This week we are starting music appreciation in The Children’s House! We will be starting by learning about some of the different dynamics in music – this is the variation of loudness of the piece of music – the 2 basic dynamics are piano (soft) and forte (loud). Then during the week we will be doing some breathing exercises using our diaphragms while sitting/standing up straight, looking at what music notes look like when written down, learning how to use the Montessori bells to play melodies, listening to different composers’ works and exploring the families of the orchestra!! We would like to invite any family member who is free, to come in and play some music with us during the week as part of our music appreciation activities.

Elsie The Elephant

Elsie is an elephant who wants to play,
She is musical and big and grey,
She is good at singing mi, re, do,
That’s why the little children love her so!

After the great success of science week last week, we will be continuing on to do a healthy eating theme this week at The Children’s House – we will start off the week with a discussion with the children on why they might think it’s important to eat healthily, and continuing from there to look at the food pyramid. After this we will introduce practical activities such as matching sample jars of food to the food pyramid, art activities, and sugar experiments, as well as doing some healthy cooking of soup!

Happily We Eat Our Food

Happily we eat our food,
Eat our food, eat our food,
Happily we eat our food,
To grow up big and strong!

Happily we drink our milk…

Happily we eat our fruit…

Happily we eat our vegetables…

Happily we eat our meat…

Happily we eat our beans…

Happily we eat our bread…

Happily we eat our cereal…

This week at The Children’s House we will be doing a LOT of science!! We’ll be carrying out experiments throughout the week – from using a weighing scales to illustrate heavy vs light; to making ‘explosions’ using vinegar & baking soda; demonstrating how different liquids have different densities using honey, water, oil, which will sit in layers; making ‘goop’ – mixing cornstarch with water to show how a mixture can have the properties of a solid or a liquid depending on the pressure exerted on it; using a handboiler to show how liquids turn into gas with heat….it’s going to be a lot of fun!! We will also be discussing the importance of ‘observations’ i.e. what actually happens during an experiment as opposed to what we think will happen. Children are born with a natural curiousity about how things work in their world and they love to experiment and discover in their environment – their questions should be encouraged as their potential as scientists is unlimited!!

We are continuing to learn Lámh sign language after the huge success we’ve had since before Christmas, so this week your children are learnnig how to sign the song ‘5 Little Monkeys’!

5 Little Monkeys

5 little monkeys jumping on the bed,
1 fell off & bumped his head!
Mammy rang the doctor and the doctor said –
‘No more monkeys jumping on the bed!!’

4 little monkeys…

3 little monkeys…

2 little monkeys…

1 little monkey…

Welcome back everyone and a very happy new year to you all!! We hope you had a wonderful time over the last couple of weeks; we’re really happy to see you all again and be back in Montessori! This week we will be talking about how we celebrated Christmas and our favourite things that we did over the break, as well as discussing the new year of 2018 and month of January. It is a good time to revisit and assess gross motor skills and independence skills with the children, and encourage them to do as much as possible for themselves e.g. button their own coats, pour their own water at snack time – things that can all be reinforced at home, and which will develop hand-eye coordination as well as confidence in their ability to be independent.

Happy New Year Chant

Happy new year – hop, hop, hop,
Happy new year – stop, stop, stop,
Happy new year – jump, jump, jump,
Happy new year – stomp, stomp, stomp.
Happy new year – touch your nose,
Happy new year – touch your toes,
Happy new year – turn around,
Happy new year – now sit down!