Montessori Academy | Room 4 eNews

October 2012 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Thank you all for meeting with us for the conferences. It was a pleasure to talk to you about your child and the exciting progress he or she is making in Room 4.

We would like to remind you of a few events we have coming up this week:

Wednesday, October 17 - Class Picture day, please make sure your child is here promptly and dressed for the photo.
Friday, October 19 - Open House, 7:30-9:00am. Your child will show you the work he or she is currently working on in the classroom. This is a special time for each child, so please make arrangements to come so they may share at least one work with you.
Friday, October 19 – All school picnic, 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Granny White Park. We hope to see you all there.

We have changed the work on the shelves for Practical Life, adding fall colors, new items to transfer, and more presentations. We have introduced the bolt and nut board, tweezing beads with tweezers, folding clothes, opening and closing containers, pouring water using a funnel, and using an eye dropper to transfer one drop of liquid at a time. The children are very interested in the new presentations, and enjoy practicing with the work. We update some of the work and rotate fillers each season or as the students master a presentation or seek new materials.

In geography, we reviewed the study of continents on the globe and introduced the term “equator”, the closest part of earth to the sun and the imaginary line that divides earth into northern and southern hemispheres. To supplement the study of land, water, and air, we further did some experiments with these components. We demonstrated the sedimentation of different types of earth components in a pool of water. We proved that air has weight and pressure. Kindergartners began the study of landforms. They learned that water and land on earth went through the transformation that creates different types of landforms. The ten types we studied are: island/lake, cape/ bay, peninsula/gulf, isthmus/strait, and archipelago/ system of lakes, using the landform trays in the classroom. They learned to describe each type of these landforms. Please ask your child about these fun activities. The class also has begun the study of the continent of North America and will move on to USA, and Tennessee in the coming weeks.

In science, we finished studying the Solar System and the planets. Students learned about the Sun, our closest star, and the eight planets. We learned the order of the planets from the Sun and learned a song to help the students remember this information. Now we are beginning to study our fall season unit in science: seasons, leaves, and changing weather. The students will learn the parts of a leaf, parts of a tree, and will learn about the four seasons and their different weather.
Our learning environment is so vibrant. Children seem to learn new work each day. There also seems to be so much for them to choose from. One day when we called the day over before afternoon dismissal, the children all exclaimed “Oh no……”! It does seem a day is so short and goes by so quickly!

Until next time!

Mrs. Carlson and Mrs. Chintanaphol

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