Week 3 Day 5

Book choices for today:

Different Hats   Eileen Spinell
Color   Harry Deronshire
Mirror   Annie Baker
The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse   Eric Carle
Artist to Artist   Eric Carle
I Am the Artist   Dawn Anderson
Masterpiece Mix   Roxie Munro

Geography: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Sphere from Geometric Solids, Continent Globe, Hemisphere Map (Montessori Materials), play dough model earth*, samples of maps, and 2 sets of cardinal direction cards.

Take Note!

Make a model earth using blue play dough. Add brown play dough to make land form shapes around globe to represent continents. You can use a globe to get as close as possible to representing the continents, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect.

Geography 5

Boys and girls, what do we call this shape? A sphere. What do you think we call the shape of our globe? A sphere is kind of hard and big to carry around. I can’t fit it into my pocket. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was flat and I could fold it up and then put it into my pocket.

A long time ago, people thought about that same thing and found away to make a flat model of our earth. This is how they did it. Let’s pretend this play dough model is the Continent Globe. I will cut it in half (cut play dough earth in half).  Now I have two pieces. Let’s put ½ here and the other ½ here. Next we will push them each down flat. So now I have a flat ½ sphere here and a flat ½ a sphere here.

When we have a flat model of our earth we call it a map. It was a sphere shape when we started but now it is not. We call ½ of a sphere a Hemisphere. Can you say “Hemisphere?”

So we have a map showing the 2 hemispheres of our earth. This is our Hemisphere Map (show Hemisphere Map). Half of the globe is here and the other half of the globe is here. Lots of people have made flat maps. Show examples.

Point out the compass rose. This is a set of cards labeled with the directions we see on the compass rose. North, South , East, and West. These directions help people to know which way they are facing or traveling if using the map. We will place them in our classroom so we know which way is North and which way faces South. (Play a game by holding up one at a time from the 2nd set and have children turn and point in that direction during other Circle Times.)

Hemisphere Map Lesson

Additional Works:

Felt Board Continent Map -I made a felt board continent work. If you do not have a felt board take a piece of blue felt and glue it onto thin board. I then cut out felt pieces of each continent and made labels. Stick a small piece of Velcro to the back of all pieces.

Hemisphere Pin Punching Maps – This is a nice work, found in Montessori Schools. Children can make their own Hemisphere Map by pin punching or poking out each continent.

Take Note!

Need each of the following colors for the continents: orange, pink, green, red, yellow, brown, and white. A large push pin, pencil, plastic or wooden circle (montessorioutlet.com), blue paper, small labels with each continent name,and the Montessori Hemisphere Map. Children trace around each of the continents and then pin punch them out. When they have finished with all the continent pieces, they can then trace 2 of the circle pieces on the blue paper and cut out. They can then begin to glue their map together.

Earth Necklaces – Hemisphere map color sheet (montessoriprintables.com) can be colored and cut out. Children can then put glue all around outer edge of the back side of one of the pieces. Place cotton inside the center and glue together. Using a hole punch make one hole top of earth. String a piece of ribbon through hole and tie.

Felt Board Continent Map
Hemisphere Map
Hemisphere Map

This shows a child in the process of completing the map. Notice the South America label. I made a color coded label for each continent. Children copy the words onto their map to name the continents.

Hemisphere Map
Earth Necklaces (coloring exercise)

Artist of the Month: (second circle)

Each month we will look at a one or more famous artist. I begin the Famous Artist lessons using Child-Size Masterpieces by Aline Wolf. For the remainder of this month choose the days that would work best for the children and you. In the Art area of the classroom, simple pasting, cutting, painting, and collage works are on the shelf at this time. Art details such as patterns and lines are talked about at a different time during the year.

Need for Lesson – Famous Artist Set or other art pictures.

Lesson 1) Matching Paintings
Lesson 2) Similar Works/Same Artist

Art 1

Today we are going to look at some matching cards. They are picture cards of real paintings that an artist painted many many years ago. They are from the past. What does that mean from the past? It means from a time long ago, in the past. When we learn about things that have already happened, we call it History. Can you say History? Famous artist are a part of History.

Things that are happening now, are called in the present. Today is the present. The future is a time that hasn’t happened yet, like tomorrow, or your next birthday, that is in the future, it hasn’t happened yet.

We are going to look at some paintings and match them. (Demonstrate matching card set Step 1-Level 1)
Our next set of cards are paintings from the same artist but not the same picture. Let’s see if we can figure out which paintings are similar, so we can identify the artist and match their paintings. They are not going to be the same, but they will be similar in perhaps color, style, or subject. (Present next card set, and talk about how the paintings look similar.)

We have learned many things from our two card sets. These are pictures of real paintings that an artist painted a very long time ago, in the past. The past is from long ago. Actually, we can say that yesterday is in the past, it has already happened! What is the name for what is happening now, like today? What about the name of things that haven’t happened yet?

Artist Folders

Song (CD) choices for today:

Big Beautiful Planet   Raffi
Greetings World   Our Earth
I Can Be An Artist   Mr. I & Gary

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