Week 15 - Review

This week was filled with many "crafts" and just enjoying each other's company. One mom sent me a message stating "when they saw each other at skating they ran to each other giving a big hug, oh I've missed you!" It's this sense of family that I love so much about our little school. There are genuine friendships, little ones who care deeply for each other...yes, we do have our little disagreements but those too are part of family life...it is how we respond that matters, and we practise daily this proper response.

The children were interested in making gifts for their family so they got to work. These activities helped them increase their focus. Activities like, beading, tracing, transferring, sketching and story writing, cutting & folding for paper snowflakes.

These activities may not seem like much, but for the 3 - 5 year old, these activities help build their concentration, focus and fine motor skills. To complete a task from start to finish is quite an accomplishment and it gives them success. This work is uninterrupted and can be completed over and over again until the child feels like they have mastered it. In fact, we were so engrossed in the activities on Thursday that it wasn't until 3:00PM when one of the girls asked "when are we going to start lunch?  I'm getting a little hungry".  I also, didn't realize the time.  This was an opportunity to explain to the children that when we become engaged in an activity that we love and are enjoying time goes by so quickly. We were all so focused on our own work that we "lost track of the time!" We also snacked later than we typically do because of our sparkly ornament activity, so no one was interrupted by rumbling tummies!

I wish you each a restful Christmas break, enjoying time with family and friends.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love, Mrs. Kerr

A Response to the Tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut

I feel like we are missing something as a society. What I love most about Montessori, is the ability to be able to share a point of view on a subject with an audience that is keen to listen. The beauty of this Montessori community is that we each come with our own set of beliefs and our own experiences, that make us into the person we are and continue to be. From these beliefs and experiences we see the world and the people in the world, in different ways. You may not agree with everything or anything that I am writing here and that is okay. I just ask that you think about what you can do, in light of this, to connect to others, in a real, tangible way. One that makes a difference in a positive way, impacting their life for the better.

Obviously, I am saddened for the loss of life, in such a brutal way, yet I am also saddened because this young man Adam Lanza, was troubled. Somehow, in his life he became disconnected. How did this happen? Why do we so easily allow it to happen? We see this all the time, children who begin to pull away socially, or maybe never really "fit" the so-called standards. The children that aren't invited to the birthday parties, the children who don't have anyone to play with at recess, the children who are made fun of for the lunches they bring to school, or the clothes they wear, or because they aren't a fast runner, or they aren't a fluid reader, or they (you can fill in number of ways we judge here). Why don't we as parents step in? Why do we allow this behaviour in our children? Do we demonstrate this behaviour for them?

During the last week, I read the book Montessori Madness, by Trevor Eissler.  He writes very well on the idea of Community. Montessori schools have a genuine community about them based on the philosophy demonstrated and practised daily by the guides (teachers), the students, and the families.

"The Montessori "community" allows and encourages children to connect with others, personal differences blend in, strengths and weaknesses are merely points on a continuum of growth and learning, not characteristics with which to permanently define a child. Children are used to seeing a wide range of abilities. They get used to working with others at various places on that long continuum. They learn to appreciate what others CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. In this community, one can practice, and get comfortable, working with all ability levels.

Community gives life value.

We must build strong communities to support and improve the quality of our human interactions. Montessori children are practising the qualities of compassion, grace and courtesy every day.

Some people don't function well with others. Some haven't learned how to be social and stray toward the anti-social. Violence, child abuse and theft are actions of disconnected people. They never had the opportunity to practice, day in and day out, techniques to manage anger in a graceful way, to practice courteousness, to practice real teamwork, or to connect. Weak communities have too many disconnected people. They've become numbers in their communities. We are contributing to the weakening of our communities today in various ways. We watch TV instead of sitting on the front porch. We live far from work and commute. We even send our children across town (or into other towns) to play sports with a bunch of kids their precise age and level of ability, instead of down the street at the empty lot with a mix of kids from the community."

What would it look like if we stopped to speak and acknowledge children of all abilities?

What if we encouraged our children to invite the "misfit" child from their class over for a meal?

What if we spoke highly of all children and did not "label" or judge them.

What if we reached out with love and compassion?

What if we smiled more to those we meet on the street, adults and children alike?

What would happen if our children never heard an insulting comment come from our lips?

We would have a  well-connected, strong, community.

Week 14 - Review

It has been a short week but one that was filled with information about Antarctica! We learned that Antarctica is the coldest continent and that the only plant that grows is moss for a short time. It is home to penguins, seals, whales, skuas, petrels, albatross, krill, zoo plankton and some people who do research projects for a short time. The song we learned was to the tune of "O Christmas Tree" and it goes like this...
Antarctica, Antarctica, it is the coldest continent
Antarctica, Antarctica, it is the coldest continent
There are no trees or people there
There are no homes or polar bears
Antarctica, Antartica, is home to seals and penguins.

The children loved learning about the animals of Antarctica. They learned and understand the meaning of predator, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, vertebrate, invertebrate, rookery, creche.  We also did some work separating animals by vertebrate type: mammals, fish, reptile, bird, amphibian, as well as land and water animals.

The children were able to make penguins from paper and then also did some drawings of them. One girl (age  5) made her own book and spelled out each word & sentence independently, words like chinstrap penguin, girl, saving, whale. What impressed me most was listening to her as she worked along. As she spelled each word she made each sound...when she got to the word whale, she reminded herself, "remember that whale has the silent h after the w and a silent e at the end."  Prior to her deciding to do this work I read them a book about whales. She commented that the word didn't look like it should say whales. I explained that the h was silent like in the words "white", "when", and that the "e" was silent, making the "a" say it's own name. She responded with "okay" and asked that I continue reading. Yet, when left to complete a book of her own, she remembered this small detail through a conversation, not by repeating many pages in a grammar or language arts "rule book".

We also were able to do some measuring using the red rods. The Emperor penguin can grow to be 1.2 m tall   (which is taller than most of the children) where the Little Blue Fairy penguin and the Rockhopper penguin grow to be just 30 cm. The widest wingspan ever recorded of the albatross was 3.6 m which was from the couch to the fireplace - a very long distance indeed!

UNO is beginning to be a real favourite game for the group. It is great to see their focus increase to play a full game, encouraging one another and following rules, taking turns, and trying to lay those "tricky" cards like miss a turn, or change direction!

A reminder that the school will be closed now and re-open on Monday, December 17th. The children in the 3-day/week program will be attending 5 days that week.

Week 13 - Review

We had so much fun in the snow this week! It made our recess time go by so quickly. We were able to practise our balance on the snowboard and each child did remarkably well. With a little practise everyone was able to master this!

We were able to continue our work on math (static addition and subtraction) using the concrete activities. Some children were also able to do this work on paper as abstract work!

Other children continued working on matching and printing out upper and lower case letters.

The children are also beginning to see continents everywhere they look!  In the clementine they peeled (South America) and even in the snow (Africa) grass as the snow melted.

And, we were able to pack our Christmas boxes for Samaritan's Purse, a total of 12 boxes!  Thank you for donating the items for the boxes - the children really had a lot of fun packaging them.

It's hard to believe tomorrow is December! Next week, we begin learning about Antarctica! And a reminder that Thursday, Dec 6th is the last day of school for the Tuesday/Thursday group! This year has went by VERY quickly!

And, I've been busy each evening working on a business plan for Authentic Montessori School of Huron in order to determine if opening a full elementary school is a viable option for September, 2013.  This is the logo that was designed...for a Facebook banner

for printed material it will look like this...

If you have not had a chance to fill in the survey please do so, as this is how I am determining the viability.  To date, responses have been positive.  70 surveys have been completed, with 16 families interested and willing to pay a tuition, 48 families are interested yet need to know tuition costs.  I am working on establishing a fair price per child, with discounts for siblings.  All details will be released in January, 2013.

Week 12 - Review

We had many opportunities this week for some extended work. The children are getting a good grasp of the concept of units, rods, squares and cubes. Some of us even began static addition!  It is so exciting to watch the children when they "figure out" and equation. Here is a photo of the children at work.

placing the objects on a new mat to figure out the sum!

They did it!

They asked me to take another photo - they didn't have the units in a "proper" position.

Some of the children are also beginning to extend their language work - moving from recognizing the sounds of each letter and the name to wanted to spell out the words.  We've reviewed that each word must have a vowel.  We begin using the moveable alphabet and then we can print it on the paper.

Other children are beginning to write their own books!  This is truly one of my most favourite times - because the language they are learning becomes their own and they are confident in their abilities. The ability to transpose words on a guide sheet to their own paper is quite a skill and it's terrific that they are so keen to do so.  Today, some of the children decided they wanted to make a shape poster.  So, they got right to work, tracing the metal insets, cutting each shape out, reading out the shape names, matching the names to the shape they had made and then glueing them on the poster board. So much detail, completed independently, at the age of 4!

And, it still blows me away (and some visitors that we had this week, Thursday, 4 women) that the children not only can sing a song about Canada, Central America, and South America, but that they actually can identify the countries! As I work with the children, I say the name of the country (puzzle piece) as I remove it from the puzzle. I then ask the child to place "said country" in the puzzle. I was working with one little guy and I asked him to place Chile in the puzzle first. He did, and then immediately grabbed the next piece and said "Argentina", and "Bolivia", etc.  WOW!!!

We also sampled some new foods this week...some were well received, one was not!  On Monday & Tuesday, I tried the children with pumpkin soup from Venezuela...NO ONE liked it!  I thought it tasted nice - so I'm not sure if it was just that they knew it was pumpkin and thought it was weird to eat it as soup?!?

Wednesday, we had Peanut Vegetable Soup, from Bolivia - this was a success, so much so, they asked me to let their mom's know the recipe...and asked for me to serve it again!

Grind into very fine pieces 2 cups of skinless raw peanuts
Put into a large pot
peanuts
2 L of chicken broth
1 large onion, diced
4 large potatoes, diced
4 carrots, sliced
Cook for 30 minutes
Add
1/4 cup uncooked rice (I used brown basmati)
1 cup of peas
Cook 15 minutes

Thursday, due to an avoidance of nuts in food - we had chicken vegetable soup.

Today, another success - each child had 2 servings plus some had a small bowl of chicken vegetable soup!  "Enchilada Casserole" from Paraguay ***Very EASY***
Preheat oven to 350F
Fry
1 lb of ground beef
1 onion chopped
2/3 cup of green pepper, chopped
1 tsp salt
Add
2 cups tomato sauce
6 cups of whole kernel corn (drained if using canned, I used our frozen corn from garden)
Mix well and place in a casserole dish. Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and spread
1 cup of cheese (I used havarti)
Return to oven and bake additional 5 minutes.

All in all, things are going well. I am looking at 3 different places this weekend for possible spaces for expanded the Montessori School and will keep you informed on that process.

Enjoy the blustery weekend ahead!
Angela

Operation Shoe Box - Christmas Boxes Around the World

Last year, we did a fundraiser for the Operation Christmas Shoe Box, where the children and I made meals for you and your family.  This year, with the excitement and possibility of a new school, I am not able to do this extra fundraiser yet, I would still like the children to be able to participate, especially since we are learning about the world. I am asking that each child be responsible for bringing one item X 11 (so that it can go into each child's box).  I will contribute the cost of the shipping & administration fee.

I am going to list the items that would be appreciated and if you could write under the "comment" section which item you will purchase - to help avoid duplication.

The age of the children box we will be focusing on is 3-5 and girl or boy

box of crayons

small note book

3 sticker packs/box (33 sticker sheets)

marbles

socks

toothbrush & comb

hard candy (werther or lifesavers)

small animal figure (4 each, like the Schleich brand @ Fincher's or TSC )

small animal figure (4 each)

small animal figure (3 each)

felted figures (Alanna - I'm wondering if you have time to make 11? they are so nice :) if not, no problem - we can add something else)

We will be assembling the boxes next week on Thursday, November 29 & Friday, November 30, so please have the items here by that date.

Week 11 - Review

This week has been filled will lots of interesting and new work. We reviewed the countries of South America again using the wooden puzzle. I find it so amazing that when all the pieces (13 in all) are out on the mat I can ask where Venezuela is or Bolivia, or Chile and the children grab the piece and place it where it belongs! We've learned about the armadillo this week and some of the children tried sketching one. We have also been learning how to build numbers. We are all quite comfortable with 1-9, so I've introduced 10-90, 100-900, 1000-9000.  The numbers 1-9 are referred to as single units, represented with a bead.  The numbers 10, 20, 30 etc, are referred to as rods, represented as 10 beads forming 1 rod. The numbers 100, 200, etc. are referred to as squares, represented as 10-10 rods forming the square. The numbers 1000, 2000, etc. are referred to as a cube, represented as 10-100 squares forming the cube. When learning how the numbers are put together and what this really looks like is key for mental math. I remember Quaid's JK teacher telling me that she had never seen a child who understood numbers like he did, "it's almost like he can see them being formed in his head". They are working on building numbers like 8724. They would have to take 8 cubes, 7 squares, 2 rods and 4 units and place them on the mat. We are also learning how to read the numbers. Once this becomes matter of fact, we'll begin to add two numbers together using static addition (no carrying over) and static subtraction, eventually moving on to dynamic addition & subtraction (carrying over or borrowing from).  We do this by playing "banker".

The children loved making empanades for lunch this week. They were able to make the dough and roll it out...adding the chicken & pea filling with a little cumin...popular in Bolivia. We've enjoyed listening to pan-pipes a native instrument to South America while working, it's very soothing.

I've had a request from the children to make more flags...so I'll have the flags ready for colouring for next week so they can accurately colour the country flags of South America.

We have also reviewed the musical terms forte (loud & strong), pianissimo (soft, quiet), presto (fast), and adagio (slow).

And, as most of you are aware, I am in the midst of trying to determine if there would be enough support to open a fully licensed Montessori CASA program (ages 2.5 - 6) under the Day Nurseries Act, as well as interest for an independent Montessori elementary school registered with the Ministry of Education. Thank you to all who have answered the survey and posting it or forwarding it to others. I currently have had responses from 48 people. If you provided me with your email address I will be sending you additional surveys to help me with planning and determining what is the best offering for parents of the children attending. Calvin has helped me understand that "maybe not every parent wants the same thing you do, and you should probably ask them". If you have not yet answered the survey please take 5 minutes to do so...it is anonymous (unless you provide me with your email address for further communication). I would love to have 100 responses come back so encourage your peers, friends, and family to fill it in.

Week 10 - Review

We have been studying South America this week as a whole. We are all familiar with the shape of the continent and where it is located on the world map. We've looked at a few different maps so they can identify it in more than one spot. We've been learning the names of the countries, Venezuala, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Suriname, Guyana. There are 12 countries in South America, there is one other country called French Guiana but it belongs to France and shares the same flag. We've learned that 12 is also known as 1dozen.

We've been learning about the rainforest animals also known as jungle animals. I showed this cute video The Rainforest Song today and the kids really loved it...I'll be sure to show it on Tuesday as well...

The children worked on more math equations and more printing this week. It is nice to be able to have them choose work that is meaningful to them.

Enjoy your weekend,
Angela

Week Nine - Review

What a wet, windy week!  It is so nice to be able to go outside for a walk (when the weather cooperates) for both the children and myself! I find our time together in the afternoon goes so much better when we can all get some fresh air and enjoy nature. The days when we are "cooped up" seem to last forever - and everyone is just itching to get outside.

This week we worked on addition and subtraction.  Some of the older children are beginning to print out math equations, while the younger ones are using concrete objects to verbalize math equations. Words like add, plus, equals, subtract, minus are being introduced as well as the picture symbols.

We also reviewed what an island is.  We learned about the Caribbean Sea and that there are many islands located in this sea.  The islands are tropical and grow fruit like mango, pineapple, banana, and papaya. We listened to Calypso music and the steel drum. This music made everyone feel like dancing. The islands song was not so easy to learn - but the children did have colouring their flags of each island and just learning and looking at pictures of these tropical islands. We tasted some island foods. I made Creole Chicken (Domincan Republic) and Rice & Beans (Jamaica) which all the children LOVED! The Rice & Beans was super easy...1 1/2 cups of long grain rice with 1 can of coconut milk plus 1 cup of water and add 1 can of garbanzo beans (chick peas)...the recipe called for kidney beans but the children don't really like those - so we did a substitution. We also ate some tropical fruit - pineapple, bananas & mango.

We learned that the Earth has an invisible "belt" around it called the Equator.  The "belt" has the top invisible line called the Tropic of Cancer and the bottom invisible line is called the Tropic of Capricorn.  All countries found inside the "belt" area are considered tropical.  This means that they have 2 seasons: rainy & dry. The sun shines on the belt all the year round, making it very warm all year round.

We learned about the volcano and we made our own out of clay. We used baking soda and vinegar to make it bubble. It was funny listening to one little guy who kept asking "when will the volcano interrupt Mrs. Kerr?  I really want to see it interrupt!" I had to gently remind him, "not interrupt but erupt".

We spelled out words like volcano, lava, erupt, rock, red, hot, magma, vent, bubbles. All the children are getting so confident in their letter sounds and naming the letter that makes it! Spelling comes naturally. If your child has a tendency to print from right to left (very common) you can give them a helpful guide. I've introduced a green dot (on the left side of the board) and a red dot (on the right side of the board) as a quick visual to remember where to start and stop. You may only need to do this a few times before they begin to make this a habit.

Next week we begin our study of South America (the pink continent).

The Decision of Kindergarten...

All schools (public, separate and independent) are "Calling All Three Year Olds" during the month of November.
Avon Maitland District School Board
Huron-Perth Catholic School Board
Huron Christian School

This is when you would go into the school of your choice and register your child for JK/SK. Each child is expected to visit several stations so they can "evaluate" the children to offer feedback to parents on areas you can work with your child prior to school beginning in September, 2013.

This can be a difficult time for parents as the school environment is so different than the cozy, home atmosphere your child and you have become accustomed to. My suggestion is that if you have any reservations about sending your child to "big" school arrange for an observation of the JK/SK class without your child. Go and observe the class in action. With the influx of schools closing there are many schools that have more than 1 kindergarten class, so if you can, I would try and observe each class. You could then specify which teacher you feel would best suit your child's personality.

Before going into the classroom I would read through these attached links. The information sound terrific - so, be sure to use the "language" in the guides and look for examples of these learning experiences when you visit the classroom. The classroom and your child's experience at school really does depend on the teacher. Take notes if you need to during the observation time and then send them to the teacher or principal in an email after the observation. You will not be able to discuss anything with the teacher while they are in the classroom with the other students, it will be an observation only.

Kindergarten Curriculum - full document
Kindergarten - A Reference for Educators

You are not required to register your child in a publicly funded school setting - however, once you complete paperwork - they do have your child "on file" and will continue to call you until you have enrolled them. So, it's easier to not enrol them now if you have any reservations. Kindergarten is not a mandatory full-time program. You can choose when you send your child (2 or 3 days/week, mornings or afternoons only) of course the school encourages full-time enrollment because they receive more funding, but the decision is yours to make.

You can also homeschool your child. The general rule of thumb is 1 hour/grade/day. Kindergarten is at the discretion of the parent. The amount of quality and focused time is what counts, not the length of the day. You, as the parent are also able to follow any curriculum that you would like. The Ontario Curriculum is online Ontario Curriculum by Grade so you can have that as reference but it is not mandatory that you follow it. I would encourage you to check in with it though just to make sure there isn't an area of study that has been overlooked. The majority of home-schooling families I know do school in the morning and the afternoon is less structured, independent time, spent reading, sketching, observing nature, etc. There are a couple of home-schooling groups in our area and if you would like to have some contact information I can supply you with that.

And lastly, learning doesn't happen inside 4 walls of an institution. Learning happens all around us and it is up to us as parents to be an advocate for our child in any learning situation they are exposed to. We know our children best.

Week Eight - Review

Your children absolutely amaze me (and Calvin)...I think this is what I love most about my chosen career!

To be honest, when I began thinking about the "study" for this year I knew the children would love learning about different places, people, animals, music & flags from around the world but to learn the individual countries I thought was "stretching it". But, I thought I would put the country names to music (as I've done with most everything else)and see what happened. Your children have proved me wrong - and I'm so glad to say that!

Today, I began by holding up the printed copy of the map of Central America and asked the class if anyone remembered what this map was of.  One of the students (3 1/2 years old) confidently came forward and said, "Yes, Mrs. Kerr, it's Central America.  And here is Guatemala and Belize.  This is El Salvador and here is Honduras.  This is Nicaragua and Costa Rica. This one is Panama."  Yes, I said...what a brilliant girl you are! She replied humbly with "Thanks, that's just what you told us." Who knows, maybe this girl will end up being a world traveller or a cartographer! Calvin & Quaid were home for the afternoon today and she showed this map and told them the countries as well. Calvin honestly said, "Wow, you just taught me something because I didn't know where any of those countries were located on a map!"

They know how to pronounce the names of the countries in North America and recognize them when written! They have been practising printing out each country name and I've been reminding them that only the first letter is capitalized all other letters must be written in the lower case form. It's wonderful to hear them talking about these countries in their free play, being a Monarch travelling over the Great Lakes, through the USA, until they reach the oyamel forests of Mexico! Or the beautiful quetzal bird flying in Guatemala.

We reviewed the sounds of oy, ir, o, and this week I introduced the soft c sound, like in Central America. Words like cent, centre, percent, cent, cylinder, circle, Gracin, race, face. We also reviewed blended sounds like br, dr, tr, cr, gr, squ, st, sm, sp, spl. And we've been practising spelling our first names, both written and orally.

We practised counting to 100, by 1s, 5s, 10s.

I also introduced nine North American animals (Canada & USA) pictures and words to the children. The animals were lynx, moose, racoon, eagle, beaver, mountain goat, chipmunk, monarch, brown bear.


We've felt a little cooped up lately with all the rain - so it was really nice on Wednesday & Thursday to be outside for a good length of time. The children are such keen observers - noting the differences in the deciduous trees in the neighbourhood, most are bare already.

We have only 2 more chapters to read in Tommy Smith's Animals, the Squirrel & the Barn Owl.

Next week, we'll be studying the Caribbean Islands of North America.  Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, Antigua, The Virgin Islands, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago.  We'll listen to some steel drum music and calypso music!

If you have any items from these places that you'd like to send with your child, please feel free to do so! It's always nice to have something concrete to look at and touch.

We will also be celebrating Amelia Greydanus' birthday - she will be 4 on Sunday, October 28th!




   

Week Seven - Review

Wow...what a week!  We had a terrific week...lots of fun adventures and lots of learning!

We learned about Mexico...the flag, the anthem (which makes us feel very happy) and the shape of the country. We learned that the people of Mexico speak a different language, Spanish. We watched an amazing documentary from PBS which held their attention for the entire show (not common). I've included the link so you can watch it too! The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies
We learned that the monarch migrates to Mexico and winters on the oyamel fir tree. We learned the oy sound, in words like oyamel, joyful, boy, toys, soya.  We also learned that an o at the end of a word like in Mexico, just says its' name. Words like tomato, potato, tornado, Tobago, sombrero. We learned ir, like in fir, bird, skirt, dirt, stir.

We ate pinto bean soup for lunch and guacamole, salsa & corn chips for snack. The pinto bean soup was not a big hit but I am happy that the children are at least trying these new foods and are eager to do so.  Sadie Black also brought in some family souvenirs from Mexico, a maraca, a bowl, a doll, and some beautiful dresses.

We had SO much fun on our field trip! The weather could not have been nicer on Wednesday & Thursday and we enjoyed a lovely fall hike on the Greenway Trail.  A special thank you to Chef Gusso and his hospitable staff at Part 2 Bistro.  If you are looking for an excellent meal and ambience this is the place to go...and be sure to mention that you're little one was their for their "fancy" dinner!

On Wednesday, Chef Gusso started us off with a cup of butternut squash soup...

Followed by pickerel from Lake Huron (one of the Great Lakes - not to be confused a "good lake" as referenced by one of the students when explaining where the fish came from!), mixed rice with corn, green beans, carrots, beets & peas.

And, the best dessert one could ask for!  When the dessert was brought out the restaurant became so silent, you could hear a pin drop.  We maybe should have only went in for some dessert!  This cake is what Chef Gusso known for, his flour less chocolate cake (made from black beans!) with some ice cream.  It even had a gluten-free pretzel on top!  Delicious!

The children thanked Chef Gusso for his delicious meal.

The Thursday group was treated to a spinach, beet salad with goat cheese, walnuts and dried cranberries.

Followed by a delicious pasta which was eaten ALL up by every student...and they even asked for more noodles!

With an excellent carrot cake for dessert!

On Friday, we were able to visit a Tanzanian Choir at Quaid's School.  The children enjoyed watching the members sing and dance.  There was a lot of jumping and jingling.  Here are a few photos.

His shoes are made from the tires of motorcycles!

Week Six - Review

This week has gone VERY quickly!  We studied the USA.  The children learned about the flag (it's red and white striped with a blue rectangle and there are white stars on the rectangle). They each had the opportunity to colour the flag and most of them attempted this.  We listened to an instrumental version of the anthem as well and we could hear the music become forte (loud & strong) as well as pianissimo (soft and quiet).

I introduced the concept of "silent e" when reading words.  The idea that when there is a vowel, then a consonant followed by an e..."the e jumps over the consonant and makes the vowel say its name". When we read United States of America...we can see this in the word "united" and "states". We practised reading words like cake, rake, vase, slide, kite, mine. The letters are highlighted in red so it is visually easy to recognize. We also reviewed the idea of blends...putting 2 letters together to make 1 sound...like united states, stripes, stars.
The gesture that I'm using is linking your fingers together and trying to pull them apart but they are "stuck".   We thought of many words with the "st" sound at both the beginning and ending of words and we spelled them out using the moveable alphabet.

I introduced the idea of upper case (capitals) and lower case letters. That we should only use upper case letters when it is the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun, the name of a person or place or the brand of a thing. We worked on matching upper case letters to lower case letters. And the fact that some letters look exactly the same as an upper case as they do a lower case - just the size differs - like Cc Kk Oo Pp Ss Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz while others look completely different like Aa Bb Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Ll Mm Nn Qq Rr Tt, yet each makes the same sound. I am beginning to correct the 2nd & 3rd year students with their letter formation as well...only using capital letters for proper nouns or beginning of sentences.  It will help instil good writing habits prior to grade 1.

I think our most fun was had making the apple pies!  It is a sticky job but also full of fragrant aromas. Cinnamon always smells so good!  Here are a few pictures...

Begin with a crust...

Peel and core eight apples...

Coat the chopped apples with 4 TBSP of flour, 1/4 cup of sugar (maple syrup), 1 tsp of cinnamon

Spoon all the apple mixture into the pie crust and bake @ 350 F for 1 hour and ENJOY!!!

We will be very busy next week.  Monday & Tuesday we will be studying Mexico and the migration of the Monarch butterfly.  Wednesday & Thursday, we will be in BLYTH to enjoy "A Bunch of Munsch" play at the Blyth Festival Theatre, lunch at Part II Bistro part2bistro.ca a visit to Pianovations pianovations.ca and a lovely walk on the Greenway Trail stopping by the "Peace Garden" that one of my classes created and we continue to maintain in the Memorial Garden.

On Friday, we will be attending a performance at Huron Christian School beginning at 10:30AM featuring the En-Kata Choir.  A group of adults from the Maasai tribe in Tanzania, raising money to help build a school room for children in grade 1.  Children from the Tuesday/Thursday group are invited to attend with us as well as parents if you wish.  I will try and video part of the performance so you are able to "see and hear" as well and I will post on the blog here next week.

Enjoy your weekend - and I will see you all next week!