Sorting and more

We explored primary, secondary and tertiary this morning by constructing colour wheels using playdough.  The children started with primary colours, dividing them up into three balls and mixing them to create secondary colours.  Even though most of the students were well versed in how to create secondary colours, like mixing yellow and blue to make green, we still had many ohhhs and ahhhhhs as the playdough magically became new colours.  Making the tertiary colours (mixing of primary and secondary colours together) reminded students there are more than one blue or green.  Just go to the paint store and you can see there are many shades of each colour.  We discovered this on Orange Shirt Day when people said my shirt was more red than orange.....I responded that it was reddy-orange or orangy-red.  While people said Alyssa's shirt was yellow, to which she responded it was a yellowy-orange. 

During Montessori period, children named the planets we created during our First Great Lesson and did some interesting writing about the characteristics of their individual planets.  Since it was a holiday on Monday, our weekly word lists went home today.  On the 1st day of the week the children write them on Montessori paper.  Please look at the above example with your child to see if they are using the lines correctly to help them form their letters.  The lines are on both sides so you can do some extra practice at home.  Remember always start letters at the top and go down. When printing with your children, ask the child where they are going to start when forming letters. 

In math, we have furthered our discussion on characteristics to sorting items in a set.  Today students worked with a variety of manipulatives to sort a set into two groups.  We discussed problem solving ideas if their sorting attribute did not fit into two groups.  For example, Nowellia and Leyah were sorting pom-poms and wanted to sort by colour but there were purple, pink, light pink and white balls. 

1.  pink and not pink
2.  pink and white (put the others that didn't fit (purple) back into the container)
3.  choose a different attribute like big and small that fit into two groups

Talk about sorting at home.  How are things sorted in your kitchen?