April | Cedar

Hello Cedar families, we cannot believe April is about to end. We will finish the school year in just six weeks!

As usual, we had many learnings and activities. Please enjoy the blog!

Africa

Africa, in the Montessori map, is green in color. We learned there are 54 countries and more than 2000 languages spoken in the country. Africa has a rich tradition of arts and crafts. For example, their unique fabric and clothing with energetic and vibrant colors, patterns, and textured textiles. The continent’s climate is diverse, including deserts, rainforests, and savannas, with a variety of animals in each region. We also learned that Northern African people have much lighter skin than other parts of Africa. We explained that people who live closer to the equator area tend to have darker skin color which helps protect their skin from the strong sunlight.

We read an African folk story named “Handa’s Surprise” and did a role-playing activity based on it. Children love the story very much.

Ethiopia

Atsede, one of our sub-teachers gave us a presentation on Ethiopia, in which she was born and grew up. There were 80 languages spoken there, and coffee is famous worldwide. People like to make a big dish and eat together with their right hand. They wrap the food with a pancake-like flatbread called injera. She brought out the flag, scarf, traditional clothes, and wheat-made bun. We also listened to music and danced Ethiopian style–emphasis on neck and shoulder movement.

Reptiles

We learned about the characteristics of reptiles and related animals. We also discussed what it means to be warm-blooded vs. cold-blooded, and learned about the life cycle of the sea turtle. Among many other hands-on activities, such as art, puzzles, and recreating habitats, we did “reptile yoga” by stretching like an alligator, a snake, a turtle, and a lizard. The children had a lot of fun with the different poses!

Flowers

We picked some flowers from the yard and observed each of them carefully to notice their size, shape, colors, and smell. Afterward, we did flower-press work to preserve the flowers for a different appreciation of their beauty. It took weeks to dry the flowers and they came out so flat, dry, and pretty. We also made flower arrangements to decorate our classroom. We learned the parts and functions of a flower and how vital pollination is to create more flower seeds. Overall, we must care for our planet with love.

Earth Day

Every day is Earth Day! To celebrate Earth Day we talked about the different ways that the Earth is important to us and some of the things it offers like a place to live etc. (discussing all would be too much!). We then talked about some of the ways that we could all help to protect the Earth and read a book that offered some examples too. Some of the things we discussed as ways of protecting the Earth were bringing our own bags to the grocery store, turning off the sink when brushing our teeth, turning off the lights to preserve energy, recycling, and so much more!

Readathon

On our Readathon day, Anne Wong the author of “Doubly Happy” visited our ECC campus and read her book. She shared her Chinese culture through different items based on the alphabet, like “b” for Boba tea; “z” for the zodiac. We also got red envelopes with a panda sticker in it.

Sound of the Week–“s”, “t”, “u”

To support our flower study, for the sound of “s”, we made a sunflower field. For “t”, we made tractors with the letter t. For “u”, we made an upside-down peach cake 😉