Week Two - Review

We were able to begin our week with a birthday celebration!  Happy Birthday to Natalia, who turned 4 on September 8th.  We celebrated on Monday by baking her a chocolate cake. We sang her the "Montessori Birthday Song" while we looked at photos of her at birth, age 1, age 2, age 3 and then her current age! We also read one of my favourite books, "On the Day You Were Born". Birthdays are always a special time here at school!

On Tuesday, the class was witness to the emerging butterfly which was amazing. They were thrilled to see it coming from the chrysalis and also to watch it fly away.  On Thursday, we were able to watch a caterpillar form its chrysalis!  This has been a real treat to be able to witness these changes and observe what we've read about in books.

We were also able to see that the last butterfly to emerge was a male...you can tell this by looking at the wings.  If the wings have 2 dots on the bottom part of the wings it is a male.  Can you see the dots?

We have been reviewing the idea of living and non-living things.  Living things are plants and animals, they have a life cycle...they are born, they grow and they die. I explained that the length of a life cycle is different for each living thing including people.  Non-living things are made of something like plastic, wood, metal, fabric, or paper.  Sometimes people say "my phone is dead, or the batteries died" but in fact these things cannot die because they are non-living things, they just are not working anymore.

We continued to review our planets, the Earth and its continents as well as oceans.  We also were able to do our rocket experiment much to the delight of the children!  We've reviewed the idea of motion and its' 3 Laws.  It was especially surprising when one of the students was looking through one of my space books and noticed a picture of Isaac Newton.  She gathered all her classmates around and compared the picture in the book to the one I have of him on the wall!

I introduced the children to opera music, specifically, "le papillon et la fleur" (the butterfly and the flower) by Fauré, who composed this beautiful song in 1861 at the age of 16! We practised singing ourselves a bit of opera which was fun and also a little loud!

And, at the request of the children, I have purchased new, "better tasting" toothpaste.  They now have 2 flavour choices, melon burst by nature clean or berry smart by kiss my face.  Both are 100% natural, free from dyes.

A student who was here last year when we studied the butterflies mentioned to me that she already knew this stuff and she'd like me to teach her something she didn't know.  I asked her what she would like to know and she said "a handstand!"

Please note that the pictures scheduled to be taken on Wednesday, September 19th have been moved to MONDAY, September 17th due to a scheduling conflict with the photographer.