Over the past month across WorldSong Schools, children soaked up knowledge about USA, celebrated Mothers’ day, the beginning of Summer and held the annual Spring Tea event! As part of WSS’s Cultural Studies program the children explore a new country every few months, giving time for in-depth exploration. Each classroom is different and much of the activities are lead by children’s interests and ideas.
Toddlers visiting Petco on a warm day!
In some toddler classrooms children have been looking at different states in the US, identifying their names and location on the US map and globe ball! Early exposure to maps and places helps build interest in Geography for the future. The children have also been practicing pouring with teapots and teacups; this activity helps strengthen fine motor skills at an early age. While they serve “tea” they also practice polite conversation, serving others and sharing as part of the Montessori grace and courtesy curriculum. The children have long awaited the season of Summer! They jumped right into it and learned about the warm weather and what kind of changes occur in people’s clothing, activities and nature when the weather changes. Some of the younger toddlers looked at sensory boxes with grains, scoops and funnels and dug for alphabet letters hidden inside the boxes while identifying them too!
Inserting buttons, practicing fine motor skills!
Our Preschool classrooms have been super busy learning about USA, plants, and marine life! In one of our classrooms children started with American women week with a focus on first women, including suffragettes, pilots, leaders in African American communities, and leaders in human rights/healthcare! We also talked about Pride as June is Pride month, mostly through art and books followed by class discussions. Books included King and King, I Am Jazz and This day in June. These are all good ways to teach about advocacy and peace. Additionally, children have been building on their curiosity of anatomy by studying various skeletal structures, including humans, frogs, and giraffes!
Looking at some skeletal structures!
Moreover in other classrooms children learned the names and importance of some some famous places around USA and pasted mini photos of these on a USA wall map! Some children also shared photos of themselves in known places and we then used the photos as a language work to draw and write! Children love writing about their friend’s or their own families, using personal pictures is a great motivation for writing and drawing! The children are also learning about American Dollars! They were introduced to a pairs “Shop” work where one child is a shopkeeper and the other a customer and they buy and sell items! The children learned to look at a key to figure out Cents vs Dollars.
Moreover, the children have been working on an exciting engineering project called the Marble run! Children first discussed how various vehicles and things roll down tunnels. They watched a video on creating tracks and talked some more about how things move, roll or are pushed. The children concluded with all the information; we will start from the bottom to have a solid foundation. The teachers and children created a plan and started building!
Our plan and design
First day of building
2nd day!
Lastly, children made Paletas- Mexican ice pops during cooking class, visited sprinklers to cool off and the library for some reading time, attended a truck show and hosted the Annual spring tea! At the spring tea, children performed songs from our American Cultural Heritage book for parents and families and served some cookies and tea while families picnicked at the park! And to top it off, we released our classroom butterflies, whose lifecycle the children were studying and observing in the classroom!
Serving tea to the grown ups!
Happy picnicking!
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