Dear Primary 3 Parents,
The first month of school has gone by in a blink of an eye! We have been having such a wonderful time getting to know each other. Friendships have been formed and the children are getting more familiar with everyday routines. Specials have begun, so we have been learning Spanish with Ms. Diana, Music with Ms. Melissa, Art with Ms. Angela, and the Kindergarten students have been keeping active in PE with Coach Bob. Our specialists have blogs as well, so please take the time to check them out to get more detail on what the children are learning.
Learning colors in Spanish with Ms. Diana:
In addition to working diligently on assessing children, pre-reading activities, letter sounds, writing, math, and reading, we have been learning about different types of weather and some children have even begun creating circle maps. This serves as a wonderful foundation for more complex thinking maps in the future.
Language work from pre-reading activities to reading and writing sentences:
Math including operations, counting, and review of the decimal system:
Living in Las Vegas, where we don’t experience drastic weather changes or conditions, the children were astounded about how extreme mother nature can get in different parts of the world where they experience blizzards, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Rest assured; however, they know they are safe in our city where we only get HOT sunny days, wind, cold, and rain. They did love our lesson on tornadoes, with a machine that demonstrated categories F-0 to F-5.
We would also like to say THANK YOU to our parent volunteers, the Rice and St. John families, for reading and doing a cooking project with the class. Your gift of time is invaluable, and it is truly appreciated!
We have had a couple of birthdays with the traditional Montessori birthday circle. There have been many questions on how we celebrate this sweet occasion. If your child’s birthday is coming up, schedule a day with a teacher. Bring in a photo of your child for each year of his or her life, starting from birth to present. Some parents have mounted them on poster boards, shown them on i-pads, or simply brought hard copy photos to be passed around circle. You and your child can then talk about special milestones for each year, followed by your celebrant going around the “sun” as we sing a special song. There are 30 children in our class, so please provide a simple, healthy birthday snack for each child. Please contact a teacher in advance if choosing to bring a birthday treat, as food allergies need to be taken into consideration and products containing nuts are not allowed. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Important reminders:
-Please make sure toys and distracting jewelry/accessories stay home.
-Sign up sheets for conferences, volunteers, and snack are outside our door. If you have already volunteered to bring requested items, thank you very much!
-If you see a “key chain” with letters or a sound book that your child has colored in their red bag, please practice those sounds with them at home. Those are the phonetic sounds we worked on for the day.
-Instructions to get on “Remind” are posted on our door. Please utilize this app to receive important notifications. Text @7f2f9e to 81010 and follow the prompts.
-As you know, Montessori is very hands on and process driven. Not a lot of paper work goes home. Parent-Child night will be scheduled soon, and that night would be a wonderful opportunity to see how our materials work and what your child is working on. And as always, feel free to ask us anytime before then.
Important Dates:
Monday, 9/3: NO SCHOOL Labor Day. Enjoy!
Thursday, 9/20: Parent/Teacher Conferences, half day dismissal @ 11:15am
Friday, 9/21: Parent/Teacher Conferences, NO SCHOOL for students
Themes for September:
Safety and Community Helpers
Nutrition and Food Groups
Plant vs. Animal
Land and Water
Apple Studies
Sincerely,
Primary 3 Team
