The children will learn how to use “please”, thank you”, and “you’re welcome appropriately.  This lesson falls under Montessori’s grace and courtesy area of the practical life curriculum.  Children can become more aware of the world around them by learning and practicing social graces.

 The first two Cylinder Blocks will be presented to the class.  Both are considered visual activities within the sensorial curriculum.  Cylinder Block 1 will focus on increasing the diameter from thin to thick while the height remains constant.  Cylinder Block 2 will focus on the diameter decreasing from thick to thin and the height decreasing from tall to short.

 Sound Bags and Sandpaper Letters will be introduced this week.  The Sound Bags are small drawstring bags containing four small objects to assist in introducing and practicing phonetic sounds of the alphabet.  We have twenty-six bags, one for each letter of the alphabet, with the letter affixed to the front of each bag.  The color of the letters corresponds to our Movable Alphabet, consonants in red and vowels in blue.  Our Sandpaper Letters will be presented simultaneously with their corresponding Sound Bag.  When presenting the Sandpaper Letters, the sounds are used and not the names of the letters.  This helps strengthen the sound-symbol association.

The class will be introduced to the Sandpaper Numbers 0-9.  They are made from black sandpaper and mounted on smooth, green, wooden cards.  By working with them, the children will discover the numeric symbols representing the names and quantities of 0-9.

This week we will begin classifying items as living or non-living.  This study will begin with items and plants in our classroom and combine them with pictures of items.