Montessori Curriculum – Cultural & Language

Book choices for today:

Fabulous Fish   Alvin Silverstein
Seahorses   George Twig
Seahorses   Jennifer Curtis
Mister Seahorse   Eric Carle
Secret Seahorse   Stella Blackstone
I Read Signs   Tana Hoban
I Read Symbol   Tana Hoban
Signs   John Searcy
Signs on the Road   Mary Hill
Signs at the Airport  Mary Hill
One Way   Leonard Shortall

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Fish Puzzle and an empty soda bottle filled with water and a packet of ketchup or other condiment inside. Seahorse pictures and/or a book about seahorses, and Parts of a Seahorse.

Zoology 10

What do we know about fish? Fish are vertebrates. Fish live in the water and breathe with gills. They are cold-blooded. What does cold-blooded mean again? We also know that fish swim with the help of fins. If it doesn’t have fins, it is not a fish. What do we call the body shape of a fish? Streamlined.

Now what about baby fish? Well, most fish lay eggs. Do you think the eggs are hard or soft? They are very soft – kind of jelly-like.

Let’s think about how fish move in the water. We said their fins help them to swim. How else do they go up and down? This bottle has a packet of ketchup inside of it. We are going to pretend it is a fish. What happens to the packet when we squeeze the bottle? Air bubbles in the packet make it move up and down. Fish have a special organ inside that works like this packet of ketchup. As the amount of air inside the fish’s organ increases the the fish rises to the surface. As the amount of air in the fish’s organ decreases the fish sinks down into the water.

Demonstrate fish puzzle. Show children how the puzzle pieces can be traced on paper and then they have the outline of the fish to color in.

Look at this picture (picture of a seahorse). Do you think a seahorse is a kind of fish? Let’s decide; Does it have scales, lay eggs, and breathe with gills? They are fish! A seahorse swims upright using their dorsal fins to propel slowly forward. To move up and down, a seahorse adjusts the volume of air inside an air pocket in their body.

Additional Work:

Seahorse Matching – I made these with stickers from DoverPublishing.com

Art:

Seahorse Art – I traced the outline of the seahorse from the book, Mister Seahorse, and children painted them. (Remind children about fictional stories)

Practical Life:

Marbles – Tongs – I found this fish at Target.

Spooning – The  bowls have a seahorse on them.

Geography: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Any transportation work you may have, and Signs Matching.

Geography 13

We have been visiting other states in North America. If we were really going to go to Hawaii, what are some ways we would need to get there? We could fly or go by boat. What do we call it when we go from one place to another? Transportation. There are many ways to move from one place to another. We talked a little bit about transportation in the past when we learned about the parts of a boat, and parts of a car. The way people and goods travel change over time. Goods are things that people use. We may buy them at a store, such as food, clothes, and furniture. Goods are made or grown from different places around the world and they then need to be transported to different places. People and goods travel on land by trucks, trains, buses, or even by bicycle. People and goods travel on water by boats, submarines, or large ships. People and goods also can travel in the air by airplane.

When you are driving in the car, or in a bus what things do you think help people as they drive to know what to do? There are traffic laws, or rules that people follow to help them drive correctly. If everyone follows the rules many cars, buses, truck and even bicycles can get use the roads safely. What do we see along the road side to help people know what to do? There are signs. Let’s look at some signs and what they mean.

Additional Works:

Transportation Bingo – This game is from coloringpages.com. I colored the pictures and made a Bingo game with card stock paper. I use beads from a craft store for the Bingo markers.

Cars 1-20 – These cards are from kidssoup.com. I have them in a basket with a roll of register tape, scissors, and a pencil. The children lay all the cars out in order across their mat, roll out the tape to length, and write the numerals 1-20 on the tape.

Sign Dominoes – One of the schools I worked at had this set of dominoes.

Practical Life:

Packing/Unpacking a Suitcase – I found this little suitcase at a second hand store. I like it because it is small for the shelf. Inside I put baby clothes and a few other items like a brush, that the children pack and unpack.

Vehicle Scrubbing

Art:

Traffic Lights – Provide a traffic light picture with paint or markers. Have children paint the circles red, yellow, and green in proper order as seen on a traffic light.

Traffic Light Booklet – Children can color the booklets and trace the dotted words. I can’t remember where these are from. It may have been kidssoup.com.

Games:

Red Light Green Light – A nice game for playtime. Pick a child to hold a red and green circle or square shape laminated paper on a dowel. They can hold up one at a time, children across from the child holding dowels run towards him, if they see the ‘green sign’ and stop if they see the ‘red sign’.

Pilot Pilot – Same idea as “Doggie Doggie Where’s your Bone?” game. One child sits in a chair facing outside the circle. Place a small airplane underneath the chair. Choose another child to go take away the plane, and hide it in their lap. After they do this, all say a little poem:

“Pilot Pilot where’s your plane? Someone took it on a trip”.

The child in the chair turns around and tries to guess who took the plane. The child who took the plane now has a turn in the chair and the child who was in the chair now picks the next child to go take the plane.

Song (CD) choices for today:

The Airplane Song   Followng Directions Macmillan
Backseat Driver   Frank Leto
How Do the Fish Swim?   Ballads for the Age of Science