Front Building:
Our class has had a great November so far. We have had a couple different guests come in. Ms. Govindaraj, from the back class, came in at the beginning of November and gave a wonderful presentation where she told us the story of Diwali and made beautiful sand art. We also had Elliott’s dad come in and teach us about health and teeth, we each got to listen to our heart beats!
In class we are learning about the parts of a turkey and the parts of a pumpkin. We have also begun a corn art project with Ms. Dykstra that will be coming home soon. Another area of study we started was geography. We started with learning the names of the continents. At circle we saw a demonstration of how the earth is a sphere and how it can be made into a flat map.
Ms. Dunnington has been telling us about the story of the pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower and what early colonial life was like. To prepare for our Thanksgiving feast, we peeled and cut apples for apple sauce with Ms. Dunnington and will be preparing lots more including pumpkin bread, corn, and turkey, as we get closer to our feast next Wednesday.
The holiday season is coming up and with that come many holiday projects. Your children will be plenty busy with these exciting projects.
Back Building:
It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is almost here! It seems like only yesterday we carved pumpkins for Halloween! That was an amazing day at Creative Montessori! Most of the children came in wearing costumes. We had a little parade in the morning where children had a chance to show off their costumes and sing their favorite Halloween song “Witches’ Brew” all together. Our young students were excited to discover many unusual works on the Practical Life shelves, such as eye ball tweezing, spider sorting and finding brains and fingers in the witch’s brew. Also, our students were very enthusiastic about preparing a giant pumpkin for carving by pulling all the seeds out of it.
At the beginning of November Ms. Govindaraj made a beautiful presentation about Diwali – the Hindu festival of light. She shared a story of this holiday, drew rangolis – beautiful, intricate patterns created with colored sand and flower petals. Our students marveled at different brightly colored saris she brought in for demonstration and even had a chance to learn how to put them on.
For the past month we have been learning about pumpkins and exploring bats and their special characteristics. Many students enjoyed working on their own Parts of the Pumpkin, Leaf, and Bat books. A couple of weeks ago we started to learn about continents. We looked at the Globe, named seven continents, and learned how and why the Earth looks flat on a map. This presentation sparked the interest of many children. Since then we’ve been busy memorizing names of the continents and drawing maps.
Recently we have started talking and sharing stories about Thanksgiving. We discussed the importance of being grateful and having an attitude of gratitude. Students had a chance to decorate a Gratefulness Tree by writing what they are grateful for on its’ leaves. Also, we learned and read some stories about Native American culture.
We wish all of our families happy and peaceful Thanksgiving!
The school will be closed on November 28th and 29th .