The World As We Know It
In March we combined our class’ interest in maps and their interest in space.
We learned that our school is in the Milky Way Galaxy, in a solar system, on the planet Earth, on the continent of North America, in the nation of the United States of America, in the state of North Carolina, in the town of Carrboro. Since so many Montessori works demonstrate the concept of largest to smallest, this is not a difficult concept though it is quite a bit of information.
During solar system week, we read several books about the planets that accompany Earth in revolving around our sun. Everyone has a favorite planet and for weeks after, solar systems were constructed with most of the materials in our classroom. The rest of the month we learned about individual continents, finding them on the globe, maps and atlases
. We studied Africa and South America. We took one special day to learn about Ireland, listen to Irish music and read an Irish folk tale and nonsense rhymes. For the other continents, we read one true story about a famous person and one made up or pretend story. For Africa we read about Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Mathaai ; for South America we read about Nobel Literature Prize winner Pablo Neruda. One of our classmates also hails from Chile. On the days we read true stories, we told true stories about our days during circle time. On the days we read made up stories, we told made up stories about our days during circle time. Dinosaurs joining our families for breakfast was a popular theme.
Category: Preschool Room 1
