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 5: Birds!

Mourning Doves

This week you can help your child notice the birds around you. Encourage curiosity and exploration - what are the birds doing? How can you tell it's a bird? What else do you notice about it?
The connection videos will introduce some common backyard birds and some related activities

Monday - We'll introduce some common backyard birds, a poem about birds, and what you can do with an empty toilet paper roll!

Cardinals

Tuesday - the Little Bird poem. How many of these backyard birds can you name? What are the things that all birds have in common? 

Black-capped Chickadee

Wednesday - In this morning's connection video, we'll continue learning about birds. Get ready to hop like a bird to practice the names of a few more types of birds you might see out your window. I have some real bird nests to show you, and some pictures of some other incredible different kinds of nests birds make. We also take a picture walk to find the birds we know in today's suggested read-aloud - "Feathers for Lunch" by Lois Ehlert. How many of the birds in this book do you know?

Downy Woodpecker

We also suggest you try this fun & active video from Mystery Science about how quail, raccoons, and woodpeckers get their food

Thursday - Look what's growing in our garden! And a peek at what happens inside a bird's egg. 

Have you ever made "egg in a nest" for breakfast? Instructions on the blog: 

And today's read-aloud - An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston

Friday - To finish up our week's focus on birds, this morning's video is near an osprey nest on the 

Osprey

Delaware River. Let's see how much you remember about what makes an animal a bird, and how many of the backyard birds you can name (I'll give some hints!) Do you know how many circles you see when you look through the two tubes of binoculars? I'll show you how you can make your own practice binoculars with two empty toilet paper rolls. 

More Language & Science activities

Catbird

Names of birds 

Some common east coast birds (included in the connection videos) are: Goldfinch, House Finch, House Sparrow, Mourning Dove, cardinal, catbird, kildeer, downy woodpecker, grackle, Baltimore oriole, Black-capped chickadee, blue jay. You can loook them up and hear the sounds they make on allaboutbirds.org. They also have live bird cams!

House finches

Parts of a bird (what makes something a bird?)

Video: All about birds video for kids

Video: Common backyard birds (includes lots; your child will recognize some by the end of the week!)

House sparrow

Poem: Little bird

I saw a little bird come hop, hop, hop

So I said, "Little bird, will you stop, stop, stop?"

I was going to the window

To say "Hi, how are you?"

But she gave her wings a flap, 

And up, up, up she flew

Read-alouds - Bird theme!

Blue Jay

There is a bird on your head! (Mo Willems)

Egg (Kevin Henkes)

Feathers for Lunch (Ehlert) How many birds do you recognize in this book?

An egg is quiet (Dianna Aston) - Birds aren’t the only animals who lay eggs!

Are you my mother? (PD Eastman)

Art Ideas

You can draw birds! teaching video
I show two simple ways to draw birds with half circles, circles, and triangles - something even young children (preschool, kindergarten, elementary age) can practice and do! Also great for adults like me!
Thank you to the Usborne Step-by-Step Drawing Book for the inspiration

Make your own spy glass for birdwatching by coloring/decorating a toilet paper tube - what can you see through it? (Or join 2 tubes together to make binoculars)

Make a pinecone bird feeder (spread peanut butter on a pinecone, roll it in bird seed or crumbs; tie on a string and hang it nearby!)

Movement

Can you move like a bird? Flap your wings! Soar and glide like an eagle! Balance on one leg like a flamingo! What ideas do you have?

What is a bird? action song

Food prep: 

Cook “Egg in a nest” (photo recipe on blog) 

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 27, 2018

The peas we planted inside have sprouted! We are amazed each day to see how much they have grown. 

On Monday, the first few tiny sprouts had emerged

Every day we could see that the sprouts had grown taller and new ones emerged

Look what's growing in our garden!

This week we also filled our raised garden beds with soil so we can start planting in them next week! 

Everyone contributed to the project

We learn this poem as a song with motions 

A Little Seed 

By Mabel Watts

A little seed for me to sow

A little earth to make it grow

A little hole, a little pat

A little wish, and that is that.

A little sun, a little shower,

A little while… and then, a flower!

Language Tip of the week:

“What do you think?

Ask your child for their opinions & ideas in your conversations. When they ask a question, sometimes you can respond with “What do you think?” instead of answering right away. (e.g., questions like, “Where is that dog going?” or “Why do I have to wear a hat?”) You can also ask them what they think the weather will be outside, what they enjoyed doing that day, anything!

Benefits for your child: 

- build their mental comprehension and analytical skills, 

- practice speaking and explaining. 

You’ll also learn about your child’s perceptions of the world and what is important to them. 

With some rainy days in the past few weeks, we've discussed where the rain comes from and what happens to the rain on the ground. We talked about evaporation and set up our own experiment. The water level in the open cup is slowly decreasing as the water evaporates, but stays the same in the covered cup. 

Notes & Reminders 

Wed. May 23^rd– 12pm dismissal

Parent-Teacher Conferences 1:30-6pm

Wed. May 30^th– 10am Prayer Service in Honor of Parents

Our class is working with 3^rdand 7^thgrades to lead this prayer service for the school. Parents welcome to attend!

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

Parents with students in grades 1-7: 

We will finish our program by 10 so you can also attend the 10am awards ceremony in the church.

Montessori Classroom News April 12, 2018

Spring themes and activities  

• Africa is our continent focus for geography, culture & science. 
• Amphibians, especially the life cycle of frogs 

• Seeds, soil, and how plants grow. We hope to soon start planting in our new outdoor classroom garden beds that are under construction. 

We soak dry limas in water with food coloring. Amazing how much they change in just a few hours!

The children learn to slip the seed coat off and gently open the two halves to discover the baby plant.

Other new activities this week:

We added binoculars as an option to use on the Observation Stool

 Carrot peeling and chopping! We emphasize  safety techniques that enable children to use real tools for preparing food.

Painting with watercolors

Making our own hummus

Word Game: Groups 

Choose a category, and then work with your child to name as many things as you can think of in that group. This game builds your child’s sorting & categorizing skills and also reinforces and teaches new vocabulary words. 

Example categories: Furniture, clothes, food, fruit, animals (or mammals, insects), things with wheels, things in the air, etc

Poem of the Week

Last night I saw upon the stair

A little frog who wasn’t there.

She wasn’t there again today.

Oh, how I wish she’d go away!

Our adaptation of “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There” by Hughes Mearns

Notes & Reminders

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

Uniforms for May & June

Your child may wear navy blue knee-length shorts(or skort – skirt with built in shorts) in May and June. They can also continue to wear navy pants. We have some second-hand shorts for sale – email Ms. Cheryl if interested.

Last call for Pennies for Peace

Send in any coins you have collected by next 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!