Busy as bees: the Mount Madonna School (MMS) kindergarten classroom is a-buzz with engaged learning, friendships and creativity. In recent days, kindergarteners have begun their handmade “1, 2, 3” books and enjoyed baking bread together, forming one piece of bread dough into the number one, and another into a shape of each student’s choice.
These eager learners have also
started working on “Form Drawing and Sound” books, where they practice writing different forms that emerge from a story. This week the story of “Peter Rabbit,” for example, came alive as students practiced drawing the “form” of Peter Rabbit’s jump across their page. The forms that kindergartners are learning are the building blocks of the letters in the alphabet.
Students were introduced to the shape of a triangle for their metal inset lesson; continued to work in their drawing journals, on Montessori math lessons and delighted in watching the story of “The Little Red Hen” come to life as it was acted out with woolen puppets for story circle.
Science and the natural world continue to fascinate and feed students’ curious minds: they explored the plants growing in their classroom garden, including tasting samples of mint, lemon balm and rose geranium, as they admired the little pumpkin that grew in their garden over the summer.
Students helped to harvest mint and lemon balm to be used for brewing some delicious sun tea for snack time and planted snapdragons to grow over the winter. They were introduced to their garden worm bin, and teacher Hema Walker read them a story about the role of beneficial insects in an organic garden.
“The children learned that worms play a vital role in creating healthy garden soil,” said Walker. “They delighted in exploring the inside of the worm bin and holding the worms. They observed what they eat ﹘ class food scraps ﹘ and the rich worm castings that they leave behind to nurture our garden.”
Together the class celebrated the graceful and useful end of summer beauty ﹘ the sunflower ﹘ through stories and art. Students observed different kinds and colors of sunflowers and at the art table each student cut out, painted and glued together their own unique sunflower.
This “happy hive” of learning expanded, as kindergarten students were introduced to their own fifth grade big buddies. The children, big and little, were charmed as they got to know their buddy reading stories, playing games together and outdoor fun.
