Casa

Holiday Cheer

This holiday season, the Casa East community wanted to spread some holiday cheer! We practiced singing along to Jingle Bells and even made our own bells to play as we performed for the Under 2 community. All the children had fun showcasing their talents and we wish everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays! (Click to check out the effects!)

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Making Bannock

In Casa East, we read the book, ‘Awasis and the World-Famous Bannock’ by Dallas Hunt and Amanda Strong. We were curious about what Bannock is and how it tastes, so we combined the ingredients, shaped our dough into round biscuits, and Ben baked it. Finally, we got to taste Bannock for ourselves. Yum! (Please click for more photos and information.)

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Practical Life

Through Practical Life experiences, a child perfects their coordination, lengthens their span of concentration, pays more attention to detail, refines the small muscles of their hand, and develops their independence. They also build upon their sense of responsibility through care of their environment and grace and courtesy. (Please click to view the video).

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Skip Counting with Bead Chains

The Bead Chains are found in the Bead Cabinet; two different chains for each number, 1-10. The first chain breaks down the number squared, and the second chain breaks down the number cubed. Accompanying each chain is a square or a cube, respectively. When a child uses the Bead Chains for skip counting, they lay the chain on a mat and use corresponding numbered arrow tags to count out the chain, in multiples of its particular number. (Please click for more information).

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Self-Serving

Self-serving provides many opportunities for learning and growth. It promotes autonomy and problem-solving skills, and develops a sense of how much food to take as well as eat. Using serving utensils and jugs refine fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination. Grace and courtesy skills such as saying “please” and “thank you” or waiting for one’s turn are also developed.

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World Sloth Day

In honour of World Sloth Day, North Casa learned about the habitat, diet, and lifestyle of the sloth in the rainforest and trees of Central and South America. The children cut on a line, placed numbered parts of an image in sequence, glued images on a sloth lifecycle, identified parts of the body, made our own book, read stories and poems, sang songs, and created art. (Please click for lots more information!)

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Practical Life

Practical life materials give young children the opportunity to practice real life tasks by imitating experiences they see in their environment. Their strong desire for repetition helps them to develop and improve refinement of the hand, wrist and arm, independence, concentration, hand eye co-ordination, order of sequence, and fine motor skills, while developing life-long skills. (Please click for more photos and information.)

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Practical Life

Practical Life activities are the foundation of the Montessori environment. These activities allow the children to develop control and coordination of movement, awareness of their environment, orderly thought patterns, independent work habits, responsibility, and many other characteristics which can be attained through spontaneous, purposeful work. (Please click for more information and photos.)

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Division Board

A child in a Montessori class learns mathematical facts by actually performing the operations with concrete materials, such as this division board. Green skittles, which represent the divisor, and the beads, which represent the quantity, are used for simple division. (Please click for more information and the full photos.)

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Summer Theme Days

Our Casa summer program includes various fun themed days. We had two themes and a treat per week. We had themes such as Beach Day, Toronto Sports Team Day, Pajama Day, Soca/Reggae Dance Party, Teddy Bear Picnic Day and Face Paint Day! (Please click for more information.)

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