First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect—Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori believed there is a sensitive period for a child’s development of their senses. Although the senses are an integral part of our lives, children during the early years have the greatest potential to develop and retrieve them. It is precisely this idea that demonstrates the purpose of Sensorial materials in the Montessori classroom. The Sensorial materials are powerful tools, which allow children to become aware of their unconscious impressions and bring these impressions into conscious awareness. Additionally, they enable your children to create a basis of order in their mind, allowing for intelligent exploration of their environment.

This week we are beginning our study on the five senses.  What better way to teach this than to use popcorn? Popcorn is a multi-sensory snack as it incorporates all five of our senses. It might just be our most appetizing science unit yet! Did you ever notice that when you make popcorn, somehow the entire family knows about it and shows up to have some of this favorite treat?

We begin by discussing what our five senses are and how we use different body parts to learn about things in our environment. For example, our noses are for smelling, ears are for listening, eyes are for seeing, hands are for touching, and our tongue is for tasting.  We learned that sometimes we use more than one sense at a time.

Next, each child had the opportunity to handle popcorn kernels to make observations of what they see, smell, and feel.  We record all of our observations as we are going along. Finally, we use an air popper to pop some popcorn.  Now we can include our observations about hearing and tasting as well.

Our Kindergarten children had a great opportunity to use their senses when they visited Warrup’s Farm this week.  We learned about the process of collecting sap from Maple trees and and how maple syrup is made.   It was our first field trip in quite a while and it felt great to be able to do so!

Wishing you all a wonderful break with lots of love and laughter.

Michelle & Liset

You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.  

                                                                                                                                                                    —–Dr. Seuss

Read across America is a national event that is celebrated on March 2nd, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  This initiative was created by the National Education Association and was created and implemented to encourage a love of reading in children.  Here at FWM, we also turn that day into Pajama Day and the children bring in their favorite book and stuffed animal.  Thank you Meg Zeruk for the fun and tasty snacks!!!!    We hope you enjoy the pictures.

An online article from nationaldaycalendar.com has some wonderful ideas on how to motivate children to read wherever they are.

• Keep books everywhere you spend time. Put them in the car, in every room of the house, and tuck them in backpacks and purses. Make them easily accessible.
• Visit the library often. Knowing how to use the library and learning the benefits of a library fosters a love of reading as well as genuine respect for the services libraries provide.
• Get caught reading. Children imitate what they see the adults around them do. Whether they see you read a magazine, newspaper, or novel, let them know reading is the cool thing to do.
• Read to your children. No matter their age, reading aloud strengthens their vocabulary and language skills. It also opens up opportunities for discussion.
• Have your children read to you, too. You never know what you might learn!

In our classroom, we call books treasures. Reading is an integral part of each school day. I hope that Miss Liset and I are able to pass on our passion for literature to your children.

Happy Reading!

Michelle & Liset

Each time we study a new continent, we first find it on the globe of the world, then we locate the continent on the world map, and lastly, we study the individual continent, using the specific continent maps. Currently, the children are learning about the continent of Africa. We learn about the geography, culture, weather, animals, and people of Africa.

We are learning lots of fun and fascinating facts about the continent of Africa.

• Africa is the second largest continent, with 54 countries.
• The longest river in the world, the Nile, is located in Africa.
• Over one thousand languages are spoken by the people in Africa.
• The Sahara, the world’s largest desert is located here.
• The highest mountain in Africa is Mount Kilimanjaro. It is so tall that glaciers can be found at its summit even though the mountain is near the equator.
• Africa is the most centrally located continent in the world. Both the prime meridian and the equator cut across it.
• The world’s tallest animal, the giraffe, and the largest land animal, the African elephant are found in Africa.

This past Wednesday,  we celebrated the 100th day of school. From the very first day of school, the kindergarten children have been learning to count by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100. They spent the afternoon going to different stations that all revolved around the number 100. They drew pictures of what they would like when they were 100, what they would buy with $100, what they wished they had a hundred of, made a 100 headband and then played a game called Race to 100.  They even did 100 exercises and learned how hard it was to sit quietly for 100 seconds. The highlight was bringing home a delicious 100th day of school snack provided by Meg Zeruk.

Wishing you a week filled with peace and love.

Michelle & Liset