April 26 - 30

We ended our Earth Week celebration with a litter walk around our community.

😍Ms. Webb!!! We know her!!!!!😍

We learned about the Ocean and the animals that live there.

We searched our water bead tub for animals that we might find under the sea!

Amelia found a fish.

Derek found a penguin.

Otis found a dolphin.

Teigen found a shark.

Max found an octopus.

Hali found a seal.

Dmitri found a hammerhead shark.

Johnny found a star fish.

Did you know that there are five layers of the ocean?

They are the trenches, the abyss,the midnight zone, the twilight zone and the sunlight zone.

We made our own layers of the ocean in a jar. 

Trenches - corn syrup

Abyss - dish soap

Midnight - water dyed green

Twilight - vegetable oil dyed blue

Sunlight - rubbing alcohol dyed light blue

We also learned about what animals you may find in these ocean zones.

Trenches - tube worms or sea cucumbers

Abyss - black swallower fish or angler fish

Midnight - viper fish, sea star or an octopus

Twilight - crab, squid or a cat shark

Sunlight - dolphin, whale, jelly fish or a turtle

✐Montessori Work Period✐

Max is working on matching the letter sounds SMAT.

Gavin is working with the INSTA-learn board.

Teigen is sorting by color.

Dmitri is sorting by color.

AJ is matching numbers 0-10.

Derek is sorting by coloring using tweezers to strengthen his pincer grasp.

Otis and Amelia are finding middle vowel sounds.

Connor is using the circle metal inset.

📖 A great big THANK YOU to our mystery readers this week: Mrs. Andrews (Johnny) and Mrs. Frank (Derek)!!!!!!!!📖

Mrs. Andrews and Mama

Mrs. Frank reading to the class.

-Please pack two napkins and a utensil (if needed) in your child's lunch

-If you would like to be a Mystery Reader please let me know ASAP

April 19- 23

 Metal Insets

How it works:

•  Select a metal inset shape, a paper square and two different colored pencils
• Remove the blue inset and put it to the side
• Steady the frame with one hand and trace the inside inset with the dominant hand with one pencil crayon
• Remove the frame and select the other colored pencil
• Fill in the shape by drawing horizontal lines from left to right. 

The Metal Insets help to prepare a child's hand for writing.  This type of work helps a child to:

• Grip and hold the pencil correctly and upright.
• Refine hand control to steady the pencil
• Develop movements in curved and straight lines, in preparation for correct letter formation or a continued line which can assist in learning cursive,
• Develop hand-eye coordination, to make small coordinated movements
• Experience the result of pressure on the pencil (light and dark)
• Develop fine motor muscles in the hand but also the larger muscles that are needed for sitting and maintaining posture for writing.
• Strengthen a child's concentration
• Make movements up and down and left to right (significant in reading)
• Develop a geometric sense as well as naming them

Learning how to use the metal insets.

 Practicing what we learned.

We had some wonderful weather this week and got some extra outside time!

EC learned a new game to play in the yard, It was so much fun!

We began our Earth Day celebration creating our own Earth with milk and food coloring.  We talked about how to keep our Earth clean and healthy! We learned that the Earth is made up of more water than land.

Today we wore blue for Autism Awareness.  Thank you to everyone who participated; all monies raised will be donated to the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support. 

• Don’t forget to sign up for our Mystery Reader program! We would love it if every child could have a parent participate. Remember it’s a surprise! Please let me know if you would like to sign up to read to the class.

April 12-16

☆Sensory Play☆ 

Sensory activities stimulate a child's senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight and hearing.  These types of activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourage scientific processes while they play, create, investigate and explore. 

This week we grew water beads for our sensory table.

We place very small beads into our bins.  As a group we talked about how small the beads were, what the felt like and what colors we saw.

We then added water.  We checked on the beads throughout the day to observe the change in size.

Look how much the beads grew!

I added some bugs, fireflies and butterflies so that the children could search for them.  They used tweezers, tongs, small cups, and their fingers to sift through the beads and pull out the items. 

Ms. Kerno let us explore he water bead calm down jars too!

• Please pack at least two napkins (three if your child attends Plus) and utensils in your child’s lunch box everyday.

• We are excited to begin our Mystery Reader program! Please refer to the email from Mrs. Barrera for more details and let me know if you would like to sign up to read to the class.

• We will be having a school-wide waste free lunch day on Thursday, April 22nd, to celebrate Earth Day. More information can be found here.

• KINDERGARTEN ONLY - Since we will be engaging in Earth Day activities on Thursday, April 22, students may wear their gym uniforms. 

• There will be a tag day on Friday, April 23, for Autism Awareness and Acceptance. Please bring in $1.00 and wear blue. All money raised will be donated to the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support.