April 26-30, 2021

It's always an exciting time in Pre-K when new Montessori "works" come out on the shelves! The boys and girls are eager to receive lessons on the new materials and enjoy practicing them on their own.

Bead Chains

The Bead Cabinet is a beautiful Montessori math material that houses the Short and Long Bead Chains. The Bead Chains are used to practice one-to-one correspondence when counting and to learn patterns and begin skip counting by twos up to by tens. The 1-10 Short Chains allow children to practice linear and skip counting up to 100 and the 1-10 Long Chains help the children do the same up to 1000. 

Charlie is working with the Short Four Chain
to practice one-to-one correspondence up to 16.

Greyson is working with the Long Five Chain
to practice skip counting by fives up to 125.

Constructive Triangles

The Constructive Triangles are a Montessori Sensorial material that consist of a set of five boxes of wooden triangles that children work with to build geometric shapes. Currently, we are working with three of the five boxes and the students are learning about quadrilaterals and triangles.

Justine is working with the first Rectangular Box
and matching the triangles to make quadrilaterals.

Lexi is working with the second Rectangular Box
to make the same quadrilaterals from memory.

Luke is working with the Triangular Box
to build equilateral triangles from a variety
of other triangles.

Practical Life

Practical life activities are often referred to as the heart of Montessori education. They include an increasingly challenging series of motor tasks involving real-life goals and develop a sense of independence, body control and coordination of movement, concentration, and sense of order. 

Lily is working with one of the Dressing
Frames to practice zippering.

Ava is practicing folding clothes.
(This lesson has become a class favorite 
and the boys and girls are eager to help fold
laundry at home - hint, hint 😉.)

Advanced Geometric Solids

Earlier in the year, the Pre-K students were introduced to the basic Geometric Solids: cube, cone, cylinder, and sphere. Now, they are working with the more advanced set to learn about prisms, pyramids, ovoids, and ellipsoids. 

Connor is matching picture cards to 
their correct Geometric Solids.

Pink Tower/Brown Stair

Combing the Pink Tower and Brown Stair is always a favorite lesson in Pre-K. The students are able to see similarities between the two materials and combine them to build fun patterns.

Anthony is comparing the width and height
of the Pink Tower and Brown Stair.

Mystery Readers

Mystery Readers continue to big a HUGE hit in Pre-K! This week, we welcomed Luke's dad and mom as our readers. Thank you for taking the time to share some great stories with us!

If you would like to be a mystery reader for our class, please reach out to me! We hope to be able to welcome someone from each child's family.

Important Reminders:

• Show and tell will be on Thursday, May 6. The topic will be something that begins with /j/.

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather this week! The boys and girls have been so motivated to get their afternoon work done so we can go outside to play at the end of the day.

Have a great weekend!

"Mrs. Barrera, we are twins!"

April 19-23, 2021

While this week definitely did not go as planned, the boys and girls adapted so well! We accomplished so much work and had great opportunities to be outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!

https://youtu.be/RHpmrCt4SuI

Show and Tell

The Pre-K students did a great job with a tricky show and tell this week. For most of the year, we focused on the short /a/ sound for the letter A; but today, the boys and girls learned that the letter A can make many different sounds, like in apple, April, or airplane!

Apples, allosaurus, airplane, arrow...oh my!

Addition

Our whole group math lesson this week was on addition and what could be more fun than taking our addition lesson outside! First, we watched this Jack Hartman video to reinforce what we already know about addition. We practiced some addition facts and then took our addition lesson to the parking lot. Using chalk, the children drew a certain number of shapes in one color and added some more in a different color. Then, they added them together to see how many they had in all! THEY LOVED IT! "We are just like the kindergartners!" I gave them some addition problems to work on as a group and they created their own at the end. This is a simple, fun way to practice addition at home.

Science

We experimented with density for our science lesson this week. The boys and girls learned that the "science definition" for density refers to the amount of space an object or substance takes up (volume) in relation to the amount of matter in that object or substance (mass). But what does that mean? We experimented to find out! 

First, we poured water into a tall container - and added some food coloring for fun!

Next, we added some syrup. We observed that the syrup sank to the bottom. That meant it was more dense than the water!

Then, we added some oil. The oil stayed at the very top meaning it was less dense than both the water and the syrup.

"WOW! That's so cool!"

Then, we tested several different objects to see if they were more dense or less dense than the liquids in the container. 

We discovered that a spoon, a screw, a penny, and a nickel were more dense than all the liquids because they sank right to the bottom. A crayon was more dense than the oil and water, but less dense than the syrup. It appeared to sit right on top of the syrup! A pencil was more dense than oil, but less dense than water and syrup. A ping pong ball was the least dense of all - floating right on top of all the liquids!

The boys and girls LOVED this experiment! A huge thank you to Alexandra and her mom for sending it to me. If you want to try it at home, you can see the full experiment here.

Earth Day!

This week, we learned all about the importance of helping to keep the earth clean and healthy. The boys and girls learned about the importance of recycling and reusing during our Weekly Reader lesson. On Thursday, we had a "waste-free" lunch and enjoyed showing our friends our reusable containers!

On Friday, we went for a litter walk to help clean up the neighborhood.

Montessori Lessons

One of my favorite things to see as a teacher is when the students ask if they can give a classmate a lesson on a material. They make excellent teachers!

Luke showed Anthony how to use the Ten Board.

Lexi helped Connor start spelling with the Movable
Alphabet and Phonetic Object Box 1.

Important reminders:

• Show and tell will be on Wednesday, April 28. The topic will be something with I.
• Don’t forget to sign up for our Mystery Reader program! We would love it if every child could have a parent participate. Remember it’s a surprise! Please let me know if you would like to sign up to read to the class.
• A huge thank you to Anthony's mom for being our first mystery reader! The boys and girls were so excited and kept saying "I hope my mom or dad is next!"

Have a great weekend!

April 12-16, 2021

 

This week, we focused on asking and answering questions. The boys and girls learned that we ask questions in order to learn more information about something and we answer questions to provide more information. Asking and answering questions is not only a part of how we learn, but it is also a part of our social skills; we ask and answer questions to be polite and build and maintain relationships.

During our Morning Meeting, the Pre-K students participated in a "this or that" activity. They had to choose between two different things (ex.: donuts/ice cream, cats/dogs, tacos/cheeseburgers, airplanes/cars) and explain why they made their choice. Answering "why?" was difficult for the children at first, but as the week went on, they were able to give more descriptive answers.

"I like cheeseburgers. They make me happy!"
-Connor

"I like to eat tacos. They are my favorite and I 
eat them with salad." - Luke

"I like donuts because I like the flavor and the
sprinkles." - Ava

"I like ice cream because it has lots of 
flavors and is 100% delicious!" - Greyson

"I like winter because it is when it's my 
sister, Evelyn's, birthday!" - Alexandra

"I like summer because I go to the beach 
and play in the sand." - Lily

"I like summer because I can roll down
the hills in the grass." - Charlie

"I like cars because they can drive on the 
road." - Anthony

"I like cats because they are so cute!"
-Justine

Happy birthday, Mrs. Mossor!

We were so excited to celebrate our favorite P.E. teacher, Mrs. Mossor, on her birthday this week! The boys and girls made her cards and surprised her with them during P.E. class.

Important reminders:

• Show and tell will be on Tuesday, April 20. The topic will be something that begins with the letter A.
• Please pack at least two napkins (three if your child attends Plus) in your child's lunchbox everyday.

• We are excited to begin our Mystery Reader program! Please refer to the email for more details and let me know if you would like to sign up to read to the class.

• We will be having a school-wide waste free lunch day on Thursday, April 22nd, to celebrate Earth Day. More information can be found here.

• There will be a tag day on Friday, April 23, for Autism Awareness and Acceptance. Please bring in $1.00 and wear blue. All money raised will be donated to the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support.

Always hard at work in Pre-K!

Have a great weekend!

April 5-9, 2021

Welcome Back!

I hope you had a wonderful spring break and a Happy Easter!

The boys and girls were so excited to come back to school and play with all their friends!

The Pre-K students jumped right back into their lessons. They love wearing their new face shields while working. They have followed all the directions extremely well and I have already begun to see a difference in how they form their letter sounds!

We are working on writing our names like kindergartners! The boys and girls are practicing tracing and writing their first and last names starting with a capital letter and followed by lowercase letters. They are even working hard to form the letters correctly on the line. 

Important reminders:

• We will have show and tell on Monday, April 12. The topic will be something to do with spring.

• Please remember to return your family leaf that was sent home before the break. We are excited to display these in school!

• April is Arab American Heritage Month. If you or someone you know would be willing to share with a class, a division, or multiple groups to enhance our celebration in any way, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com, and we will make it as easy as possible. 

• Looking forward, May is Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. If you have ideas or suggestions for our celebrations for those months, please email jmyers@holychildacademy.com.

Have a great weekend!