Bi-weekly highlights
Happy Earth Day Mulberry families!!!!!!
Over the centuries we have mercilessly utilized and depleted the Earth’s resources. Our sheer ignorance has begun to cause severe problems like depletion of the Ozone layers, death of rivers due to dumping of industrial waste, global warming etc. In our quest for industrialization heavy amount of deforestation took place. This has harmed the Earth’s environment. The ice at the poles has started to melt due to rise in Earth’s temperature. This is an ominous sign of what is to come. We have dug quite a huge pit for ourselves already, but we can still get out of it. So, days like the Earth day remind us to be caring and loving to the Earth. We are planting this seed of awareness at this young age by our actions.
Our hands remembers to turn off lights, recycles cans and bottles, planted a tree, shuts off dripping faucets, picks up garbage, use both sides of the paper. Throughout this week we have been discussing about three R’s. Children pick up and learn quickly from us. Are you practicing and implementing these three R’s?
The Geometry Cabinet is part of the Sensorial area of the Primary Montessori classroom. It is used to further develop the child's visual sense in the discrimination of shape/form. This material is a wooden cabinet with six drawers that contain plane, or two dimensional, geometric shapes.
In geography we are visiting South America, which is the fourth largest continent in the world. Did you know that Brazil is larger than China and slightly smaller than the USA? Also it is the home of world’s second longest river Amazon. While South America's rain forests are some of the wettest places on the earth, the Atacama desert in Chile is considered the driest place on earth. The world's longest mountain range in the world is the Andes Mountains, located in South America.
Birds are warm-blooded vertebrates (vertebrates have backbones) lay eggs and are the only animals with feathers. Although all birds have wings, a few species can't fly.
Feathers are made of keratin. This is the same stuff that fingernails are made of. Birds fly by flapping their wings and using air pressure to create lift under their wings. Just like airplanes do. The peregrine falcon is one of the fastest birds. It can reach speeds of well over 100 miles per hour when diving. Hollow bones also help in flying because they help make the bird light enough to fly.
Although an important characteristic of most birds is flying, not all birds’ flies. Some birds that don't fly are penguins, kiwis, and ostriches. Penguins spend a good portion of time in the water where they are prolific swimmers. Ostriches on the other hand are very fast runners. An ostrich can outrun a horse!