Sensational September

Greetings, all!  It's hard to believe the month of September has ended already.  Take a look at this week's post to see some of the moments captured during the last week of September at The Children's Academy.

                PRACTICAL LIFE 

Napkin folding helps with fine motor skills as well as preparing to partake in this activity at home.  

 Spooning strengthens motor skills and provides practice with this essential daily life skill.  

Pin cushioning work refines fine motor skills.

SENSORIAL

Both students pictured have combined the Pink Tower and Broad Stair activities in two different ways.  This enables them to see similarities and differences between the activities.  

This child is working with all four of the knobbed cylinder activities.  This type of work enhances perception, dexterity as well as differences in dimension and diameter.  

MATH  

 Magnetic apple fractions introduce children to the concept of fractions, using apples divided into halves, thirds, quarters, and a whole.  

Apple seed and leaf counting activities allow children to identify numbers with their quantities.  

Push pin work with numbers helps strengthen the pincer grip as well as number recognition.  

LANGUAGE

The student pictured above is exploring sound containers.  This activity helps children identify letters and their sounds with everyday objects.  

 Wooden letter tracing is an extension activity in the language area.  It assists with grip, muscular development, and letter recognition.  

CULTURAL

 This student is showing her classmates a Sweet Gum leaf contributed to the classroom's nature basket.   

The sand paper globe helps children differentiate between land and water via tactile means.  The color globe beside it is color coded, teaching students to identify continents by their assigned color.

Last, but certainly not least, a big Happy Birthday to Sebastian, who shared a birthday cake with his fellow classmates to celebrate.  It was a delicious treat.  Also, all Academy students enjoyed a special snack of apples and honey in recognition of Rosh Hashanah!

 

 Have a wonderful weekend Children's Academy Families!       

Welcome Fall

The second week of school at The Children's Academy proved fruitful indeed.  The children bid farewell to summer and embraced the fall season along with Montessori materials.  Below you will see children hard at work with a variety of Montessori based activities.

This Little Room student is working with a rectangle drawer from the geometric cabinet, providing not only a knowledge of shape but also the language required to identify said shape and the spatial awareness to acknowledge where it belongs in this activity.

Spooning work, found in the Practical Life area of a Montessori classroom, assists children with successfully mastering essential daily living tasks while sharpening motor skills.

The famous Pink Tower is an essential item in every Montessori classroom.  This activity, found on the Sensorial shelf at The Children's Academy, is a building block to math and the decimal system.  This ten block set is a self correcting mechanism, with cubes representing the concrete concept of  numbers one through ten.  It also allows for the use of language, such as terms "biggest" through "smallest".  The pink tower, in its most basic format, is a basis for several additional extensions in the sensorial area of the class.

Lastly, the images found below are of Transitional Room students observing and exploring the nature basket in their classroom.  Mrs. Benson was lucky enough to stumble upon clams, oysters, scallops, and a mermaid purse (a particularly unique find) when on a family outing at Sandy Hook.  If any Transitional Room students attain nature items they would like to contribute to the class nature basket during a nature walk or outing, please feel free to bring them to school!

We, at The Children's Academy, look forward to another fantastic week of school.  There are many more activities, presentations, and learning experiences awaiting us in the 2016-17 school year!

Welcome Back

It's hard to believe the first week of the 2016-17 school year has already ended.  It was a wonderful week of making new friends, seeing old ones, and experiencing a new learning environment.  We, at The Children's Academy, are looking forward to a fantastic school year!

This blog will provide additional insight and access into our classrooms.  You will be able to get a visual perspective of your children's experiences here at The Academy, learning details regarding activities, special events and the Montessori method.

Additionally, the first blog post of every month will highlight a different staff member, allowing you to learn ten new things about them you may not have known.  Drop off and pick up are often hectic times.  Parents don't always get an opportunity to learn as much about their child's teachers as they would like to.  Hopefully, the "Ten Things You Didn't Know" posts will help you do just that!

Lastly, there are no photos in this initial post because the students' files have yet to be reviewed by me in their entirety for photo release forms.  If you did not or have not provided permission for your child's photos to be shared by The Children's Academy, images containing their faces will NOT be posted here under any circumstance.

With that, sit back and enjoy learning some fun information about our Director and Big Room Language Teacher, Mrs. Wilson (in her own words)!

                                                         

                                TEN THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT MRS. WILSON

1.  I love the Yankees.

2.  I was a basketball coach.

3.  I have 2 adult children, ages 29 & 30.

4.  I have 6 cats.

5.  At the age of 50 something, I have turned into a gym rat.

6.  (She forgot to write a #6.. It's okay.  We forgive you, Mrs. Wilson!)

7.  I'm afraid of heights.

8.  I wake up at 3:30 am but am probably asleep before the children I teach.  Haha!

9.  If I could, I would buy a farm and rescue abused and abandoned animals.

10.  My biggest passion is teaching Montessori.


Thanks for participating, Mrs. Wilson!  :)  Have a good weekend, everyone.