The week of March 21 - 25, 2022

 The Lower Elementary third year students had a fantastic time at Camp McDowell.  The trip included many lessons on environmental science but the highlight was petting a snake and building pillow forts in the cabin. The first and second year students enjoyed writing descriptive paragraphs about the third year students while they were away at camp.  It was a special moment in class when the first and second year students read their special paragraphs to their student upon their return.  Even though Spring Break is right around the corner, we continued with our progression of lessons. Fraction word problems, division with the stamp game and memorization of division facts were completed by all students.  We also gave lessons on dictionary skills and played a detective triangle game.  Students had to find specific triangles by sides and angles.  Next week is our Spring Break!  I hope everyone enjoys extra family time together.

The Week of March 7 - 11

 

We have had a week of fun activities and lessons.  On Monday the third year students were able to attend a basketball game with the fourth through eighth grades.  On Tuesday the entire school was able to attend the impressive understudy performance of Aladdin.  We have also had the very popular Scholastic Book Fair this entire week.  As you can imagine, the Lower Elementary students have been full of excitement and anticipation everyday. 

Our lessons this week were a continuation of last week's lessons.  In our nutrition lesson the students were able to sort food cards by group and read information about the food.  They also created a balanced menu for a meal.  In geometry triangles were drawn and labeled by sides and angles.  We had continuation on the study of division using the Montessori bead board, bingo board and stamp game. Grammar reviews were done for each level.  Each child is creating a book on South America using information collected from previous weeks. Subtracting fractions with different denominators was introduced with the fraction circle box. Finger knitting was introduced as a way of giving students a chance to take a break from their work and relax.  We had many finger knitting chains created in the room.

A Beautiful Week in the Lower Elementary Program

 What an amazing week we have had!  The weather was perfect for spending extra time outside.  We were able to eat lunch at our outdoor picnic tables.  We also had extra outdoor time to appreciate the beauty of our campus.  Flowering Saucer Magnolias, flowering Forsythias and the sprouting of seedlings are a few of the things we noticed.  Children need a connection to nature.  Their concentration improves, their sense of peacefulness grows and their natural curiosity grows the longer children are able to spend outside.  As long as the weather is nice we will continue to spend extra time outside and in our outdoor classroom. 

Lessons this week included writing a biography on a famous woman in history, an introduction to nutrition, a focus on plants, animals and flags of South America, and a review of triangles by both sides and angles.  Everyone had fun making a probability tally chart.  Plurals and singulars were introduces as well as the abbreviations for the days of the week. Division was introduced using some important Montessori materials such as the division bead board, division with the stamp game and the division bingo board.  Next week our nutrition study will include having the children plan a menu using foods in all of the five food groups.   Ask your children this weekend about the five food groups and see if they can identify the food groups from their meals at home.