A Special Happy Birthday to a Special Leader

This past Friday we celebrated the birthday of our beloved Director, Mrs. Mandy. We are all grateful for the unconditional love and support she provides us everyday. A few gifts and a homemade card was the least we could do to express our appreciation. Love always <3

We've Been Building and Tending

We have introduced a work that combines the "Pink Tower" with the "Brown Stairs" to form a vertical structure. This works takes a tremendous amount of coordination as the parts need to be assembled in order from largest to smallest and be carefully centered. The children have improved their communication skills during this activity, as they've sorted out the steps in this challenge together. 

Tending to Our Garden

We had a lot of little pumpkins in our garden beds this Fall that we used in our science discussion and arts and crafts projects. But it is now time to clear out the vines and prepare for something else.

The weather was perfect to get out and work a bit in our garden beds and the children made a few discoveries we were not expecting. Such fun!

Another Beautiful Celebration of Life

We love birthdays! And not just because we get to share a treat but because we have the opportunity to think about the individual's life and be appreciative. This incredibly special child described a few treasured memories from each year of her life while we grew to love her even more.

We had lots of questions and she did a tremendous job responding while on the spotlight!

Starting at October, she walked around the months of the year, to represent each year of her life. This gave us a great visual for understanding that months are a cycle that repeat each year.

Three Cheers for the Birthday Girl!!!

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

This library book detailed a class's investigation into the number of seeds inside of a pumpkin. We followed the same steps as the children in the story, except we worked with only one pumpkin while the children in the book worked with three- a small, a medium, and a large.

Before cutting open the pumpkin, we each made a guess as to how many seeds were in our small pumpkin. Some guessed as little as "2" while some thought there would be "10,000".

Then we scooped out all the seeds.

Which felt, "slimy", "icky sticky", and "disgusting".

In the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?, the teacher, Mr. Tiffin cleaned the seeds and put them in a toaster oven to cook. There is no oven at school, so this was done at home that evening.

This morning we were prepared to count our pumpkin seeds! In the book, the children broke into groups in order to count the seeds they found in the three pumpkins. One group has counted by twos, one group by fives, and one group by tens. We decided to count using photocopies of the Montessori material, the "100 board", placing one seed on each squared number.

 

And we discovered there were 495 pumpkin seeds in our small pumpkin.

We had 4 sets of 100 and an extra 95 seeds which prompted us to write out these equations.

I was completely surprised there was almost 500 seeds in a small pumpkin. I wasn't surprised however, that most of the children enjoyed eating the pumpkin seeds after all that work!

Hay Bales Will Make You Want to...

 Jump, Jump!

I am happy to have captured these brave children in flight today. What a fun and exciting way to build strength in our legs! To add to this experience, we also learned the Spanish word for hay- el heno.

Practical Life is the Foundation of the Montessori Classroom

This water transfer activity was a favorite this week. It is a incredible sensory experience for every age. The action of squeezing the baster, helps develop hand muscles and fine motor skills. Carrying this work also takes an incredible amount of concentration and control. We have had a few spills between the shelf and a table, but that only brings the opportunity to clean up a spill after oneself.

Food Preparation

Food preparation has been a large part of our Practical Life classroom. The "egg work" and "banana work" have been staples at our morning snack. Children age 2 1/2 through 5 have displayed satisfaction after completing the multi-step process, including peeling, slicing, eating, and cleaning up for the next person. The children also get a chance to offer what they have prepared to others friends around the room!

We have prepared vegetable trays a few times for morning snack. Here we have a 3 and 5 year old peeling and slicing carrots and cucumbers for their friends.

A full tray lasts a couple days, allowing the children time to experiment with trying new foods. Different protein and dairy based dips have been offered along with these foods, including hummus, cream cheese, and pimento cheese.

The Children Learn to Care for Their Environment

Most of the practical life curriculum is caring for oneself, for others, and for the environment. These children were actually excited to vacuum the carpets in the classroom! We have added vacuuming as a job on our job chart. Using the job chart as a guide, the children take turns completing classroom care responsibilities, which teaches them to be contributing members of a community.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue Back in 1492.

At circle time we sang a catchy tune about Christopher Columbus and discussed, using the globe, how Columbus's intent for his exploration west was to find an easier route to India for spices. Of course, going west from Europe, Columbus came across the Americas instead...

With talk of oceans and ships, I thought the children would enjoy some sailing (or should I say "floating") of their own on this dark, damp day in South Carolina.

First we prepared a tub of water.

We cleaned the sand out of a container and scrubbed the inside with sponges. This was a group effort first thing in the morning! It was amazing to see the children all work together and communicate while developing essential practical life skills. 

Then we tested our sails.

We reused a styrofoam egg carton for to base of our ships. At first we utilized old playdough to hold up our scrap paper sails. But soon realized this construction slowly sank our boats. So we opted to eliminate the playdough and sails for the remainder of our exploration.

Continued the Theme in Our Snack

Columbus was gifted three ships to make his journey- the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. So today for snack we had "Three Ships on an Ocean" (celery, raisins, and cream cheese tinted blue for added fun).

Our Picture Day Smiles Light Up the World

"A picture says a thousand words!"