Mrs. Kirk is a Graduate

In December, I attended my graduation at Lander University. I am so excited to have my Master's Degree in Montessori! Below is a picture of me and my mentor, Ms. Ervin.

Vegemite

As part of our Australia unit last semester, we all tried Vegemite from Australia. We also sampled some ginger soda from Down Under. We enjoyed the experience, but as you can tell from our faces, most of us didn't like it at all!

South Carolina State Museum

My family and I went to the SC State Museum on Sunday. It was awesome! It's only $1 admission the first Sunday of the month. It was great for Harrison because there were so many things there that directly related to what we've been doing in class. I highly recommend it as a family road trip destination.

Sydney the Tasmanian Devil

Sydney the Tasmanian Devil arrived in our classroom the other day. We were all so excited! She will be coming to visit everyone soon. Keep an eye out for a schedule of when Sydney will be coming to your house.

For more information on Sydney and why she is in our class, click here.

December Family Project

For the December family project, I would like you and your child to research a holiday tradition from another country. Your child may choose any country they wish other than the United States. Please have your child make a half sized poster with a few facts and pictures about the tradition. They will be presenting this project to the class. This is due on December 18.

For more information about traditions in other parts of the world, please visit this website. You may find your information from other places of course, but this may steer you in the right direction.

We are the World

I'm sorry I haven't blogged much recently. It's been a crazy month and a half. Well this touched my heart so much yesterday, I had to write about it on here immediatly

In leiu of a Christmas gift for our class, Carmen and I are doing a donation to the World Wildlife Fund. We figured it would be more meaningful to them than any Dollar Store knick knack we could find. What's neat is when you do these donations, they send a certificate, a fact sheet, and a stuffed animal. Not only do we get the satisfaction of knowing we're helping an animal in need, but we get a really cool classroom mascot.

Well we decided we'd help an animal from Australia because we've been researching animals from Australia. And as we were looking at the animals that were available to adopt, we'd quickly look up their conservation status. Basically some animals are a little endangered, and some are a lot endangered.

After getting a list of about 8 animals, some Australia land animals and some coral reef animals, we voted.

The class didn't choose the cutest or most popular. By an overwhelming vote of 25, they chose the animal the most in need of our help. The one with the highest conservation status.

This Christmas we are adopting the Tasmanian Devil.

If you are interested in the work of the World Wildlife Fund (seriously, A LOT of kids were saying they want Santa Claus to do this), please click this link.

First Year Language Lessons

The first years are all working on different phonics patterns. However, many of them are learning the same grammar and word study lessons.

Many of the first years are working with nouns. They are matching objects to cards that identify the noun as a person, place, thing, or animal. We are also making a paper pyramid just like the symbol we use for nouns. 

She is working with the grammar farm. She is labeling nouns on the farm and will write them in her journal.

Many of the first years are also working on compound words. We have learned that compound words are two root words put together to make a new word.

 

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He is putting root words together to make a new word. Then he draws a picture to go with the new word. Soon we will be putting together root words without picture cues.