We would like to thank the Patel family for sharing their Diwali holiday activities with us here at school. It was a lovely presentation about the clothing, food, and festivity of lights! We appreciate Roshan and his family bringing a project for each of us to create our own diyas, and for the details of the Diwali holiday to take home and share with our parents.
Executive Function
Please join us on Wednesday, December 20th, at 10:00 AM in the Gym to hear both Lower Elementary classes present our winter songs to you. Children's House classes will sing after us, and then you may sign out your child from his/her classroom and return to the gym for refreshments. We look forward to sharing our music with you. Dismissal that day will follow the sing. Look for more specific details to follow.
UPCOMING EVENTS
December 20 - Winter Sing, Half Day of School
December 21-January 1 - No School, Winter Break
January 2 - School Resumes
January 15 - No School, Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observed
Week of January 15-19 - Report Cards Sent Home
Winter Clothing
Cold Man Winter is here! Please remember to have appropriate outdoor clothing at school for your child. There is plenty of space for your child to leave snow pants and boots here at school on his/her hook, if you have an extra set. PLEASE label your child’s outwear with first and last name, as all snow pants tend to look alike. Thank you!
Curriculum Area Highlight
Parts of Speech & Grammar Symbols
Grammar and learning the parts of speech is an essential part of the Montessori Language curriculum. We begin with learning nouns and their symbol, a large black triangle, then the noun family (article, adjective, noun), then verbs, adverbs and on through all the parts of speech.
The Grammar Farm or Grammar Mat
One of our first works is to use the grammar mat or grammar farm. Children use objects or pictures with a context of a farm to first label, list, and symbolize nouns. They then create noun family phrases with the word cards and objects the farm or mat provides. The students continue to use this concrete material to create increasingly complex sentences, all the while identifying the parts of speech in each one. Colored word cards help to control for errors.
The Grammar Boxes
Once the child has learned the symbols and all the parts of speech we move on to a more abstract material, the grammar boxes. The child is exploring syntax, grammar rules, vocabulary and word usage with this material. The grammar boxes allow the child to begin to work with the complexities of the English language with a control for error as with the previous grammar materials.
Grammar Stories
These are short phrases, sentences or paragraphs in which the children evaluate each word to determine its part of speech. They then use the symbols to label the part of speech of each word. Children do this in the abstract and the control for error comes at the end.
