This Week in the Oak Room

The Oak room was a busy place this week.  Our students continue to amaze us with their passion for learning!

Air, air, it’s everywhere.  This week we talked all about air and how it takes up space and does work.  We tried a few experiments and were surprised by the results!  A particular favorite you may want to try at home.

Materials:  small glass, tissue or paper towel, medium bowl filled by half with water

Prepare:  Stuff tissue or paper towel into glass cup.

Question: If I turn the glass upside down and place it in the water, will the tissue get wet?

Experiment:  Turn glass upside down and place in water.

What happens? Why?

Our peace education has been focusing on being kind and having good manners.  These are concepts that children need to practice continuously, so these topics make for excellent family discussions concerning respect for those around us.

Thank you to our families that have donated items for our food drive!  We have until Thursday before we make our delivery, so there is still time to make a contribution.

A Note:  A reminder about dressing for cold weather.  Our children need fresh air every day, so if the temperature is above freezing, we try to go out, even for just a little while.

Child quote of the week:

“I couldn’t watch the election, Beyblade was on.”

“These words reveal the child’s inner needs: ‘Help me to do it alone.’“- Maria Montessori

This Week in the Oak Room

Halloween was spook-tacular in our classroom this week!  Hopefully all of our families enjoyed the decorations, pumpkins and crafts that the children made. They were so creative!  We had a great time during our Halloween parade, playing games and decorating cookies! A special thanks to Arhan’s mom,Pavitra, for helping with the costume changing and parade.

We have begun our study of “stories” in the Oak room and have even begun to compose some of our own “books” at the new writing center.  Every story has a beginning, middle and end.  Parents, please consider this as a topic for a discussion you can have with your children when you are reading together.

As always as CGM, we are teaching our students the value of giving to those in need.  We will be accepting nonperishable food items to be donated to a local food pantry beginning next week.  The older children will have a goal for us to strive for, so look for more information at Miss Brenda’s desk!

A Note:  The Oak room open house time has been moved to 2 pm on Saturday, Nov. 10.

From the front desk:

Thank you so much to all the parents!  We placed a Small Hands Order of $1200!!  There were lots of donations from that order to our classrooms as well, thank you!  Keep those box tops coming!  We got almost $100 in box tops! Scholastic is a hit, with a number of new books going into our classrooms. Look for T-shirt orders to arrive and Pizza Fridays to start next month. Thank you!! Miss Brenda.

Child quote of the week:

“Miss Holly, a five-year-old just does what a five-year-old does.”

“There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of differing ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community.” – Maria Montessori

This Week in the Oak Room

Happy Birthday!  We had lots of treats this week with 4 birthdays.  What a great time! Our birthday binder is getting full.  Thanks to our parents for putting together those great photo pages, the children look at them daily.

The pumpkins are coming! The pumpkins are coming!  We have received our first family project pumpkins and they look great!  We are so excited to see more!

The cold and flu season is officially upon us.  We are noticing a lot of runny noses in the classroom.  This is an excellent time to reinforce good hand washing skills at home and in public places.  We actually have a “hand washing” song we will be practicing.  Ask your child and you can sing it together!

Halloween will be here before we know it, so be thinking about those costumes.  We will be having a “Halloween Parade” on the 31^st visiting the area “approved” businesses.  We request that all pretend weapons and scary masks be left at home as they are inappropriate (and sometimes too scary) for our environment.

The children have been working on some Halloween decorations, so be sure to take a quick peek into the classroom at pickup time!

Child quote of the week:

Miss Darci (during circle):  “Yoga is something that the more you do it, the more you enjoy it.”

Luke: “I’ve been doing it for years and I still don’t like it.”

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.” – Maria Montessori

This Week in the Oak Room

This week we continued our study of leaves and how they are changing with the season.  We have been enjoying talking and singing about fall.  Some of us even made neat “leaf” pictures with leaves we collected right outside our school!

Next week we will begin our North America studies. We will learn about animals, customs, food and climates of our continent.  If anyone has any interesting cultural items from travels through North America, please share!

Thanks to those parents that have signed up for fall conferences.  We hope to have an opportunity to meet with all of our parents!

Please remember to check your child’s Friday folder for the information on our pumpkin decorating family projects.  We can’t wait to see what everyone makes!

A Note: Cool weather is upon us.  Please be sure that your child is dressed appropriately for outside play as we try to go outside each day unless the temperature is below freezing.  You may also want to check your child’s change of clothes in their cubby to make sure it is seasonally accurate.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

“It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give a child the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.”

– Maria Montessori

This week in the Oak Room

The trees are already changing.  We have been noticing that some of our trees have different colored leaves now!  We will officially be starting our study of leaves and the changes they undergo this time of year.

We are still continuing with our study of the world and its continents. We look forward to introducing North America as our first continent study.

Yoga was a big hit this week.  The children really respond to this form of exercise and took advantage of the peaceful relaxation and reflection time.  Not only is yoga good for our bodies, but our mind and spirit as well!

We have completed our science unit on magnets.  We had a great time with our magnet “experiment” and were surprised by their “power.”  They work through glass, plastic, cardboard and even wood!

A Note:  Please remember that our days are starting to cool down. Jackets are becoming a necessity.  We have the children put on whatever outer wear you have sent them in for our morning outside time and sometimes the afternoon if the temperature is below 70 degrees.

Our student quote of the week:

Shriya: “What is that?”

Miss Holly: “That is a water spout.”

Shriya: “Oh! Is there a spider in it?”

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

This Week in the Oak Room

We really love apples!  This week we completed more apple crafts and had an apple slicing job out to practice our cutting skills.  The children really enjoyed this activity.  Maybe cutting some apple slices or making homemade applesauce would be an activity your child would enjoy doing with you at home!

Some of our students have already completed their continent poking projects!  This is a big job and we are looking forward to seeing more finished in the coming weeks.

School pictures went really well.  We look forward to seeing those smiling faces in prints!

We had a special visit from Miss Haansa, our yoga instructor, this week.  We tried some yoga poses and motions and look forward to our full session this coming Wednesday.

A Note:  We are making another request to have your child bring in a water bottle to keep at school for when we are playing outside.  This is a much more cost efficient and environmentally friendly option to using all of those paper cups.

Our student quote of the week:

“Do you know how to speak Indiana?”  – Arhan

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

This Week in the Oak Room

We love apples!  This week we learned all about apples; their life cycle, the different varieties and even how to use them with paint.  We also had an “apple tasting,” where we tasted three different kinds of apples and recorded our favorites.  The Red Delicious was the winner for this group!

We are continuing our continents study and have several jobs on the shelves to help us learn them.  You may see a lot of world and continent stamping pages make it home as this was a big hit in the classroom.  We will soon be starting our continent “poking” projects.

Our science studies introduced us to the concepts of “magnetic” and “nonmagnetic.”  We will be learning all about “magnetism” and how it can be found all around us.  If you have a spare magnet available, maybe you and your child could find magnetic items at home.  Like a treasure hunt!

Miss Darci and I are so proud of our hard workers.  It’s a true joy to watch them experience and learn from what we have prepared for their classroom!

Our student quote of the week:

“I wish I had a robot sister…mine’s just plain.”  – Lincoln

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

This Week in the Oak Room

We continue to be amazed at the amount of work our classroom is accomplishing!  Our students have been industriously moving from job to job and collaborating with their new friends.  Some of you have mentioned that your child is tired at home and sleeping well after such busy days!

We are continuing our study of the planets and have introduced a focus on the earth and the continents that make up the “land.”  You may hear our continents song often in the coming weeks.

We wrapped up our study of shadows this week with a special presentation from Miss Darci.  She shined a light on a classroom wall and we had to guess the shadow. So fun and something you may want to try at home!

Our student quote of the week:

“I need another cloth Miss Darci, mine is out of wet.”  – Luke

Have a great weekend!

Miss Holly.

This Week in the Oak Room

Wow! Our first week of full day classes went beautifully. All of our students adjusted so well to the new schedule and transitions. This is such a big change at their age, I am so proud at how well they have all embraced their Montessori environment.

It was all about planets this week in the Oak room. We learned a new solar system song and discovered where our planet lives among its “neighbors.” What a great geography lesson!

Shadows are everywhere! Our science area is featuring study of shadows and what needs to happen for them to appear, change shape and size. Last week we traced our shadows in the parking lot. Some students had some very interesting poses.

Thanks to all for making the drop off and pick up so efficient. It helps so much with the parking as well as with the child’s transition from your arms to their classroom.

A note: We would like all of our students to have a water bottle available to store outside for these hot days. If you have an extra that can stay at school, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Our student quote of the week:

“You do the Humpty Dumpty and you turn yourself around…that’s what it’s all about.”- Shriya’s lyrics for the song “Hokey Pokey.”

Have an enjoyable holiday weekend!

Miss Holly.

“It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was.” Maria Montessori