After we learned about Spain and Russia last month, the children have continued to show much interest in our travel books about places around the world. We have continued our study of languages and culture this month. I noticed that each morning during reading time, students were pouring over the information books about different countries. So I thought the kids might enjoy borrowing these books and sharing them with their families.
Just for fun, I blindfolded each child, spun them around a few times, then asked them to place a sticker on our world map. Wherever they landed, they could take a book home about that country and read it with their family. They liked this so much that after returning the book, they all wanted to do it again. Many children borrowed several books over the next couple of weeks and came back excited to share a picture or a fact they found interesting. That was a highlight for me. But I know the highlight for the children this month was our pinata.
My husband who speaks Spanish taught the kids how to sing Happy Birthday in Spanish. And told us how the pinata is part of many celebrations in Mexico, including birthday celebrations. Of course, the best part of the pinata was the candy!
The students made the pinata themselves. Here they are dipping the newspaper in flour and water, then decorating it with crepe paper. It was super messy and sticky, which meant it was really fun!
Since we had been celebrating cultures from around the world for some time, I decided to ask the children if they knew of any problems in our world. Here were the children's responses: messes, breaking things, people get hit by cars, storms and earthquakes, and people cutting down trees. It was a good start.
For the next couple of weeks, I read stories to the children about real people in other lands and the problems they had to solve. After each story, we added to the list of problems in our world: no libraries, no schools, no food, no clean water, no electricity, no houses or clothes.
We also discussed how the people in each story were working hard to solve the problem. I told the children that they can grow up to be problem-solvers too, and help make our world a better place for everyone.
One of the stories I told the children was about William Kamkwamba of Malawi, who used science to help solve a problem in his village. When he was a teenager, he built a windmill to bring electricity and water to his village after a famine. He has only a science book and spare parts he found in a junk yard. (You can view a six-minute video of William telling his amazing story at a TED conference
here.)
We created our own junk yard at school one day, thanks to a couple of families who donated an old cell phone and a broken computer monitor. We got to take them apart and see what was inside. I reminded the class about a couple of questions we had on our question board: How does a flashlight make light? How do batteries make things work? We opened a battery and found chemicals inside!
I also provided Snap Circuits for the children to experiment with. When they completed a circuit (or a circle) they could power a light bulb, make sound come from a speaker, or move a small fan (our very own windmill!). The boys were curious about how the power from the battery moves through the circuit to make our different gadgets work.
We recorded our observations about electricity, circuits, and batteries in our science journals.
Works on our shelf allowed students to further explore places in our world. Here students are playing the flag game. Flags from around the world are cut in half. Students take turns choosing a card and placing it face up between them. When a player draws a card that matches a flag in the center, they get to keep that flag (place it on their mat). In the end, the player with the most flags wins.
Here a student matches various landmarks to their picture to familiarize herself with famous buildings around the world (e.g., The Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Egypt pyramids, Taj Mahal, etc.)
Here students are invited to make a bead bracelet that helps them remember the names of the continents we have been singing about (adapted from "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"). The colors of the beads match the colors of the continents on our lap-quilt map. Satellite images of continents were also provided with this work.
Trains in the building area were popular during choice time this month. We talked about how many people in the world travel by train. Our student that just returned from Spain spoke to us about this.
A literacy skill we focused on this month was invented spelling. We made a class book titled: "What's Your Favorite Word?" Students chose a favorite word, spelled the word and drew a picture. The book was made available in our library for students to read. The students could guess who each favorite word belonged to.
In case you can't interpret invented spelling, the words chosen by the children included mountain (mtn), fish (fic), elephant (luvean), volcano (volkano), diamond (dimun), Angry Birds (Agry Birs), mom (mom), and cave (kav). When I see students progress to this point it is really rewarding for me as a teacher. My students (your wonderful children) are becoming emergent readers and writers! I was very proud of all of them.
We also reviewed a few lower case letters the children are still struggling to identify. To do this, we played "Race to the Top". Students roll a die with various letters on each side. The letter that is rolled the most wins the race.
At the table were alphabet cards for building letters with Wikki Stix (waxed yarn), as well as alphabet beads for stringing. Students were invited to string together letters to build words.
And we are still making progress on our alphabet book that students will take home at the end of the year.
A puppet theater in the dramatic play center invited students to practice their speaking and listening skills.
The first puppet shows had very simple plots, such as animals fighting each other or eating each other. But with some guidance from teacher, they progressed over time. Children were encouraged to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end, or a story where there is a problem to solve.
One show featured a king who gets lost and a police officer helps him find his way back to the palace. Another show featured a monkey who decided to climb a tree to safely cross a river (and avoid being eaten by a crocodile), an idea suggested by his friend parrot who belonged to a pirate at sea. Well done!
The math skill we focused on this month was recognizing and writing numbers 1 to 20. This Montessori work (called Teen Boards) invites a student to slide numbers on top of the number 10 to create new numbers in the teens, and place the appropriate number of beads next to each number.
This Montessori work (called Hanging Bead Stair) invites students to order numbers correctly and hang the appropriate number of beads beneath each number.
One benefit of Montessori materials (besides being beautiful and appealing to use) is that they are self-correcting. You can see this child initially places the numbers in the wrong order along the top. But when he reveals the hidden answer key, he corrects his mistake without needing a teacher to intervene.
Students learn better when they identify their own errors. It is the material (not the teacher) that gently leads them to find the correction. This gives the child a sense of independence and self-confidence.
We also practiced sorting and graphing. For this work, there is a bottle of shape monster "food" (buttons) for each day of the week. The student's task is to try and predict which shape they have the most of and which shape they have the least of, then sort and graph the buttons to see if their prediction is correct. She can continue to build different graphs with each jar then compare and contrast. I love this activity because students not only learn to graph, but they understand that the purpose of graphing is to help you more easily see information.
I think spring is finally here because last week a student brought a daffodil from his backyard to show for science. Yeah! We smelled it and counted the petals. The boy added a question to our board: What are the "stripes" (aka stamen and pistil) inside the flower? And how does pollen turn into seeds? It looks like we get to learn about flower reproduction next. How exciting!
To further stimulate our curiosity about spring, I put flowers in the sand and water table along with planting pots and dried beans. The students used these materials to create many beautiful flower arrangements.
We also painted what we hope to see in the coming spring using water color paints, which is a new medium for us.
The children painted rainbows, flowers, insects, birds, butterflies, rain, green grass, and sunrises. All very beautiful!
It's so great to see the children playing outdoors again. I've seen many games of tag lately, as well as soccer, basketball, tether ball, digging in the sand, sliding, and drawing with sidewalk chalk. We are all so happy it's spring!
Thanks again, parents, for all you do to raise such kind and intelligent children. They are wonderful! I can't believe we only have two months left of school and then they are off to kindergarten. Remember to enjoy them because they will only be four once.
Love,
Teacher April
