Week of March 8

Individual lessons with the Montessori materials continue throughout Choice Time... including the Roman Numeral Hundred Board, the Pythagoras Board, Infinity Street and exponents, Compound Words, and more!

It has also worked well, when I have many resources for a topic, for me to give each child a different resource to explore individually. The students can read separately during their Choice Time and then each share the information they learned from their resource when we come together for the Main Lesson. It's fun, and it helps us to efficiently pool our knowledge.

For the U.S. Geography main lesson block in particular, I am eager to incorporate extra information into our look at the States, Territories, and Tribal Lands that make up the country. Beyond just states & capitals, we are spending time on Housebuilding, Native American Legends, and the Biomes.

Monday, March 8

• Community Building: play "Who's Under the Blanket?" from page 19 of Games Children Play: How Games and Sport Help Children Develop by Kim John Payne
• Early Childhood: learn new songs from The Singing Year by Candy Verney to celebrate early Spring ("Waiting for Leaves" CD track 3, "Wake Up!" CD track 5), read "Small Cloud" from page 36 of Tell Me a Story, find little green leaves on the azalea bush, discover yellow crocuses under the dogwood tree and sketch them, put handfuls of rabbit fur in trees and bushes around the yard for the nesting birds, work on Bird Nest Sculpture, make bundles of nature treasures and tie them from long pieces of yarn from the tree to decorate the bird nest area (fun with knot tying), look at our baby arugula seedlings which have already germinated!
• Lower Elementary: read excerpts about the Lewis & Clark Expedition from pages 36-39 of Book of the New American Nation, read Sacagawea chapter from 50 Fearless Women Who Made American History by Jenifer Bazzit, look at Sacagawea dollar, add her to MLB
• Upper Elementary: look at North America Biome Puzzle from Waseca Biomes, color North America Biome Puzzle Blackline which is available as a free PDF from their website, add map to orange binders, read We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (2021 Caldecott winner)

Tuesday, March 9

• Community Building: play improv games at the end of the day ("Shrinking Box")
• EC: make Balloon String Art Decorations to stuff with raw sheep wool and hang for the birds to use as nesting material, read "Little Cloud" from page 169 of Tell Me Another Story and make animal shapes with clean carded wool, look at photo of adorable newborn lamb triplets (from my brother's sheep, Mary), sensory play in the mud kitchen with hot water and biodegradable starch packing peanuts
our mixture for the Balloon String Art was 4 oz. tacky glue, 1/2 cup cornstarch, and 1/4 cup warm water

it worked best to make them as follows:

blow up balloon, write your initials on it with Sharpie, spray it with Pam

clip balloon to clothesline with a clothespin

saturate a small rolled ball (1 inch diameter) of crochet cotton in mixture

have a partner hold the balloon while you wrap the saturated string around it decoratively, dipping the ball of cotton string into the mixture as needed to wet the next portion of it

clip the balloon back up to the clothesline to dry

it does NOT work to try to put the string on the balloon while it is still hanging up; it does NOT work to unroll the ball of string before soaking it; it does NOT work to hold your own oiled balloon with one hand while you try to wrap it with the other

• Handwork: read A Hat for Mrs. Goldman: A Story About Knitting and Love by Michelle Edwards, choose yarn colors, cast on 10 stitches and begin to knit Star Gnomes
• LE: look at examples of U.S. coins (bicentennial quarter, Eisenhower bicentennial dollar, Kennedy bicentennial half dollar, Jefferson dollar, Susan B. Anthony dollar), read Marching with Aunt Susan: Susan B. Anthony and the Fight for Women's Suffrage by Claire Rudolf Murphy
• UE: individual reading & group sharing of 3 resources (Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joosse, The Polar Bear Son: An Inuit Tale retold by Lydia Dabcovich, The Raven and the Loon retold by Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley), take notes on the Polar biome of N. America, set up Polar biome scene with white silks, white wool, and my handcarved Ostheimer polar bear

Wednesday, March 10

• Routines: go over fire drill and severe weather procedures
• EC: fill the finished string balls with wool and hang them in trees and bushes, explain how woodpeckers make their nest, add "Woodpecker" from Rhythms on Parade by Hap Palmer to Circle Time and play along to the song with our rhythm sticks, read It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw, color pieces of white cardstock with block beeswax crayons to be blue sky and make mirror-image shaving cream prints (what does your cloud look like?)
• Philosophy: read Socks for Supper by Jack Kent and introduce new topic: Responsibility
• LE: review Susan B. Anthony and add her to MLB, individual reading & group sharing of 4 resources (Freedom in Congo Square and BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky, Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome), read Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman, discuss the new design of the $20.00 bill with Harriet Tubman on it
• UE: discuss "Seward's Folly" and the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for 7.2 million dollars (2 cents an acre), individual reading & group sharing of 2 resources (Polar set of North America Biome Cards from Waseca Biomes, Building an Ingloo by Ulli Steltzer), read Houses of Snow, Skin, and Bones by Bonnie Shemie, trace maps of Alaska using tracing paper and Ready-to-Use Outline Maps of the U.S. States and Regions, recall We Are Water Protectors and discuss conflicts over natural resources (logging in the Tongass National Forest, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Dakota Access Pipeline fight)
  background information:

  Trump to Strip Protections from Tongass National Forest, One of the Biggest Intact Temperate Rainforests
  The Washington Post - October 28, 2020

  
  Trump Rushes To Lock In Oil Drilling In Arctic Wildlife Refuge Before Biden's Term
  NPR - December 3, 2020

  Major Oil Companies Take A Pass On Controversial Lease Sale In Arctic Refuge
  NPR - January 6, 2021

  
  Key Moments In The Dakota Access Pipeline Fight
  NPR - February 22, 2017

  Treaties Still Matter: The Dakota Access Pipeline
  Smithsonian Institution
  National Museum of the American Indian

  we also looked at maps to see the pipeline's route (North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois) and talked about the current pressure on President Biden to shut the pipeline down

Thursday, March 11

• EC: look at our daffodils which have begun to bloom, read "A Flower to Be Found" from page 17 of Tell Me Another Story, find matches in Match a Pair of Birds, work on collaborative fort with the whole school
• LE: review Harriet Tubman and add her to MLB, read Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children by Jonah Winter
• UE: review Alaska, look up additional facts about Alaska in The United States of America: A State-by-State Guide by Millie Miller and Cindy Nelson, add map of AK and facts to binder, begin individual Hawai'i reading assignments for group sharing on Monday (Lydia and the Island Kingdom: A Story Based on the Real Life of Princess Lili'uokalani of Hawai'i by Joan Holub, Beyond 'Ōhi'a Valley: Adventures in a Hawaiian Rainforest by Lisa Matsumoto, Hawaiian Myths of Earth, Sea, and Sky retold by Vivian Laubach Thompson)
• LE/UE: play Bird Bingo together
• Care Packages: because there is no school on Friday, each child received a chapter book to borrow and a set of Knot Tying Cards with Mini Carabiner to keep (have fun!)

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