healing Bartimaeus of blindness and Zaccheus of greed & loneliness.

This week began with Jesus riding into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. Many people welcomed him with palm branches, hoping Jesus would become their new king and throw out their mean, unfair rulers. Instead of a big, fancy horse like a king would ride, Jesus chose a donkey. We looked at a photo comparing a donkey and horse, and then had our own processional with palm branches.

We retold the story of Jesus' last meal with his disciples, when he told them to remember him as they shared bread together, and then we each received a piece of bread (tortilla) to eat. We also heard the sad part of the Easter story, when Jesus died. We assured them that the next day we would hear the exciting ending to the story, about how God's love is stronger than everything, even death.

Pennies for Peace

We have a jar of coins in the classroom. You can continue collecting at home and bring in the coins after Easter. Let us know if you need a replacement penny collector!