As a class these children work well together and have excellent focus. Many times, once they settle into
their chosen or assigned work, the class becomes very quiet and there is very little need for me to ask
the students to be quiet or redirect their attention to their work.
The first two months have flown by! The children have been working hard learning their letters and their
sounds and some have started building three and four letter phonetic words using the movable
alphabet. I will soon be sending home alphabet cards for you to practice drilling with them. We practice
the names and sounds with these, doing what we call “Flip” to warm up for some of the Montessori
matching pictures to letters work. Now that they have completed their little writing exercise booklets
they are about to start the penmanship print books on the lower and uppercase letters. Encourage them
to draw pictures and print the letters at home. If you have a set of magnetic letters, give them simple
three and four letter phonetic words to try to sound out and place on a white board or your refrigerator!
I have said this many times, but the BEST thing you can do as a parent as these skills begin to blossom is READ to your children every day. Nothing else you do will help them become life-long, engaged readers as will this simple act.
I read aloud several times a day and it is the children who are always asking me to read the book again or read for longer periods of time. It is a good idea to try to use your library as a resource to find books based upon some of the subjects we are studying.
We are continuing the study of mammals, concentrating this month on the largest mammals, whales and elephants, as well as doing simple water experiments to study the environment of the ocean mammals.
Poems for October: Since we are working every day on the poems for All Saints Day the children do not memorize class poems for the month.
I have six simple rules that we recite daily until they know them by heart:
1. Treat everyone with kindness and courtesy.
2. Never talk when the teacher is speaking.
3. Raise your hand to answer or ask a question.
4. Ask permission to use the restroom.
5. Put all work away neatly where it belongs.
6. Always strive to do your best.