Diary of a First Year Montessori Kindergarten Teacher - Week 2

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Hello Kindergarten Montessori Families,

I hope your weekend is going well. I would like to share a few of the highlights of the lessons we learned this week. I will also give some extended learning ideas for the weekend for your child to participate in and bring to school on Monday if they wish to. Finally, I have the sign up genius link for items that would help our learning environment run more smoothly — thank you in advance for any contributions!

Monday: This week we went to our specials outside of the classroom — the students love it! Today’s specials were music and P.E. — as you know P.E. happens daily. We continued our conversations about Peace in the classroom, in our homes and in the world by reading a book called “Can you say Peace?” by Karen Katz and looking at Picasso’s rendering of a dove. we also began our Science unit by talking about clouds. We read a book called Cloudette, about a fictional cloud with a lovely message about the way she used her gift to help the world.

Tuesday: P.E. and S.T.R.E.A.M today
We read the book “Peace is a offering” by Annette LeBox and we talked about what we will be doing with the rocks and sticks we have been collecting. We played a game called Silence and Noise and tied in the concept of Peace in the midst of Silence and in the midst of Noise. In Math I began introducing the beads to the students with the small bead stair and its colors and what they represent in the math work. We talked more about why fire drills are important. And we counted to 50 using cubes.

Wednesday: P.E. and library today
We learned the song “This little light of mine” and what it means to shine our light in the world. We watched a short video about Wangari’s Trees of Peace. We wrote a story using pictures based on Cloudette and talked about what other ways Cloudette could help the world. In math, I introduced red and blue rods and integrated conversations about addition using the rods.

Thursday: P.E. today
We talked about a place in the U.S. that has a large Peace Rock on display. We talked about community helpers and watched an old Sesame Street video called “People in your Neighborhood” about a fireman and a postman. In math, we talked about the concept of zero and I gave some small group lessons on the teen board (those who were at parent night saw this work) and the binomial cube.

Friday: library today
We made our peace rocks and we worked on birthday cards for Dr. S’s birthday next week. MAP testing was done through the day with Mrs. L and Mrs. B. We had a conversation together (Grace and Courtesy lesson) on what to do if you feel like someone is class is being mean to you or pushing you while you are in line and role played ways to handle when things like this happen. We also talked about needing to ALWAYS tell a teacher when something like this happens so that everyone feels safe at school.

As you can see, we have really diverse and interesting conversations and activities throughout the day! Many of you have asked when you can be a part of the classroom environment as a helper. Normally we ask for 6 weeks to allow the students to get accustomed to the routines of the classroom. Please look for me to send out a signup link and information on how to get involved towards the end of September.

Extend the learning: Talk about with your child ways in which your family, culture, church celebrates peace and the symbols you use to symbolize peace. Also, invite your child to draw a picture of what peace looks like. You can then ask them what they drew and write down their thoughts.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Sincerely,
 Mrs. Norgren