Dear ELC Families,
Kindness Counts. Nice Matters. Do Good Things.
These are the themes in the ELC during the month of February.
Sharing, making friends, paying attention, expressing emotions and dealing with challenges successfully are critical to lifelong learning, success and happiness. Current research regarding social skill development in early childhood has shown that a strong social and emotional foundation helps boost children's learning and academic performance. When children are able to manage their emotions, get along with others and persevere through challenges, their minds are free to concentrate on learning new things from parents, teachers and peers.
Research also shows that children who enter kindergarten with good social and emotional skills may be more likely to attend college, earn a degree, and enjoy stable employment prospects later in life. Also, strong social and emotional skills at kindergarten entry help to lower children's risk of mental health problems in adulthood.
Social-emotional skills can be taught. The ELC classrooms provide the children opportunities to learn from peers which has strong effects on academic, interpersonal and social development. Everyday, children are naming and discussing emotions, reading books with social emotional themes, talking about right and wrong, identifying good choices, encouraging saying please and thank you, and showing ways to help each other.
Thank you for sharing your children with us,
-Catherine
Catherine Bailey
Director of Early Learning
(904)827-2835
VP: (904)824-4540
What we've been working on...
In Montessori, Math is incorporated into all curriculum areas in the classroom. Practical life, sensorial, language, science, culture, and more specifically indicates the groundwork for the student’s work in math.
Presenting numbers in Montessori has a step by step instruction to follow:
Introduce the quantity
Introduce the numeric symbol
Associate quantity and symbol
The concept of the quantity is the first lesson to show because it is a simpler concept for the student to understand. The reason behind this is because a child can touch and manipulate counters and items to become concrete representations of the quantity. It shows the amount in front of the child.
The first lesson in Math is the number rods where they explore the quantity first and once they master this lesson, the sandpaper numeral will be shown after to connect the symbol to the quantity. The last step is to associate the quantity and symbol which is a complex task to do.
The Number Rods:
The number rods are based on quantity in sizes and they also alternate colors red and blue to indicate that odd numbers are red and even numbers are blue. This also helps the student see that the segments can see the quantity of each rod that is made of separate units and also a concrete way individual units are joined together to solidify a quantity. The purpose of this activity is for the child to be able to count to ten and see numbers representing a quantity. Once the number cards are presented to match the number rods, this deepens the understanding of the numbers 1 to 10.
The students had a delightful experience in the library with Ms. Joy, creating Valentine's Day hearts to take home to their families. The children had the opportunity to design their own heart shapes, incorporating various tactile elements. Additionally, each student participated in brailling the lettering on their Valentine. A special thank you to Ms. Joy for allowing us to be part of this enjoyable and creative activity!
February 27th, 2025 from 10:00am - 1:30pm
