A Peek Inside the Classrooms

Our 2-3 year old classroom is studying the letter F and the parts of a fish. When I stopped in to say hello, they were all learning about the dorsal fins, pectoral fins and anal fins.

In the 3-5 year old room, they are studying the short vowel sound of the letter A. The children are learning   -at and -an words.

I gave one child an impromptu spelling test while we were waiting for the other children to arrive!

PERK!

It's Monday and at CCMS that means Mr. Jeff and P.E.R.K! The children look forward to every Monday and love learning how to play a large variety of sports with Mr. Jeff.

Play time!

After all of that hard work, what could be better than playing with your friends on a sunny Friday morning?

Fun Fact Friday

While some Montessori schools are tied to a religion, most are not. College Center Montessori School is not affiliated with any religious belief.

Loose Change + 5 Minutes = Math Lesson!

If you have a pile of coins laying around, you can easily use them with any age child to reinforce counting and begin to introduce value.

For younger preschool-aged children, stick with pennies and have them count by ones.

For older preschool-aged children, give them pennies and dimes to count by ones and tens. Transitioning from counting by tens to ones (ex. one dime and 2 pennies is 12) may be tricky at this age. Advanced children can tackle nickels as well.

Younger elementary children can count with all the coins. Again, transitioning is tricky but they can do it!

If you have older children, have them help out your younger children and older children can also practice giving change (a lost art in our technological world, but still important to know)!

Fun Fact Friday

There are over 8,000 Montessori schools in the country and 20,000 Montessori schools around the world.

Books of the Month - February 2013

Preschool - We Are In a Book! by Mo Willems

 

Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In We Are in a Book! Gerald and Piggie discover the joy of being read. But what will happen when the book ends? Using vocabulary perfect for beginning readers (and vetted by an early-learning specialist), Mo Willems has crafted a mind-bending story that is even more interactive than pervious Elephant and Piggie adventures. 

Lower Elementary - The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Tinka Hakes Noble

It starts off an an ordinary class trip to the farm - boring, kind of dull. But before very long, chaos takes over as one zany incident leads to another, even zanier, one. Soon the entire farm is uproariously out of control.

Upper Elementary - The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

Ralph the mouse was terrified. All he had wanted to do was ride the little motorcycle someone had left on the table. Instead, both Ralph and the motorcycle had taken a terrible fall - right into the bottom of the wastepaper basket. He was trapped, left to wait for whatever fate was in store for him.

***We are not affiliated with any booksellers and are not getting paid for these recommendations. These books were picked by teachers.

Valentine's Day

Love is in the air at CCMS and we sure do love to show it!

We love our students and staff at College Center Montessori School!