Our study topic for February was languages and culture. The children have had many opportunities to explore languages and culture over the past few weeks, and I am starting to see evidence of their heightened global awareness. It is exciting to witness their growing interest in people and places around the world.
We have focused on the culture and languages of Russia, Spain, Mexico, and China this month. We will continue learning about places around the world for at least a couple more weeks because interest is still high.
The children are really enjoying the books in our library about places around the world. I stocked our library with stories that included multicultural themes. But the information books are the favorite. The students keep finding interesting photos they want to show their friends and me. It's been really exciting for all of us.
The student who visited Spain this month sent our school a post card from Valencia. When she returned from Spain, she shared some of her experiences with us and brought European coins and candy to share.
Another student whose family had formerly lived in Europe for a military assignment, brought his mother and her friend Fabiana to teach us more about Spain. Fabiana currently lives in Valencia, Spain. She happened to be visiting Utah for a few weeks and agreed to come visit our school.
She told us all about her home country, including the food she likes to eat, the home she lives in, her family customs, and cultural traditions (e.g., bullfighting, flamenco dancing, and the festival of fire).
She helped us make a traditional Spanish breakfast called potato tortillas. The students helped peel the potatoes and crack the eggs.
Fabiana did the cooking at the stove top, flipping the tortilla like an omelette to cook it on both sides. She added onions, red peppers, and lemon juice to the "adult" tortilla. Kids preferred their tortilla plain.
All the students loved the meal. They devoured it actually. One little boy even asked for the recipe because he wanted to make it for his family.
The children each received a post card to mail to an international friend (addresses obtained via the website
www.postcrossing.com). The post card featured our own Arches National Park. We are looking forward to receiving more post cards from around the world.
Many children have brought "culture" for share-and-learn this month. We've had a sculpture from Africa, an ivory elephant from India, matroyshka dolls from Russia, and coins from Mexico. One little boy taught us how to count to 10 in Spanish for his "culture". And another boy brought his mom to play music for us from Austria. The music was written by Mozart.
After she finished her performance, we got to sing while she played the piano. We sang "Twinkle Little Star" while she played variations of this song written by Mozart. The music was beautiful! Thank you to all the parents who contributed to our learning community this month. Keep the culture coming!
We all enjoyed watching the winter Olympics this month (hosted in Russia). We explored the creation of race tracks in the building center using our marble run. This was quite the exercise in problem-solving, trying to build a track that would carry the marble from start to finish. But the kids became quite proficient at it.
It was also a great way to practice a social skill we are working on: Different people have different ideas, and that's okay! We can take turns trying out all our ideas!
Now we are starting to think about China. We practiced using chop sticks in our sand and water table, transferring pom-poms from the table into various jars. Sorting the pom-poms by size was an option here.
The math skill we focused on this month was geometry (i.e., shapes). We had a shape hunt to look for objects in our classroom that were recognizable shapes. Then the children practiced making different shapes with their bodies using a Chinese jump rope. Some shapes required the cooperation of several children and the rope (e.g., the hexagon).
We had a shape monster in the classroom. He liked to eat different shapes. We learned a chant about the shape monster, and made books about the shape monster to read to our families.
Parents, when your child "read" this book to you at home, you may have seen him move a finger from top to bottom and left to right as they recited the memorized verse.
This beginning literacy skill was a learning objective for this work. Hopefully your child could also tell you the color and shape on each page. We read this book together as a group. Each child also practiced reading the book with me individually before they took it home. I wanted every child to succeed at reading this book to their family.
At circle, we sorted buttons (or "monster food") by shape and graphed them to see what shape we had the most of (circles) and what shape we had the least of (triangles).
A popular game in the classroom this month was our shape memory game. I think every child took a turn to play this game this past month.
Lastly, we used toothpicks and marshmallows to create both flat (2-D) shapes and solid (3-D) shapes. This was very engaging work for the students. They really enjoyed this.
The children discovered how to build cubes, triangular prisms, and other invented 3-D shapes.
The kids also got to practice self-control, having to wait until snack time to eat the leftover marshmallows!
Some kids experimented with shapes to build their name.
One child was reminded of constellations while doing this work and built a big dipper. I loved this! I provided a black piece of paper for a backdrop to his creation.
Literacy skills we focused on this month were invented spelling (putting letters together to build words) and writing to communicate (putting words together to build sentences). Children were invited to build (or spell) favorite words in the sand table using letter molds.
At our birthday party and post office dramatic play, children pretended to write birthday cards and invitations. Here, a postal worker (in the background wearing a blue hat) comes to the house to pick up the mail, while another boy (in the foreground) prepares scoops of ice-cream for the party.
Other students worked at the post office to sort the mail, sell stamps, and deliver birthday invitations. One child suggested we make a pinata for our birthday dramatic play. Maybe we should! Until then, we are learning to sing the Happy Birthday song in Spanish. (My husband is helping us with this; he speaks Spanish.)
As Valentine's day approached, children learned to use invented spelling to write a note to their parents (i.e., a homemade Valentine). I modeled how to do this at circle time. Then it was the children's turn to try.
For many children, it was the first time they had ever used invented spelling to write a note to someone. When they discovered they could do it, it was thrilling!
The Valentines the children made were very lovely. The children made their own textured paper using string, sponges, bubble wrap, a comb, and salt. The textured paper was folded to make a card, and also used for cutting hearts. Below are some photos of the process.
Some of our favorite textured papers we saved to make a wall hanging for our classroom.
As a prelude to our texture art, children were invited to describe various objects as hard, soft, smooth, rough, bumpy, etc. A Montessori-inspired sensory work helped children hone their sense of touch.
The task was to match different textures without using their eyes. They were also invited to think of objects each texture reminded them of. Making connections like this helps children boost their creativity.
Other Valentine-themed Montessori works were added to the shelves as well. Here is a variation of the Montessori spindle box. Our "spindles" were topped with hearts and inserted into cups labeled with numbered cards.
A heart graphing activity was also presented. The task was to find the most and least common color in the candy box.
In the sand and water table were hearts made of frozen vinegar. Children used pipettes to move water and baking soda onto the hearts. This made the hearts fizz, and eventually melted the hearts. We learned about chemical reactions last month. This was a follow-up to that.
Lastly, we wrapped up our money and metal project this month. The children took turns painting at the easel on tin foil.
Below are the results. Tomorrow we get to finish naming our paintings. I'm looking forward to that. One boy, for example, named his painting "Corn Field at Sunset with a Tractor." This painting is bottom row, second from the left.
Our investigation of money and metals led us to a study of rocks, since rocks have the gold and other metals inside of them. We drew pictures of these rocks in our science journals. The rocks contained silver, copper, and pyrite. A parent was kind enough to lend these rocks to us. He is a geotechnical engineer and collects interesting rocks when he does field work and also for a hobby. These rocks were SO cool. The children loved them.
Thanks to all who contributed to our learning community this month! We are looking forward to studying nature's changes come spring, including birds. The children have been very interested lately in the birds coming to our feeder. Below are some of the most common birds we see, including the house finch, scrub jay, and chickadee, respectively. All the children have learned to make the call of the chickadee.
This boy recently used our magnet blocks to create a nest with a family of flying birds. So creative!
And another boy brought an Angry Birds book for science last week (lol). I always tell the kids that science is anything you have a question about. So the boy asked: What do birds like to eat? That was legitimate, so we added it to our question board! We will soon begin our bird investigation. I can't wait! I love birds!
Parents, your kids are great kids. They are all doing very well. I care about each one of them. Please let me know if there is anything more specific I can do to help your child. And thanks, again, for all you do to contribute to our classroom.
Kind regards,
Teacher April
