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September 2007 News
The First Two Weeks
We have been in school for two weeks now and have observed the children settling down and going to work with great joy! I just love walking around our classrooms listening to the buzz of working children that are engaged in learning and focused on the activities at hand. Here are the different ways to see children engaged in pre-reading and writing skills:
Pre-Reading and Writing (By
permission of The Michael Olaf Montessori Company,
www.michaelolaf.net)
There are three main areas where we can help children
prepare for reading and writing. When the ground is well prepared over the years
before reading and writing is attempted, acquiring these skills is very
enjoyable.
(1) Physical skills—balance, using the hands, coordination of eye-hand work,
learning to concentrate and focus, recognizing sizes and shapes, working with
knobbed puzzles, crayons and pencils, and practice in speaking.
(2) Mental skills—absorbing and using language, learning the "sounds" that each
letter makes (not the 'names' of the letter) and playing games to break up words
into sounds—the "I spy" game.
(3) Social—living in homes where people talk at the table, sit down and have
conversations, and read, instead of watching television or "learning language"
on a computer.
I Spy Game
When your child has built up a knowledge of
the names of objects by pictures, introduce the I Spy Game. Pick up an object, a
ball. Say "I spy something in my hand that begins with b." (make the shortest b
sound, not the sound of the name of the letter bee)." Do this with several
objects, maybe the same ones for weeks. Eventually you can use pictures for this
game as well.
Later go on to sound out the ending sound "Something that begins with p and ends
with n" (pen), and finally the whole word.
This is similar to spelling, but we say isolated sounds, not letters. Lamb would
be sounded out as l-a-m. We are not teaching spelling, or reading, we are
helping the child become aware of the sounds of language, and having fun, both
very important for learning language. You will be amazed at the ability of a
child to later decode words when he has had this game as preparation.
Great Lesson Stories
In the elementary classroom stories called the "Great Lessons" are told with much drama and excitement during the first few weeks of school. Unlike the primary classroom concepts are introduced one by one and build, the elementary students hear about the "big picture" and then break it down into smaller parts. The first great lesson presented is called "The God with No Hands." This story introduces scientific and Biblical thought on the origins of the universe and our own planet. Using impressionistic charts and experiments directly related to the basic physical properties of matter, a foundation is made for the future study of physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology. Specifically, this first Great Lesson describes how minerals and chemicals formed the elements, how matter transforms to three states of solid, liquid, and gas, how particles joined together and formed the earth, how heavier particles sank to the earth's core and volcanoes erupted, and how mountains were formed and the atmosphere condensed into rain, creating oceans, lakes, and rivers. From this story, students are introduced to lessons in physics, astronomy, geology, and chemistry. For example, they learn about light, heat, convection currents, gravity, galaxies, planetary systems, the earth's crust, volcanoes, erosion, climate and physical geography.
Below are some photos from this first lesson:
The room starts out very dark -" In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth - the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep"
There are certain laws of physics - where some particles attract each other and some move away from each other.
The earth's crust was hot and lava flowed from volcanoes.
Later in the week the children talked about how elements work together. This lesson is called "Colder than Ice." The experiment is then left on the shelf so any child may come and test the theory again and again if the child wishes.