Mrs. Hood’s Class: Chirp, Chirp!!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

Life cycles are all around us. They are part of us and part of every living thing. Explaining and illustrating life cycles can be an important milestone for children, helping them to learn how better to respect and care for those around them. 

Spring is definitely the perfect season to introduce these concepts as the children not only receive information about it but learn to observe and appreciate so many of these wonders happening  just in front of their eyes. 

Based on cultural traditions surrounding last weekend’s holiday, this week we introduced eggs and chickens as a unit of study in our toddler environment. We focused on two concepts so far: chickens come from eggs, and a baby chicken is called a chick.

To bring a real life experience to this topic, we explored an egg as part of our food tasting lesson for the week. We introduced vocabulary words like shell, egg white, and yolk. Children seemed to be surprised to find “a yellow ball” -as one of the children called it-  inside their egg. Some of the children didn’t find the sliminess of the boiled egg very attractive and didn’t want to taste the egg, however when given the opportunity to use an egg slicer, they got excited and ended up tasting it. It’s always so fun to observe how the children react to these sensorial experiences and how their brain seems to work hard on classifying the textures and flavors of the food items we introduce. 

As an extension, the children had the opportunity to practice their fine motor skills by learning how to peel their own egg. They seemed to enjoy cracking the egg and carefully peeling the shell. I encourage you to give your toddler the opportunity to practice this skill at home as well. The children really seemed to feel proud of themselves. 

To reinforce the Spanish language, the children were also introduced to a fun Spanish song called: Los Pollitos. By the way,  in Spanish, the chicks say, “Pio, pio,” instead of “Chirp, chirp.” Just an interesting cultural bonus sent your way :). I hope you enjoy the song at the bottom of this note and practice with your children at home, if you would like.

Lastly, two announcements:

  1. We are happy to welcome the Osorio family to complete our FWM toddler community for this school year! So happy to have you with us!
  2. We wish a very happy 2nd birthday to our beloved Ella! She is an incredible gift to all of us! 

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and if you are planning to visit a farm as a fun Spring activity, please take the time to observe the chickens and talk with your toddler about what you see. 

Best, 

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

Mrs. Wilson: Little Meteorologist

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

Welcome Back! What a wonderful and busy week we had. The children are learning about weather and I couldn’t ask for a better week with mixed weather conditions for them to experience. The children will all have a turn for the rest of the school year to become our very own Meteorologists.

Did you know that you can predict the weather using pinecones? We didn’t either until we experimented to test this out. We found a few pinecones and sprayed them with water. After a short time, the pinecone closed its scales. Once the pinecone dried it opened back up again.

Thank you to our special guests for reading I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and What Makes a Rainbow by Betty Ann Schartz and singing Down By The Bay. Remington’s sisters did a fantastic job by engaging with the children and having them participate in the song.

Throughout April, we will be exploring The weather, The season of Spring including eggs and seeds, birds, and insects.

 

Happy Birthday!

Have a great long weekend and for those that celebrate Easter, have a wonderful Easter!

Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Sara

Mrs. Hood’s Class: As Fresh As Spring!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

I remember a couple of years ago sitting by a small window and observing the gigantic icicles that covered my view. Suddenly I noticed how, so slowly, water started to drip from the icicles on a sunny morning! I remember so clearly how this sense of joy filled my life! This was the end of my first winter in America and since then, I love the hope that spring brings when Earth seems to wake up and become alive again! Longer, warmer, and sunnier days, windows opened, greener views, flowers growing, trees budding, birds singing, and that crisp in the air are just some of the things that spring offers us and that we all appreciate! 

To celebrate the return to school and the  beginning of spring, the children worked on an art project creating a spring crown. They worked hard and attentively by painting and then gluing flowers on it. Together we got to say good-bye to winter and welcome spring, and naturally, dancing with the crowns on our heads was part of the welcoming.  

As we continue to practice recognizing colors, the children discovered this week what happens when you mix the color red with yellow, creating the color of the week: orange! 

And talking about orange, children absolutely loved not just exploring and tasting a yummy orange during our food tasting lesson but also the children were introduced to the process of making orange juice all by themselves! 

Children worked their muscles and their maximum effort by making sure they squeezed and twisted their orange into the handheld juicer. After this, children practiced their fine motor skills by transferring the juice into a small pitcher and then serving themselves their orange juice into an open cup. To say that they seem to enjoy the process and the result of this activity is an understatement. They kept asking to make it all over again and again. I highly encourage you to provide the opportunity for your child to practice this lesson at home many times! We thank you again for your support in providing the requested food items to make this type of lesson a reality during COVID times, still following the safety guidelines. 

We can’t wait to dive more deeply into our Spring studies! It’s going to be fun! 

We hope you enjoy this beautiful weekend and we wish all of you that celebrate a very Happy Easter! 

Much love, 

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

Mrs. Wilson: The Magic of Mouse Paint

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

What happens when three white mice discover three jars of red, yellow, and blue paint? You get children witnessing the magic of color mixing.

It is one thing to read a story so they can hear the idea of color mixing, but it is another to actually see the book come to life. Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh is about three white mice that find three jars of paint in primary colors. As the mice experiment with the paint on their bodies and the puddles of paint dripped on the floor they learn that by mixing two primary colors they get a secondary color.
The first few days the children watched while listening to the story. They then had the opportunity to mix the two colors of their choice and create their own little mouse paint. As they mixed, they chanted, “Mix and stir, stir and mix, and do a little dance.”

So if you see colored cotton balls come home, ask your child about it. See if they can tell you what colors they used to make the mouse/mice.

We also did a traveling water science experiment using paper towels and 6 cups of water. We added food coloring to the 1st, 3rd, and 5th cup, then placed one end of a paper towel into one cup and the other end to the next cup, repeating with the rest of the cups. While we waited, we started to see the red-colored water crawl up the paper towel and mix with the next. As the colored-water was being absorbed, they mixed together and our final result was a rainbow-colored paper towel.

Maybe over break, you can do some of these fun experiments together, but whatever you do have lots of fun and we will see you in two weeks.

Happy Birthday!

Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Sara

Mrs. Hood’s Class: Rainbows and Tangy Kumquats!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

 

Color recognition can provide children with essential learning tools in life. For example, in mathematics, color recognition is used to categorize, sort, compare, and organize. Additionally, as children learn to identify colors and use color as a language tool to describe things, it develops and strengthens their ability to communicate effectively. Recognizing and identifying the color names is an important part of a child’s development. It is considered a marker and milestone in a child’s cognitive process.

Colors are part of our daily lessons throughout the school year using the different materials, games, books, songs, and activities in our environment. However, this week we focused on studying the colors of the rainbow and children just seemed to love it!

As introductory activities this week, we used a lot of verbal communication, sorting and classifying games and activities. Verbal communication is a great way to teach the children about colors as we give them some vocabulary for starting to describe the world around them. With our youngest we focused on the primary colors and with our oldest we also worked on recognizing and identifying secondary colors. As we worked on putting our rainbow puzzle together we took time to search around the classroom for objects that represented the color assigned. Children seemed to have a lot of fun thinking, observing, and finding different colored objects in our environment!

We also introduced the concept of color mixing using paint. Children explored and discovered the magical way to make new colors. We focused this week on the color GREEN in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, by mixing yellow and blue paint! The children’s expressions were amazing! They couldn’t believe that we had made a new color.  There is a tremendous joy that floods a child’s spirit when they discover a transformation happening in front of them. We love color mixing because it’s a process that helps to develop a love of learning. We can’t wait to discover new colors together!

On another note, children were very curious about what food we were going to taste this week as they already recognize this activity as a part of our weekly routine. Children were surprised to find a tiny kumquat under the towel. Kumquats look like oranges but are the most diminutive member of the citrus family. We had great fun exploring and tasting this fruit! 

Enjoy the pictures of your little busy explorers and we hope you have a fantastic March break!

Stay safe, warm and happy!

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria 

Mrs.Wilson: Welcome March

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawns.”

March is a colorful month as we have out materials that represent the color green and rainbows. On the art shelf, the children can choose to use green watercolor to find the hidden shamrock, paint a shamrock using a cotton swab, and practice using scissors. At the easel, we introduced a new painting tool, a roller.

We have extended our open and close basket by separating the lids from the containers. The children try to figure out which lid goes to which container while refining their hand development. This seems to be a well-liked activity.

The children are still exploring the Children Around the World language cards as well as the Emotion language cards. For the emotions, I have added a mirror to the tray so they can mimic the face in the photos.

We took away the pikler triangle and brought out the climber and slide. Not only is the climber great for large motor development, but it also adds another area where they can practice their grace and courtesy skills by waiting their turn to go up the stairs and down the slide, being aware of where their friends are. They practice checking to see if the bottom of the slide is clear before going down. When the doors are closed the children have been using their manners to ask politely to open the slide. “Please open the slide.” “Thank you!”

Lastly, as we keep directing the children to ask a friend for help, we are seeing the children offering help before the friend can ask.  The child that helped seems to be so humbled and you can see the happiness they feel, while the child that received help is very grateful and proud for their friend helping, they sometimes announce it to everyone. These children have demonstrated so much empathy and compassion for one another lately. It is such an endearing moment to witness.

As always, enjoy the photos,

Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Sara

Mrs. Hood’s class: Happy hearts!

Posted on by Andrea Hood

“Of all things, love is the most potent.” – Maria Montessori

Oh, what a month we have had! Despite the school closings due to snow and other events, we have had a great time as a class and continue to specially share love and kindness between each other, each day. 

In our  Montessori environment, manners and social interaction are called Grace and Courtesy. Grace being the outer expression of our inner selves as observed in body language and movements: facial expressions such as smiles, eye- contact, tone of voice, inflection of the voice, body movements and the actual words used to express ourselves. Courtesy is the name given to the manners given for human interaction.

Neither grace nor courtesy are instinctive. They are acquired. The desire to acquire social skills is a fundamental need in a child in order for him to become fully integrated into his culture and fully adapted to society. In the Toddler level the lessons are used through intentional modeling rather than specific lessons presented, as children will encounter in our Primary levels. It’s truly amazing to observe how your children have grown in this area, despite of their young age. It’s SO wonderful!  

Based on Valentine’s day, children had a blast preparing for our Friendship Celebration! They exercised their fine motor skills to create their beautiful Valentine’s bags and they were super excited to share their Valentines with each of their friends! Children were so happy and surprised when they saw the beautiful Valentine’s snack provided by each one of you! We read the notes that were sent and it was obvious that the children’s hearts were warmed. We also had a great time dancing and enjoying our last morning with our beautiful friend Maya, who brought some much light and kindness to our environment during her time with us. We thank you so much for all your support in helping us to bring some type of normalcy and love to our students during this season of our lives. 

In addition to this, children continued to work on their fine motor skills using seasonal works and enjoying their time outdoors in the fun snow, as much as possible. 

This month we learned a beautiful song in sign language called: “The more we get together”. I hope you watch the video, join us to practice it with your child, and use it as a reminder that we as a community are blessed to have each other. The fact that we are able to see each other in person daily is something that I am very thankful for.

Have a great weekend, 

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria  

Mrs. Wilson: February Fun!

Posted on by Cynthia Wilson

We had a very busy week full of celebrations, a special guest, and time outdoors playing in the snow.

This week Jonathan’s mom virtually visited our class to read to the children. She read How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers, which is one of Jonathan’s favorite stories. The children were so excited to welcome Stefanie to the classroom. They all wanted to say hello and chat with her… at the same time. Thank you Stefanie for taking the time to read this very sweet story.

We also celebrated Izzy’s birthday. Izzy helped layout a sun shape, the number 3, and turned on 3 candles. As she walked around the sun many times we sang Happy Birthday to Izzy! Then I read On The Night You Were Born by Nancy Tilman. This was a very sweet way to celebrate Izzy. Thank you Kara for joining us it was so nice to have you “there”.
Now the other children are eager for their birthdays too.

Lastly, we did our Valentine’s celebration. The children celebrated their friendship by passing out a valentine to each friend. The children were so happy to give and were appreciative of the ones they received.

We enjoyed some time outside this week. The children are having so much fun playing in the snow, chasing bubbles, and rolling down the snow-covered hill. As the weather is warming up (yay!) the ground is becoming muddy. Please continue to bring in snow gear, and boots.

Enjoy the photos from this week,
Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Sara