November 2014

October was another active and busy month for our Rojo classroom. We would like to welcome the newest child to join our classroom community, Thia. Welcome Thia! October started with the MCH Harvest Festival, which the children enjoyed. Also, the Rojo families had a Halloween party that was attended by parents and children and was a lot of fun! 

    In our classroom, the children continued our study of North America. We have been learning the animals of North America, and some of the students have been engaged in tracing our maps of North America as well. In science, we have been conducting experiments in our "Sink and Float" station, where children would make a guess (their hypothesis) as to whether an item would float or sink in water, and then investigate to see the results. We have been going outside to our nature trail area to explore autumn in nature, collecting colorful leaves and looking for signs of life. We also started our study of salmon, learning about the lifecycle of these big fish and the importance of salmon to the region.

    In our Practical Life area, the children have been conducting "care of the environment" works, such as dusting the shelves and window washing. We have also started a pumpkin hammering work, nailing golf tees into the pumpkin.

We continue our studies in the Sensorial area, where children have been working with our "Sound Cylinders", a work where the children compare and contrast sounds and match sounds that are alike. We have also been exploring geometric shapes with the Triangle Boxes.

    In Math, the younger children are learning to recognize numerals and practicing counting. Our older children are working on learning about place value with our golden bead works and are now starting simple addition operations.

In Language and Writing, the children are learning the sounds of letters, how to read and write simple three and four letter phonetic words, such as dog or frog with our pink and blue series of works. We have had parent volunteers coming in to help the children with letter sounds, as well as reading circles and also in transcribing the children's stories onto paper for the children to then make a picture and illustrate the story they "wrote".

    We have been enjoying the weekly music and Spanish specials in our room. The children find these learning programs very fun and interesting. Our kindergarteners have been going to and enjoying the Nature and to PE clubs with the first graders in elementary.

Overall, October has been a very active and engaged month of learning!