Mrs. Hood’s Class: A Mushy Experience!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Maria Montessori believed that nothing comes into the mind except through the senses. During the early years, as children develop their senses, their attention is directed toward the environment. The purpose of the Sensorial activities is to help the child in their efforts to sort out the many varied impressions given by the senses. These activities are specifically planned to help the child develop discrimination, order, and to broaden and refine the senses. These experiences also help prepare them to be a logical, aware, and perceptive person.

As we started our pumpkin unit this week, children had the opportunity to explore the outside and inside of a pumpkin! Skin, pulp, strands, and seeds were new vocabulary words used to describe the parts of a pumpkin. They were so curious and amazed to find out what it was inside! Some of them expressed wonder and some of them didn’t know how to react. Some were so excited to explore by placing their hand all the way inside. Others touched the skin and seeds carefully and were quite skeptical. It was a mushy experience!

Another highlight of this short week was our new pumpkin art work. Children love to draw designs on a pumpkin but the most fun part of it all was using the wet microfiber towel to erase and clean the pumpkin. It seemed that children really enjoyed seeing the pumpkin shining at the end of their work!

The favorite book this week was Itsy Bitsy Pumpkin by Sonali Fry and the favorite song was Waiting For the Elevator by Laurie Berkner.

Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us during our Parent- Teacher Conferences! It was a great experience to share the notes of progress, areas of growth, and the fun stories that make us love our job even more! Your children are precious to us!

We are excited to welcome a new student and family to our class. We hope you have the opportunity to meet them and welcome them to our FWM family very soon.

See you next week!

Mrs. Hood’s Class: At the Fraser Farm!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

One of our goals at FWM is to create caring, empathetic students who are capable of thinking beyond themselves. It was Dr. Montessori’s vision that a peaceful world, starting with children, would make the world a better place. Community service is one of our Montessori strategies to help develop and educate the whole child. Students learn the joy of giving of themselves and develop compassion because of these real, practical life, volunteer experiences.

A couple of times a month our Middle School students visit our environments and work with our toddlers. They do so by reading and working together with the different materials displayed on our shelves. They assist your children in how to put on their shoes and jackets, how to clean their face and hands, they look for ways of comforting their younger peers when they are having a hard time, and they love to join in the fun when we sing, dance and play games together. They are great role models and your children love when they enter our environments and get to spend time with them. This week our Middle Schoolers were also of great help during our very special wagon ride and pumpkin picking at our Fraser Farm. It was precious!

Thanks to your help as well, we gathered wagons to carry all our toddlers at once in a beautiful parade around the school. Children were so happy and excited they were going to pick their own pumpkin! A couple of them decided to not ride the wagons but had the opportunity to push the wheelbarrow or help by pulling their friends’ wagons. Once we arrived at our Fraser Farm located in our zen garden, children were ecstatic to run around and pick their own pumpkin. There were giggles and so much excitement! They also got a treat by checking out Oreo, our school bunny! Children explored different sizes of pumpkins and worked hard to carry them around. We all had a great time! When the time came, every toddler got into their wagon, carrying their pumpkin and we went for another ride around the school arriving happily at each of our classrooms, satisfied with the experience and ready to continue to explore some more in the environment. We can’t thank you enough for your pumpkin donations and supporting our fabulous class parents, who worked hard to help us make this event a success! We are thankful to be part of a community that cares!

On another note, we explored yellow peppers as food tasting this week and got to explore new works on our shelves! We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Lastly, we are looking forward to meeting with you at our Parent-Teacher conference next week, on Thursday, October 24th to discuss your child’s progress and goals for the school year.

We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Sincerely,
The Toddler Team

Mrs. Hood’s Class: Beauty, Roll and a Winner!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

 

Dr. Maria Montessori introduced Practical Life exercises to provide the children with opportunities to perform simple tasks that they have already observed at home. Practical Life exercises enable the children to care for themselves, take care of the environment and develop respect for others.
Care of environment activities encourage the child to interact with the environment, exhibiting respect and love. These activities help the child form a connection with their environment and find a personal responsibility towards it.
This week we introduced one of the most beloved activities in our Montessori environments: flower arrangement. This is a beautiful activity that offers so much to your child’s development. Through this exercise, children develop a sense of beauty, the mental task of sequencing, they learn to exercise the judgment of size and capacity in matching flowers to vases and in pouring water, also, manual dexterity in using scissors. This activity also indirectly prepares your child for botany studies in our Primary program and offers a great opportunity to work on independence and concentration. Your children love it! We can’t thank you enough for your weekly flower donations!

On another note, children had a great time learning how to play “Roll and Play” in a group setting, using a cube of different colors and following the directions commanded on each play card. Through this game children review colors, numbers, feelings, animals, and develop critical skills. It’s one of their favorite activities!

For food tasting we explored a green apple. Some of the children’s facial expressions when they saw a green apple were priceless! They couldn’t believe there were green apples! It was so funny to them! Needless to say, they enjoyed every bit of it!

To close our apple unit studies we presented a basic graphing exercise, where children had the opportunity to taste the three types of apples we explored during the last weeks: red, yellow, and green apples. Each toddler chose their most favorite and at the end we all counted the results.

Do you want to know which one was the winner? (Drum roll please!) To our surprise, every apple had 5 different votes! All of them were the winner! Hooray for apples!

Lastly, Shake Your Sillies Out by Andy Mason was one of the new favorite songs and Arriba (up) and Abajo (down) were the 2 new commands in Spanish learned this week.

Mrs Hood’s Class: Apples to Apples!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Skin, flesh, seeds, and stem are words that we can hear often in our environment. Every morning children arrived to the classroom with one mission: Check the apple on the observation tray! Our little friends have been so amazed at the changes. At the beginning of the week, they felt tempted to bite some of that apple, in fact, one of the corners was gone. But by the end of the week those cravings were gone! 😉 Conversations about decomposition have also been an engaging tool to develop language. In contrast, this week children explored a fresh yellow apple and enjoyed the taste of it.

One of the main highlights this week was working together in making a delicious apple sauce! Using an apple peeler, each student peeled, sliced, and cored a fresh apple. Then they helped by opening the slices, arranging it in the crock pot, adding some fresh lemon juice and water. There was no need for sugar or other ingredients! Our environment smelled so delicious and children were eager in tasting the results. 100% of our class ate every little bit of it!

Food preparation is one of the main areas in our Practical Life area of the curriculum! There are many benefits to involving children in food prep. Even the pickiest of eaters has been known to be more willing to try things when they have had a hand in preparing it. These works also help develop fine motor skills, build coordination, and create a sense of community, as well as increase knowledge of nutrition, science, and math.

In addition to this fun project, we used this opportunity to present a lesson on Grace and Courtesy. Two of our oldest toddlers worked into spooning some apple sauce into small bowls and serving the younger toddlers in Mrs. Wilson’s class. They felt so proud of their work. It was precious!

On another note, children worked this week in a special art project that will be exhibited in Oktoberfest this coming Saturday, October 5th, from 4-8pm at FWM! We really hope you and your family can join us! It’s going to be great fun!

Mrs. Hood’s Class: Apples, Apples, Apples!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Fall is here everybody! As the season changes and temperatures start to drop slowly, we entered our unit on the exploration of one of the most delicious seasonal fruits: the apple! With great expectation, your children enjoyed the fun sensorial activity of dissecting an apple! With senses full of curiosity, children touched, observed, smelled, and tasted a delicious apple. While children observed its parts, they were exposed to new vocabulary, such as: skin, flesh, seeds, and stem. A remaining part of the dissected apple is now part of our observation tray where children can observe the different stages of decomposition.

In the language area students that showed readiness were also introduced to three period lessons using different materials. Three period lessons are a fundamental approach in our Montessori environment to introducing a new concept (not just vocabulary) to children. They are used to move the child from basic understanding to mastery. The three period lesson was developed by Edouard Seguin, a French physician who worked with special needs children in France and the United States during the late 19th century. He discovered ways to increase children’s cognitive abilities and believed in the importance of developing their self-reliance and independence. Seguin’s writings were a major inspiration to Maria Montessori and the source of many of her practical ideas. In simple terms, the three steps, or periods, are:

1. Naming (Introduction) “This is a dog.”
2. Recognizing (Identification) “Show me the dog.”
3. Remembering (Cognition) “What is this?”

In the practical life area we focused this week on a fundamental lesson: how to clean a dry spill! As basic as it sounds, this was one of the most popular activities of the week. Practical life activities are the most important activities for toddlers! Activities for care of the environment are both fun and great for developing order, concentration, coordination, and independence.

Other highlights of the week were the introduction to our new song: “Way up High in the Apple Tree,” where children practiced the numbers one through five, and their favorite books: Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss, Apple Countdown by Joan Hulub, and Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.

As the weekend approaches, we encourage you to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful weather and visit an apple farm with your little one. It will be a great experience for them during the continuation of our apple studies.

Reminder:
Oktoberfest is just around the corner! (October 5th) Come and join us for an afternoon of fun activities for the whole family! We really hope to see you there and have a great time together!

Mrs. Hood’s Class: La Vaca Lola

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Have you heard of La Vaca Lola?
Maria Montessori believed that the initial six years of a child’s life are crucial for a child’s language development. That from birth a child must receive appropriate stimulation. This is also widely recognized by many specialists in language, also when referring to learning foreign languages.
Research shows that learning a second language boosts problem-solving, critical-thinking, and listening skills, in addition to improving memory, concentration, and the ability to multitask. Children proficient in other languages also show signs of enhanced creativity and mental flexibility. This is why one of our goals this year is to offer a Toddler Spanish immersion experience.

La Vaca Lola (The Cow Named Lola) was a song introduced this week to our students! And, oh boy! They loved it! Some of the students even showed pretty good moves when dancing to it. Based on our farm theme, this week we focused on one of the most beloved farm animals: the cow. Children carefully observed a cow model and engage in conversation about the characteristics of it. One of those is that cows give us milk. Children enjoyed having a taste of milk and while some absolutely refused to taste it, others wouldn’t stop asking for more.

At the end of the week we also had a great Sensorial experience that finished as a magical art project. For this we used food coloring, cotton swabs, dish soap, and of course, milk. As milk has fat in it, the food coloring can float on top of the fat. When you add the dish soap to the milk, the fat separates and moves making magical milk art! The smile in the faces of the children were priceless! At the end of the experience we placed cardstock in the milk and captured a print of the art they made.

Other highlights of the week were the introduction to the routine of changing into indoor shoes when entering the environment and self-serving snack. These two are huge components of our Montessori Toddler curriculum. Independence, hand- eye coordination, and self-regulation is encouraged during these exercises. As children continue to exercise these skills at school, we strongly encourage you to offer the opportunity for the exercise at home.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Mary Had a Little Lamb as told and illustrated by Iza Trapani were the children’s favorite books this week. Walking in the Jungle, Listen and Move, and of course, La Vaca Lola were the children’s favorite songs to dance to.

In case you also want to join us in the fun, I will leave you the musical video of La Vaca Lola. Go ahead and turn up the volume and enjoy with your little ones.

La vaca lola ( The cow named Lola)
La vaca lola (The cow named Lola)
Tiene cabeza y tiene cola (It has a head and it has a tail)
Y hace: MUUU (and she goes Mooh)

Mrs. Hood’s Class: Building Trust

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Dear families,

Welcome to FWM 2019-2020 school year!

As we end our second week of the phase-in period, I couldn’t be happier with the progress observed in each of our students! This has been a special time of striving to create a peaceful and welcoming environment for your child as this is an important stabilizing period where the children and guides get to know one another. Children have been exploring the learning environment and getting familiar with the physical space. Our environment is a place where independence, freedom, and choice of materials are the rule. The children will gradually learn how to handle this choice and freedom while respecting and caring for each other, the materials, and the classroom!

During this time, we have also had a great opportunity to join in community gathering together, present and practice some children’s names, learn new fingerplays, model some lessons, enjoy story time and dance to music to the beat of “Drive My Car” (which is the new favorite) and “My Energy” by Laurie Berkner, as well as other songs.

Phase-in sets the stage for a successful year of learning, and so we want to thank you all for your support and for helping us create an atmosphere of security and emotional comfort for each child.

Enjoy some of the moments we were able to capture this week!

Mrs. Hood’s class: See you Later, Alligator!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Looking through this school year’s pictures I cannot stop the overwhelming feeling of thankfulness!  I know I have said it before, but I need to say it one more time: Thank you for entrusting us with your little ones and walking next to us to give them the best experience each day!
We give them back to you pounds heavier, inches taller, months wiser, more independent, confident and mature than they were back in September. They did themselves a great job unfolding and growing each day and we feel honored to have witnessed it. They, for sure, will continue to be part of our lives. Even though some of them will be moving up a level, remember that we will always be interested in your children and their destiny-wherever they go, whatever they do and whoever they become.

They are truly precious to us!

We hope you all have a wonderful summer! See you in the Fall!

Enjoy the contrast pictures of the first weeks and the last weeks of school!