Saturday, October 21, 2017

Week 8: Oct 16th -20th AppleSauce, Community Meeting and Crickets!

Blog week 8:  Oct 16th -20th

"The child has a different relation to his environment from ours... the child absorbs it.  The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul.  He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear." - Dr. Montessori

Hello Parents!

Another sensorial week completed!  This week we wore our colorful school tee shirts with pride, explored classroom works and prepared for our applesauce cooking lesson.  We also watched the lower elementary class put on a play during the community meeting and shared some of our exciting works with the school.  Of course our other highlight was this week’s amazing warm weather and morning fogs.  The weather is inspiring some discussions among the children.    

Monday:  Today was a class picture day, when we wore our colorful new tee shirts with pride and took a whole school picture.  We also welcomed a new student, C******, to our class.  We had morning Spanish with Sra. Rosa and reviewed numbers.  Another student, C***, donated some fresh flowers to press.  Thank you C*** for your wonderful birthday gift of flowers to our class.   Another seasonal work was raking the leaves in the schoolyard.  The children enjoy catching falling leaves from the tree and discriminating the shapes and types of leaves.  A child also noticed a very usual leaf that seemed to sparkle because of mineral deposit.  I love watching these children make these discoveries in their own backyard.  We ended the day reading The Five Little Pumpkins story/song. 

Tuesday:  Today Lower Elementary hosted community meeting and performed a play. Then we shared with the school some of our classwork.  Thanks to our brave students for sharing!  Our big work for today was apple washing, as we prepared for our cooking project this week.  Our other exciting sharing was discovering this huge cricket in the playground.  We examined its shape and counted its legs. At the end of the day we read/sang The Five Little Pumpkins.

Wednesday:  At today’s circle, we read two poems, “If I were an Apple” by unknown Author and A Was Once An Apple Pie, by Edward Lear (a poem in book format).  Today’s work cycle included knobless cylinders and grating a cinnamon stick.  In the math section, bead work and fall seasonal sequential counting works were popular.  New stamp markers and new fall images made the letter writing and art popular as well.   In music class, we sang "Old Mac Donald" and played music and movement games.  We again ended the day, with the Five Little Pumpkin Song.

Thursday: Today there was beautiful fog in the morning, I asked the children what they saw and responses were as expected a low cloud and such.  But then a child described the sun as ivory, and it was truly beautiful.  The sun appeared an ivory color through the fog, against the brilliant autumn foliage.  
At morning circle we read The Apple Pie Tree, by Zoe Hall.   Work cycle had bead counting (early snake game) as a popular choice.  Sensorial is still very popular as the children continue to explore the Broad Stairs and the Pink Tower with the marbles and with building guides.  Spelling and early sound works (G, B, F) were also very popular.  Individual lessons on Landform Mat and Atoms also began to those ready and interested.  The afternoon fog lifts and recess was warm and very fun. Our fun afternoon project was grating the cinnamon sticks and peeling the apples for cooking.   We also had a practical life lesson on death after school as we found an injured bee and while examining it, watched it die.  We gave the bee a nice burial and friends were invited to say a kind word about the bee, such as thank you for helping the flowers grows. 

Friday:  During morning circle, we read The Very Quiet Cricket, by Eric Carle, inspired by the discovery of the giant cricket earlier this week.   We also recited the “Whether The Weather Be Fine” poem, by Anonymous.  Today focus was creating the apple pie.   While students not cooking made great work choices (the bell math game, atoms work, and early sounds were very popular), my observations were by the things hot and sharp.   A few students had apple cutting lessons, using dulled knives to cut the apple slices into smaller pieces. Other friends helped add the apples and other ingredients to the crockpot and, of course, stirring.  We all had a lesson in patience (no, it will not be cooked in 5 minutes;).  After smelling the lovely smells of cooking applesauce all day, we had our applesauce tasting at last circle.  Most children thought it was yummy!

Okay that is all for now, until next week!
Ms. Becky and Preschool Staff


School Picture Day
Leaf with sparkles (mineral deposit)

Community Meeting watching the Lower Elementary















































































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