'Tis December

Welcome to the sounds and sights of December in Montessori!

                        The children have been learning sound vibrations travel in waves.

                They studied how string and brass instruments make sound and change pitch.

     They have blown into bottles to make the air vibrate just like wind and brass instruments.

Can you listen and guess?

Playing percussion instruments takes concentration.

Five Little Bells is a favorite poem!

December is a time for giving!

. Once again this year Montessori donated 90 backpacks to Nyumbani Village so these Kenyan children would be ready for their new school year. Each backpack held a package of treasured colored pencils and a note from the donor.

December is also a time to celebrate!

Mrs. G-W, Lily, and Penelope told us the story of Hanukkah and showed us how to light the menorah.

There was a lot of Christmas work like counting, 

labeling objects,

matching the bells,

learning French color words,

sewing Christmas trees to work on fine motor coordination, and

using patterns and symmetry to make ornaments and necklaces.

Montessori enjoyed making art projects and

creating special surprises for their parents, too.

They read lots of great picture books, and even one in Spanish!

They graphed their favorite part of Christmas, 

decorated trees, 

learned the story of baby Jesus,

decorated cookies, 

and enjoyed KayDee Puppets. Mortimer tasted ears, too!

December is a time for families!

We hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We join all Montessori classes around the world in wishing everyone peace in 2015.

Don't Eat the Data!

With a little math in mind, all three Montessori classes had a tasting party to decide which kinds of apples were their favorites.

Mrs. Iyer went to the Farmer's Market to buy four different kinds of apples.

After labeling them, we cut them into bite-size pieces to sample.

Yum! While developing an expanded palate, we also learned some new adjectives: juicy, tart, crunchy, sweet, and delicious!

Which one is your favorite? Check the graph!

Favorites? M I = Cameo, M I = Gold Rush, M III = Gold Rush

Have you ever wondered if every package of M & M's or Skittles contains the same number of colored candies? The Lunchers learned more about data collection and graphing when they investigated this question recently.

They used their estimating skills to make an "educated guess" about the amount of M & M's or Skittles in their packages of candy.

Then, they counted the total amount. It was important to be accurate--and not to eat the data!

Next, they sorted the candy by color before counting and recording each amount.

When the data had been collected, the Lunchers were ready to create bar graphs to share their data. Bar graphs and picto-graphs make information visible.

All our graphs were different!  Graphs made it easy to see how many of each color were in the packages!The Lunchers found that it was quite useful to create a graph when they had to compare their data with classmates. Now they are looking for other ways to use their graphing skills!

Sweet Gratitude

Gratitude is an an important gift to nurture. Often we are unaware and sometimes unappreciative of all we have--family, friends, home, school, opportunities. Again this year the Montessori students were able to practice gratitude when they donated part of their Halloween candy to Mother Teresa's Gift of Peace House. Now the sisters will have sweet treats for their visitors during the holidays. What a learning experience!

Each class had a large box for collecting donations. It took help from all to provide enough for our gift bags.Some of our Lower School friends even surprised us with candy donations to help us fill our boxes.

Decisions, decisions...What category fits?

The candy looked and smelled delicious!

No tasting! This candy is a gift we are sharing with others. We hope it fills their "buckets!"

The children did the work of sorting candy by categories they chose as a group.

The Lunchers sorted all the chocolate.

Then the Lunchers counted each kind of chocolate. They decided to be efficient and group and count by tens.This is called "data collection."

The Lunchers used bar graphs to show how many kinds of chocolate and how many of each they counted. What variety!

All of the children created gift bags of candy for Gift of Peace. They had to be thoughtful as they worked since this was a gift for others!

Our friend Tom Agnew in seventh grade delivered 125 bags for us. He began his deliveries when he was a Montessori child so we appreciate his dedication. Thanks, Tom!

Thank you for helping us learn to feel compassion and empathy for others --and to give with a generous heart. We're helping to make the world a better place one candy bar at a time.

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourselves that you truly give."                                                                  --Kahill Gibran

Happy Thanksgiving from Montessori!