What We Were Up To: February

I didn't take that many photos in February. My camera wasn't working great, and we were just busy and I didn't take the time to get the camera to take photos. Anyway, here are some of the things that we did.

This student is actuallyusing a straberry huller to transfer the roses onto the paint palette. The box was from a small box of chocolates. I got the idea for this activity last year from My Montessori Journey.

Making Art with foam art stickers, heart doilies, glue, crayons, and markers.

Making a bracelet out of beads and pink chenille stems.

Cutting out hearts. The students loved this activity.

Jelly Bean painting flowers with watercolors

Helper painting flowers with watercolors

Valentine's Day Party

I will be the first one to admit that I don't love celebrating Valentine's Day at Montgomery Academy. It sort of drives me crazy that Valentine's Day now seems to be second in the holidays for amount of candy that my children receive. And it doesn't matter what I seem to decide about passing out valentines, it just always turns into a big free-free-all, and well, it just bothers me. But the children REALLY enjoy it, so I continue to do it. I also knew that having a Valentine's Party was something that the homeschoolers enjoyed about public school, so I wanted to have a party for them. So we had our party on Friday, February 12th. We also celebrated Chinese New Year.

Making Valentine bags

More bag making. A couple of the moms
were able to join us - which is always
fun for us (especially their children!)

Flower helping Little Boy
decorate his bag

We made Chinese lanterns

and did some Valentine coloring sheets

(the homeschoolers did the Valentine mancalas)

and we did an "I love you because . . ." sheet

for all the mommies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

What We Are Up To: Preschool - First Week of February

It isn't uncommon to see a little dancing during work time

And it usually makes me smile to see it

Our masks that we used while reading The Mitten.
I printed these off of Jan Brett's website a few years ago.

Tonging "snowballs"

I got this Snowman Pre-Writing sheet from

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Looking at a Dover Sticker book about

Flowers

Working on Opening/Closing

Even though most of the students are

around 4 years old, this activity is always

popular. I switch the containers occassionally,

but it is generally out on the shelves.

Working with the Nature Box.

I put a collection of shells in at the beginning

of February. We don't live by the beach

and it is still definitely cold and snowy

here, but I thought it would be nice

to have something to remind us of the sun.

Painting with red paint at the easel.

Using hearts instead of spindles

Sorting by Color

Our Schedule - February 9 - 13th, 2009

Preschool

Number of the Month: 5
Shape of the Month: Pentagon
Nursery Rhyme of the Month: The Queen of Hearts
Letter of the Week: Z

Theme: President's Day/Dental Month/Hearts

Art: At the sensory/art table, we have pink play-doh and heart cookie cutters. At the easel, we have dot-paints and painting with q-tips. On the art shelf, we have heart punching, heart tracing, president coloring sheets, and penny rubbing

Practical Life: Pouring work has pink & purple rubber star balls, and we have roses in the tonging work, and pink and red pom-poms for the spooning work. A tooth brushing activity has also been added.

Sensorial: We have fabric matching out this month, as well as all of the other activities.

Language: On the language shelf, heart matching has been added.

Writing: The pentagon metal inset is featured this month, and we are working on writing "heart."

Science: We are talking about penguins and ice.

Math: On the math shelf, a heart counting activity has been added, and a bear pattern activity.

Books: The White House, The American Flag, The Pledge of Allegiance, So You Want to Be President, Our Abe Lincoln, Just Going to The Dentist, Tooth Trouble, Andrew's Loose Tooth, The Tomten, Be My Valentine, and The Valentine Bears.

What we were up to - February 2nd - 6th, 2009

Drawing with colored pencils

Gluing hearts

Working with the dominoes

Doing the necklace work

Doing the shape sorter - we use this to match and talk about the various shapes

Things on the Shelves - February 2nd - 6th, 2009

One of the books we are reading this week - The Little Snowflake

On the art shelf - heart tracing

On the practical life shelf - pouring with colored spiky balls

On the practical life shelf - spooning

On the practical life shelf - tonging

On the math shelf - counting (printed from this website)

Our Schedule - February 2 through February 6

Preschool

Number of the Month: 5
Shape of the Month: Pentagon
Nursery Rhyme of the Month: The Queen of Hearts

Letter of the Week: U

Theme: Snow/Snowflake/Snowman and Hearts

Art: At the sensory/art table, we have pink play-doh and heart play-doh, and marble painting. At the easel, we have dot-paints and painting with q-tips, and on the art shelf, we have heart punching, doily hearts, and heart tracing.

Practical Life: We still have our necklace work, the pouring work has changed to pink & purple rubber star balls, and we have roses in the tonging work, and pink and red pom-poms for the spooning work.

Sensorial: We have fabric matching out this month, as well as all of the other activities.

Language: On the language shelf, heart matching has been added.

Writing: The pentagon metal inset is featured this month, and we are working on writing "heart."

Science: We are still working on fish and seeds.

Math: On the math shelf, a heart counting activity has been added.

Books: The Little Snowflake, Millions of Snowflakes, The Owl Moon, Bright Snow, White Snow

3rd Grade

Math: Math-U-See Beta unit 18
Reading: Meet Kaya and Kaya's Short Story Collection
Writing: Working on a story to enter in the state Young Author's contest
Spelling/Vocabulary: from Kaya's Short Story Collection
Botany: The Lily Family
Zoology: Groundhog
Geography: Map Skills and Kentucky
Culture: Usborne Internet-linked Peoples and the quicklinks with it
History: American History (1760s)
M is for Music, R is for Rhyme, M is for Masterpiece: Letter J
Music: Recorder - Work on new song
Art: Matisse
Practical Life: Sewing lesson on Tuesday