Even though we had a lot of rain this month the toddlers made the best of it! They enjoyed playing outside in the rain puddles but also appreciated the few sunny days we had. With all of this rain the children have become much more competent in putting their rain pants on independently. We will say see you soon to our friends Judah and Violet. We wish them both the best on their new endeavors!
This past month the work that has been used most often has been the phonetic alphabet! The children have enjoyed singing it individually as well as with friends. During group time the children each have an opportunity to choose an individual letter they want to sing as well. They have become much more tuned into the sounds of the letters and have asked for the sounds of items around the classroom. Other popular works have included musical instrument matching, water transferring, and the sensory bin. The toddlers love to point out the guitar in the musical instruments and how it is similar to Ms. Amy’s guitar at music. Sensory bins can be so much fun and so easy to make! We use easy locking containers for the toddlers to carry and fill it with items such as pebbles, gems, beans, colored pasta or rice, or kinetic sand. We also include a couple scoops, tongs, and small bowls for them to transfer the objects with. Over the next month we will focus on spring time and farm animals. We will include various spring books, animal songs, in addition to animal and egg themed works. Hopefully we will get to enjoy more sunny spring days to come!
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February has flown by! The children have been very busy working and socializing throughout the month. Two of our friends, Erin and Vidur, are moving up to an Early Childhood classroom. We will miss them in our classroom but look forward to their adventures with the big kids! We will also have a child from the infant room, Sylvia, move up into our classroom.
Over the last month we have been discussing different emotions as well as a few of our favorite things. The children have used a work with emotion cards and a mirror to practice making different emotional expressions. This has lead to many discussions about our feelings and what we can do when a friend is sad, such as getting them a tissue. We have also talked about what makes us happy and our mutual love of airplanes, books, and playing outside. For our Valentines celebration we made a friendship fruit salad! The toddlers enjoyed slicing, mixing, and sharing their creation. In March we will focus on more phonetic alphabet work and songs. Learning the phonetics of the alphabet is a great stepping stone for reading and writing. We will also have a few big works in our class including the Brown Stair and Pink tower. The toddlers have done a great job transitioning back into the classroom after winter break. We have had a few new friends join our class; Owen, Baz, Farhan, and Adam. The older children have been very helpful to our new friends.
A few of the popular works in our class this month have been the water table, train set, sit scooter, and magnetic letter writing. There has been a lot of experimentation with transferring the water in the water table in different ways. The children have enjoyed scooping, pouring, and using a baster with the water. The magnetic letter work has allowed the children to develop their hand strength while practicing the movements required to write a letter. We have spent a lot of time this month with our school animals. There were several days that we walked down to say hello to the goats and ducks. We have also greeted the chickens while on the playground and were able to pet a few of the bunnies and chickens outside. It is a great pleasure to have so many fun animals around us! With all of the animal visits lately we have been singing “Old McDonald had a Farm” often! In February we will focus on our friendships! We will read Valentines books and have various Valentine themed works out. We will also discuss what makes us feel happy and a few of our favorite things. This last month has flown by! The toddlers grew as a class in December. We observed a lot more conversations, not only between the children, but from the children to teachers as well. The children have also been helpful to one another and enjoyed working alongside each other. A few of the popular works this month have been the sensory bubble bottles, felt tree decorating, and cutting with scissors. The toddlers have been practicing cutting with child size scissors onto thin strips of colored paper. These strips are created by cutting paint sample swatches. This give the children a sturdy and small area to snip off. For children with more control over the scissors, they were able to practice cutting on the white boarders in-between the paint colors. It was a great work for small motor coordination as well as concentration. Over the month we talked about many holidays including Christmas, Hanukkah, and especially birthdays. We sang a few new songs and read various winter and holiday books. Frosty the Snowman was everyone's favorite book. The children also made and helped wrap presents for their parents. With the cold weather we experienced, the children talked about the weather a lot. They would often inform the teachers what the weather was like when they came inside. We would then discuss if that meant that we needed to wear rain pants and boots or not. We even got to experience a snow day! In January, we will continue with our winter works, songs, and books. We have had so much interest over when everyone's birthday is we decided to display them on “birthday balloons” on the wall for the children and teachers to find in a breeze. We will also welcome a few new students to our class this month! November has been a very active and social month. The toddlers have been very interested in what their friends are doing as well as greeting each other at the door. This month we welcomed two new friends to our class, Avani and Adam. We will also say goodbye to two of our friends, Aiden and Kaley, as they will move up to an Early Childhood classroom. We will miss them in our class but look forward to hearing about their many adventures in the Early Childhood community.
The children have really enjoyed painting the leaves on our fall trees. They used q-tips to dot brown and yellow paint onto their paper. This was a big work that required many steps and a great amount of focus and coordination. It was wonderful to see the variations between the children's pictures and how proud they were of what they made all by themselves. Another work the children have been interested in has been the sand paper letter “P”. On the tray with the sand paper letter there is a small pumpkin for them to hold and practice the P sound. With their pointer finger (or pointer and middle finger) the children will trace the letter and then sing “pumpkin, pumpkin, p, p, p”. In our sensory table and with a few works around the classroom the children experienced many fall smells, such as cinnamon, and use kitchen utensils. On our practical life shelf the children could practice cutting a pretend carrot and cucumber as well as scoop, measure, pour, and sort various items in the sensory table. They have also become really interested in washing their own dishes after snack and lunch. The toddlers clear their plates by putting their excess food in the compost bin, scrubbing their dishes in our dish tub, and then placing their dishes in the dish rack to dry. Lots of independence and helpers around the classroom! In December we will begin to learn about winter and the cooler weather as well as a few of the winter holidays. With the winter topics we will discover new books, sing new songs, and have some more winter art items. We have really enjoyed all the sensory experiences October has brought us. We have had some beautiful sunny days as well as windy and cold days. The toddlers have gained a lot more experience in putting on their rain pants, boots, and coats independently. We have also begun to work on reversing our sleeves or pant legs if they become inside-out. We also welcomed a new addition to our class this month, Alex.
In the classroom we experienced the gooey slime and seeds inside of pumpkins and the vibrant colors of autumn. The children have really enjoyed our art shelf which included coloring with fall-colored crayons, autumn themed sticker art, coloring pictures of pumpkins with markers, and using playdough. They also had the opportunity to decorate their own pumpkins thanks to the donation of small pumpkins by Violet’s family. Our pumpkin washing work was another big hit, as well as the “Five Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate” song during group time. Earlier in the month a few firefighters came to visit us with a firetruck and ambulance. The firefighters showed us their uniforms, hoses, ladders, and the bed inside of the ambulance. They even gave the children firefighting hats to bring home. We have also had a few firetruck works in the classroom such as puzzles. In November we will continue our fall theme and learn about various smells and kitchen items. We will also have a glove work where the children will be able to practice putting gloves on and off independently in preparation for the cooler weather. We are excited to try our new learning tower climber in the classroom thanks to Judah’s family. This beautiful month of September has brought us wonderful weather and many new friends. We have welcomed Aiden, Dylan, Violet, and most recently Judah and Kaley to the Rosa Classroom. The previous students were very helpful to our new children and teachers. The toddlers have been working on developing their independence and self help skills including changing shoes, putting on sweaters, opening their lunchboxes, and changing clothes. Everyone has been learning our classroom routines and procedures and has transitioned nicely into the classroom.
The Practical Life shelf has been one of the most popular areas recently. The children have been interested in the transfer works which includes using tongs, scoops, or their fingers. Every month we like to pick a theme for our works. Being the end of summer and beginning of fall we thought is would be fitting to go with apples for the month of September. Our “Apple Tree” song and “Jump Up and Down” song have been a big hit during circle time. In October we will focus on pumpkins, leaves, and all things fall. With the fall weather coming we will begin to add layers to our outerwear while outside. The children will work on layering their coats, rain pants, and gloves when needed. We will also have a work in the classroom where the children will get to practice inverting their long sleeves to prepare for fixing their own coats and shirts. We look forward to the Harvest Festival at the end of October for the whole school. April came with some really beautiful weather, and our Rosa students thoroughly enjoyed it. We spent lots of time this past month on the nature trail, spotting new plant life, running up and down hills, and feeding the ever popular goats. When we were in the classroom, the children had a lot of fun with a new spring-themed sensory box, a number of jigsaw puzzles, and a few small, medium, and large sorting works. It's such a joy to see the growth in our Rosa students' abilities since the fall; many of them have been able to master difficult cognitive concepts, perform challenging fine motor tasks, and express themselves with complex language.
May will hopefully bring even more gorgeous weather! This class really loves the nature trail, especially exploring the area way in the back, where they can climb old stumps and fallen trees. With so many of our students moving on to EC over the summer and fall, we'll also be increasingly focused on helping the children master all the care of self and care of environment skills they'll need to be successful in EC. March was a lot of fun in Rosa! Our new children settled into the daily routine, and it was a joy to watch new friendships blossom and grow. This time of year we can really see social skills develop, as most of our students move closer to their third birthdays and become more and more interested in forging social connections. Many of our children greet each other by name in the morning, ask "Are you okay?" if they see someone crying, and try to help up a friend who has fallen.
In April, we will continue to focus on how people, animals and plants grow. Some very popular works so far have involved seed matching, baby animals, and sequencing puzzles. We have also added a few books about all the changes we see in spring to the library, which our Rosa students returned from spring break to find on the other side of the classroom. The room underwent a dramatic re-design over spring break, and we are very excited about our new library spot under the window! February brought two more new friends for the students of Rosa, and we now have a full classroom again! One of the highlights of our month was making a "Friendship Salad" on Valentine's Day. The children absolutely loved getting to use the wavy chopper to cut up fruits, almost as much as they loved eating the results. We have also thoroughly enjoyed this rainy month; our students happily don their rain gear to go outside, and digging in the wet sandbox has been very popular. We introduced a number of new art and practical life works in February as well, from Q-tip painting to ladling water.
In March, our focus will turn to growing and gardening. We'll look for signs of new plant life whenever we're outside, and we'll bring in a number of works related to how plants, animals, and even people grow. We'll also be reading books, telling stories, and singing songs about planting and gardening! |
Ms. Tara
Lead Teacher Archives
June 2018
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Montessori Children's House
5003 218th Ave. NE Redmond, WA 98053 Phone: 425-868-7805 [email protected] For Records Requests, please reach out to [email protected]. |
Founded in 1987
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