Field Trip to the Post Office

We took our children to the Post Office. A special word of thanks to our parent volunteers - Varsha, Geeta & Bhavna for helping us out.

Children met the postman & saw him stamping his letters -

They also posted the letters that they had bought along -

Community Helpers

This month, we have been talking about people & their professions like a postman, tailor, carpenter, plumber etc. Montessori believes in hands-on learning rather than picture talk. Hence, we have arranged for some of these community helpers to come to our school & show the children their tools.

Carpenter cutting wood with a saw -

& answering children's queries -

Plumber with his tools -

with the mother toddler group -

A visit to the Post office is next on the cards .Keep watching this space for more!

Merry Christmas 2009

Christmas was celebrated with much fun fare at our school. Children were delighted to have their parents join them in the celebrations.

We listened to the story of Christmas ...

sang Christmas carols ...

& got a gift from Santa!

Thanks everybody for joining us & spreading the joy and cheer of Christmas! Enjoy these pics - http://picasaweb.google.co.in/peacemontessori/Christmas2009?feat=directlink as we take a break & return back to school on 4th Jan 2010.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

Vegetable vendor comes to school

Just as we had called the Fruit vendor during the "Fruits" month, this month ("Vegetables" month) we had the Vegetable vendor come in to sell his veggies to the children. As we have been showing & talking about a new vegetable everyday, the children were familiar with most of the veggies in the vendor's basket & learnt a few more. They had even bought money with them to buy some veggies from the vendor.

First, we decide what to buy -

Then we weigh it -

Then we pay the money & pick up our bag -

Finally, we sit & check if everything is in order -

Sink or Float

This was a fun and informative session discovering objects that sink & objects that float. At first, children just sat & observed what happens -

Very soon, they all wanted to repeat the experiment themselves -

Introduction to phonetics

In our Montessori classroom children learn the phonetic sounds of the letters before they learn the alphabetical names in a sequence. The phonetic sounds are given first because these are the sounds they hear in words that they speak or listen to in their everyday life.

We have already introduced phonetic sounds of the vowels a, e, i, o, u to our children & request parents to practice the same at home. You can play I-spy games with them by placing different objects in front of the child, then saying “I spy something with my eye, something that begins with ‘a’ (Here, instead of saying the alphabet ‘a’, make the sound of ‘a’ as explained below)”.

How to make the sounds?
a for apple - Widen your jaws, then lift your tongue & pull it back while using your voice
e for elf - Let tongue push against lower teeth, open mouth & use your voice
i for igloo - Open mouth slightly, let tongue rest on sides of upper teeth & use your voice
o for ostrich - Open mouth, let tongue lay on the floor of mouth & use your voice
u for umpire - Let tongue lay on floor of mouth with tip against lower teeth, open mouth & use your voice

You can listen to the sounds here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ns8tUIWP0

Here’s a brief word list to get you started –
a as in apple, album, ant, act, axe, acorn, acrobat, alligator, ambulance etc.
e as in elephant, elf, egg, elbow etc.
i as in igloo, ink, inkpot, injection, instruction
o as in ostrich, old, ox, open etc.
u as in umbrella, umpire, under etc.

Once children are familiar with these sounds at the beginning of the word, you can
introduce words which have the sound in the middle of the word e.g. fan, stand, bag, cat etc.

Diwali 2009

Diwali was the perfect occassion to have a get-together for our wonderful children & their parents. Enjoy these moments - http://picasaweb.google.co.in/peacemontessori/Diwali2009?feat=directlink