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Our busy bees

Our class, in fact all three Montessori classes, received a surprise gift of a Lego box.   It’s too early from Santa Claus, isn’t it?   So guess from whom?

It was from the Elementary School Student Council, who had asked the PSG (Parent Support Group) for Lego boxes for all the Montessori and Elementary classes.  The PSG generously granted their wish, and… the Student Council members were at our door to make the delivery.  Thanks to the PSG and the Student Council, the children are seen busy expanding their imaginations during lunch recess.

Observing the patterns of the seashells with a magnifying glass. Hmmm.

Matching the lids to their containers.

Constructing a colored map of Japan, as well as learning the names of the geographical regions, including Kanto where we live.
Knobbed Cylinder blocks: matching the cylinders to the right sockets of varying depths and widths.
Knobless cylinders: building a 10-cylinder tower with cylinders of the same height but narrowing widths, stacked in the correct balancing order.
Working in pairs: matching the colors.
Sorting pencils of different colors, into groups of the same color
Show and Tell time: sharing time.  What are you showing us today?
 Pouring activity.
Working in pairs: taking turns matching cards to complete the pictures.
 We are responsible to clean the floor after lunch.
We made crowns.  Now let’s make bracelets!
 Creation with magnet shapes to make a three-dimentional object.
Who lives in this colorful town?
Our favorite time in the Library: we choose our own books.
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A little visitor in our classroom

We have  little 8-legged visitors these days: crawling on the walls, on the floor, jumping from space to space. The children are excited, or scared, and if one child sees it, there’s a couple or three, or even more children crowded around the little intruder. We took this opportunity to talk about this tiny visitor who does nothing harmful to our classroom.  We said the spider was just curious to find out what was going on. The children learned to let the spiders be free.

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So, we wanted to learn more about the spiders who visit our classroom. They are, in one sense, our pets, which we can observe their movements.  We read the book “The Very Busy Spiderby Eric Carl.  The children learned that spiders are busy workers, which weave artistic webs to catch dinner. The children can look at the beautiful webs spiders make.

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In October, the Montessori and Elementary School had a joint Fun Day, whose theme was “Reading.” The elementary students dressed up as characters from books.  Each class decorated their door. We decided to create a spider on its web catching insects, which was based on our favorite Eric Carl’s storybook.  The children also drew farm animals inviting the spider to play with them, though the “Spider was very busy spinning her web.”

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We’ve learned that spiders are not actually in the family of insects; they are arachnids.  Spiders have 8 simple eyes to enable them to have a complete view around them.  We learned the names of the spider’s different parts.  Cephalothorax (yes, a big name!) and abdomen are the two sections.  Spiders have 8 legs and also 2 pedipalps, which are used like arms to catch their prey.  From the spinneret at the bottom of their abdomen, the spiders spin silky threads to make their attractive web patterns.

Now that they know more about spiders, the children are excited to “observe” when they encounter spiders.  One child said, “I counted 8 legs”; another announced, “I saw the little pedipalps”; one classmate sighed, “I couldn’t count 8 eyes.”  Another child shouted from the bathroom, “There’s an arachnid in the bathroom!”  Now we are not scared of spiders.

On the Fun Day,  the children got to walk around the Montessori building, as well as Elementary halls, to see other classes’ Door Decorations.  Our class went to see Ms.Catherine’s and Ms.Sallie’s doors,

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the two first grade classrooms, 1P ad 1G, and the Elementary School classrooms on the other side.

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The Elementary music teacher, Ms.Lee, and our movements teacher, Mrs. Okaguchi, came to read us a book.

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Some of us visited the French classroom next door, where a French mom read us a story in French!

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Oh, after lunch, we all enjoyed a special cold dessert—yes, ice cream!

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We also had some Elementary school teacher and students come to our classroom to help us make book markers to take home.

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We certainly had a Fun Day.  The children had a lot to tell their moms and dads when they got home.

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They love reading books.

 

 

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Welcome

Welcome to all the families, returnees and new, to Ms. Mimi and Ms. Hoshi’s Class

The school has started again after a long hot summer.  This year we are starting  with 19 children, with two joining our class from October.  The children are excited to reunite with old friends and also to make new friends.  We will catch up on the news of their summer vacation and to get to know each other better.

The school-wide theme this year is “Communication and Collaboration”.  We will be learning and talking about this theme throughout the year.  As a start, we will be learning about ourselves, “All About Me”.   Let’s have a great year.