N E W S  &  L E S S O N S  F R O M  M S.  K A L T R I N A  &  M S.  D I A N E ’ S  C L A S S
Issue: November 1- 30, 2021

Dear parents,

October zipped by! It has been a great school year so far. It is such a joy to come to work every day and see our loving bright students and have very supportive parents. We really appreciate it!

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Over the last two weeks we have been learning about holidays and Halloween.

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We worked on our Halloween crafts, read books (Scaredy-cat, Splat! By Rob Scotton) and sang songs about Halloween. We also had so much fun prepping for the Halloween parade, practicing our songs with our music teacher Ms. Melissa and decorating our pumpkins and goodie bags. We enjoyed pumpkin picking in our school’s garden, pumpkin decorating, carving Jack- o- Lantern and we also ate our Halloween spooky snacks.

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In Peace Education we read the book “The Peace Rose” by Alicia Olson. Now we have our Peace Rose in the classroom and the students took turns role playing how to use the peace rose and solve their problems. Another addition to our Peace Corner is the Jar of Kindness (Pom- Pom Jar). It is a positive reinforcement tool, when anytime a student does something positive/kind either to help another friend or just a positive/helpful task in the classroom, the student will earn a pom- pom. The earned pom- pom will come from another student of the classroom, or the teacher, who have witnessed or has been part of the kind act. At the end of the week, we will sit on the circle and  go over our pom poms and each child will have the opportunity to voice it out to whom and why they gave a pom- pom. When the jar is full, we will have a chance as a class to do a specific activity. This can be something like going for outdoor walks, having a special class snack or play a game with the teachers.

With our Spanish teacher Sinora Esther we played a Halloween game “Puedes Encontrar a la Bruja?” “Can you find the witch?” Students enjoyed searching for the witch in the haunted house.

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We finished last week with the Halloween Parade, and Halloween classroom party. We had a lot of fun!

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held virtually on Friday, November 19th. Please call Donna in the front office at 914-472-4404 to schedule your appointment.

School Closed:

November 2 - Staff Development

November 11 - Veteran’s Day

November 24, 25, 26 – Thanksgiving Recess

As always, if you want to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns our email addresses are below.

Kaltrina:     kkabashi@alcottschool.org

Diane:       dwisner-magee@alcottschoo.org

We look forward to a great school year!

Fondly,

Kaltrina, Diane, Marie and Ruby

Our theme for November is Harvest and Thanksgiving. We will be talking about the farm and the food that comes from the farm. We will be talking/ learning about the Thanksgiving Holiday and about what we are thankful for. We will continue with the letter of the week, and the numbers of the week.

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Lesson Plans for November:

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Art:

Crafts about Thanksgiving

Build a turkey cutting and pasting and turkey dot painting

Cultural Arts/Geography:

The geography Montessori materials teach the students about the world around them, people around the world, continents, landforms, planets, animals of the continents and many more engaging and interactive activities.

North America/ Pilgrims

Locate North America on the Montessori Globe

Children around the world say “Hello”

Language:

Language materials/ area in the Montessori classroom offers the child a rich oral experience. Montessori materials help students strengthen the pincer grasp in preparation for writing. Also, in the Montessori classrooms when teaching letters, our focus is on the sound of the letter, since when students learn how to read, they will first sound out the letters, blend and read the word.

Introduce the letter of the week

Introduction to Sandpaper letters a,t,m,b,f

Sandpaper letters

Trace the Thanksgiving words

CVC words- short vowel I, o

Tracing of our name

Tracing of the alphabet

Reading Pink Series Montessori cards

Label the Turkey

Handwriting: I am Thankful for…

Books:

The Best Thanksgiving Ever! By Teddy Slater

Giving Thanks by Jonathan London

Pilgrim Children Had Many Chores by Gina Lems-Tardif

Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland

Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

Lucy and the Bully by Claire Alexander

Try a Little Kindness by Henry Cole

Math:

In Montessori classrooms the math is taught by working with numbers, shapes, and quantities as objects and not only as symbols. Students are introduced first to the manipulative quantity (concrete) like red and blue rods, sandpaper numbers with the objects, spindle box. Once the child is comfortable with the concrete materials, he/she will move the work further to the abstract- the numerals/symbols like the stamp game, the bead frame and the operations.

Intro to the decimal system

Pattern activity

Turkey Tracing and writing numbers

Addition with red and blue rods/ table rods

Intro to the colored beads 1-10

Addition booklets

Practical Life:

Practical life activities help the students develop their independence, eye hand coordination, social skills, fine motor skills as well as concentration.

Setting the table

Folding

Whole hand transferring beads

Lacing cards

Science:

Science is an area of the classroom when students can explore, experiment, compare and construct.

Ice experiment

Sensorial: 

The sensorial activities prepare the child for math. The foundation for geometry and algebra is introduced by the sensorial materials, like browns stairs, pink cubes, red and blue rods, knobbed and knobbles cylinders when the students compare the different shapes and sizes, categorize, sort and place the materials in order.

Trinomial cube

Knobbles cylinders

Geometric cabinet