Feeling More Like November!

The classroom is functioning quite smoothly and the amount of work being completed is quite astonishing given that we have only been in school for three weeks.  It really feels as if we are further into the school year - I attribute this to the fact that we have such a large number of second and third year students this year.  Next year, I'm sure will be quite different as we will have mostly new students - so I will enjoy this while it lasts! :-)  Some photos of activities from this week:

Writing practice with the Sandpaper Letters.

Practical Life:  Spooning and sorting beads by color.  The tiny spoon is a big point of interest for the children!

Fine motor development: placing rubber bands around a box and the removing them.

Scissor practice:  cutting on a line.

Care of Self:  Snap Frame

Care of Self:  Buckle Frame

Strengthening the muscles of the hand for writing using the Metal Insets.

Fine motor development - using a clothespin to transfer feathers.

Quantity and counting - an early lesson with the Number Rods.

Exploring shapes with the Constructive Triangles.

Counting by tens with the Tens Board and Beads.

Quantity and number symbol combined with Number Rod and Cards.

Initial sounds with the Language Step Board.

How the children love this activity!  Filling water to the line with a baster.

Reading and acting out of the 'September' poem.

A grammar presentation with the Article Box...

...and working independently with the labels.

Practicing tying bows with the Bow Tying Frame.

Initial sounds and symbols work - matching pictures to their corresponding beginning sound.

Building words with the Moveable Alphabet - this student wanted to write them  down on paper as well.

Careful work with the Pink Tower.

"This is seven tens, it has one zero," with the Decimal System Cards.

Reading color words.

Feeling for varying weights with the Baric Tablets.

Writing numbers on the chalkboard.

Color Box 1:  Matching colors.

This painting lesson remains in perpetual use throughout our mornings!

Building handwriting skills with the Metal Insets.

We also spent time talking about International Peace Day and will continue the discussion into next week.  Peace education in our Montessori setting is integrated throughout the curriculum and is a part of our daily classroom activities.  Like last year, the class is planning another collaborative art project in conjunction with Peace Day - we hope to begin working on the art piece next week!