Diary of a First Year Montessori Kindergarten Teacher - Week 15
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Good morning Montessori Families,
Thanks so much for extending grace to me with communication responses. With the move, the holidays, a house guest, Josey’s softball games and non existent internet at our new place, my response time may not have been as quick as you have experienced from me in the past. We hoped to be settled in (ha ha! at least with internet access — still trying to locate shoes!) by this weekend so that I can at least return to the routine we have established together.
Here is a recap of Thanksgiving week:
Monday:
Kevin’s Celebration of Life
life cycle of a penguin
Land and Water forms: strait and isthmus
North America: living vs. nonliving
Handwriting: lowercase e
Writers Workshop: beginning/middle/end of a story
Tuesday:
History: Seasons — how they mark time/history
Continued Conversations about bodies of water/art project: island, lake, strait, isthmus
Fire Drill
Cooking Day — so awesome! Tex Mex Quinoa YUM
Math: what comes before/what comes after
North America: Grand Canyon Project shared with class
Handwriting: your choice worksheet
Wednesday:
We are thankful place mats — thank you for all the leaves that we had to choose from. We began the morning with the investigation of our Botany Cabinet and discovering what types of leaves are available in Arizona. Why do we have a botany cabinet? Directly, the Botany Cabinet is a great activity for a child to develop visual discrimination. The activity relies on the child being able to distinguish one leaf shape from another. Indirectly, the Botany Cabinet is preparation for further botany work in the Primary and Elementary classroom, including developing appropriate language and investigation of the natural world.
We looked up the word “botany” in the dictionary. We discovered we had eight different types of leaves to work with for our project. When creating the place mats, we applied the use of fractions and pattern making to create the designs you see on the placemat. We also included the poem we say before we each lunch together every day (please forgive the typo UGH!)
Math: Crisis of 9
Zoology: Penguins
Stay tuned for this week’s newsletter!
Warmly,
Mrs. Norgren