My School Year in Review

This year has been particularly exciting for me, as it was my first year back from maternity leave with my little boy. It was great to get back into the swing of things and see some familiar faces in the classroom upon my return; I couldn’t believe how much my students have grown up while I was away. And as always, it’s a pleasure to meet new kids for the first time; because I just love teaching young minds and watching them accomplish so much throughout the year. I felt ready to go back to school in the Fall, but I admit I missed my baby like crazy!

From September to December things were pretty busy with getting to know my new students and reacquainting myself with my previous students. We also had a few eventful holidays to prepare for; I had forgotten how much fun Thanksgiving and Christmas activities are in the classroom!

Every year I choose different themes for each month, 10 in total, and this year was filled was some pretty exciting themes! We had a “Rainforest” theme in February where students learned about animals that live in the rainforest, the different layers that make up a rainforest, and where in the world rainforests grow. We even had a special day for the students to try different fruits from the rainforest, so I brought in exotic fruits from our local grocery store, and it was a huge hit, even the pickiest eaters in the class tried (and loved) the different fruits!

We also had a really fun “Hibernation” theme in January. The children learned about animals that hibernate and animals that migrate to warmer climates in the winter. For our special day this month, the children had to bring in, not just any stuffed toy, but a stuffed toy of an animal that either hibernates or migrates. And this was really fun for the kids as they got to tell me where the animal they chose hibernates, how it hibernates, and whether it is an animal that hibernates or migrates. The children always have so much fun with these special days.

Academically, my students did very well this year and were very busy working on various activities. The five year olds concentrated on phonograms, sentences, multiplication, and exchanging with the golden bead material, while my four year olds started sight words, reading from the readers, addition, and the golden bead material. My youngest students spent most of their time in the Sensorial, Culture, and Practical Life areas of the room, In Language and Math I worked with them on their sandpaper letters and numbers, and some students moved onto more concrete math and language materials.

Overall, I had a great year with my students and I look forward to seeing them in the fall. Next year will be easier on the emotions as my boy will be joining me at school for the first time, though he will be in the toddler Montessori room with another teacher. :)

Spring Concert

Well , it's that time of year again: yesterday was our annual Spring Concert, and it was a huge success!

 This year's theme was "under the Sea" and we began practicing our singing for it back in March.  Keeping with our theme this we we sang: "When I was One," "Listen to the Water", "Yellow Submarine," "Octopus Garden", and we even included a play about the ever-so-popular story "Rainbow Fish."  Seven of my oldest students performed lines they memorized for the play and I must say they did an amazing job.

The first song performed was "When I Was One" and we had 6 different children act out the actions of the song by holding up their props.  Next we performed, " I Love to Row" where two little ones sat in our toy boat from the playground pretending to row around the stage.  The third song was "Listen to the Water" where we again had different children holding up props that were related to the song.  Following that we sang, "Yellow Submarine" with a giant painted submarine and had two children sit behind it with their heads poling through the submarine windows.  The older children then sang a section of  "Under the Sea".  The reason for singing only part of the song is because it would have been too long otherwise.  Then we had four of our four-year-olds gave their own little performance by reciting a poem that had to do with the sea, and in the finale for my class (we have a toddler and elementary class that were also a part of the concert) we did our very special play of the story "Rainbow Fish" where we sang "Octopus' Garden" in the middle of our performance.

Many long hours of preparation were put into our concert this year and I must admit I am extremely proud of all my wonderful students who pulled it all off with great success: :)

MIA

Sorry everyone for being Missing In Action lately. School and family life have been keeping me extremely busy these past few months. But stay tuned because I have some new and exciting things happening in my classroom these days and months ahead.
We just finished two weeks of March Break and my students are ready and eager to get back to the routine.
A sneak peek for April: Our classroom theme is Bees.

January in Reivew

My classroom is buzzing with excitement after returning from the Christmas break. The children got right to work on their first day back and are settling in wonderfully; there are many new items on our shelves, which helped keep them busy for a while.
For the month of January we discussed Hibernation, very fitting of course for the winter season. We talked about what hibernation and migration are, and which animals hibernate over the winter. On a few special days the children were allowed to bring that were related to our hibernation theme. One day was "bring a bird to school day (non living of course)", they could bring in a picture, a toy bird or even a book about birds. Then last week we had "bring an animal that hibernates or migrates to school". Most of the children brought in bears, we had one snake and impressively enough a chipmunk. Both days were a huge hit.
This month we only did one craft: making a bear. I cut out a bear shape from white bristol board for each student, and then the children put glue on their entire bear. Next they decorated their bears by sprinkling, using a spoon, dried tea leaves over the glue they placed on. The bears turned out nice and the tea made them look like they really were covered in fur.
As always we were very busy moving along in our lessons too. I am so pleased with my four year olds and how much progress they have made since school started. Many of them are doing sight words, addition, and making 3 letter phonetic words using the movable alphabet.
January has been a great month and I am sure February is going to be even better!

February's theme is the Rainforest.

Christmas Wishes

I just wanted to take this time and wish everyone a very Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas from my family to yours :) I look forward to what is to come in my classroom in the new year!

Christmas in my Classroom :)

Here are only a few pictures I took of my favourite Christmas work in Practical Life and of my bulletin board.

December is in the Air!

I have been so busy with school as well as having a new toddler running around the house. So I must start off by apologizing for being MIA these past few weeks. And now I am so excited to tell you about all the activities we've been doing in the classroom with the students.

First off, we just concluded our "Colours" theme for the month of November. The children enjoyed making rainbow caterpillars out of construction paper and learning black and white are not colours. We even had a special day called, "Don't Wear Colour to School" day. The students had fun trying to figure out what that actually meant, but they quickly caught on. One parent on the other hand, before leaving the classroom at the door, asked her daughter, "does that mean you come to school naked?" I hope she filled her mother in about our lessons on black and white.
At the end of November to wrap up our "Colours" theme and prepare for the next month's theme, "Christmas Around the World", I did a very simple and neat craft for the students to help me prepare the classroom bulletin board. We each painted white Christmas bulbs brown to make Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer heads with red pompoms glued to the tips of the bulbs for the noses and glued on googly eyes to make his face. We also added brown pipe cleaners for the antlers (wrapped around the gold part of the bulb) and added ribbons so each student could hang their Rudolph on the Christmas tree. And when the reindeers were finished, I cut a large Christmas tree out of green Bristol board and attached it to the bulletin board for us to decorate with our Rudolph ornaments. The students were very excited and had so much fun with this.
In preparation for Christmas, I have been busy going through all the Christmas material boxes and sorting items for the shelves. I found some great things that I know the children will love, such as: Christmas themed erasers for sorting, stamps, Christmas tree decorations to decorate a small tree and Christmas sequencing boards with objects. As the month unfolds I will take pictures of our activities to post on this blog.
I look forward to the next three weeks of learning about "Christmas Around the World", where we will learn songs from other countries, what children in other countries call Santa, what Santo looks like in other countries, and what other holidays are celebrated during December in various places around the world.