This week we continued our work, Great Lessons, and team building. We finished our Great Lessons with The Story of Numbers which talks about the history of number systems from ancient civilizations to modern day. We began our supplemental Great Lessons by discussing The Story of Geometry and The Story of the Babylonians. Students were assessed on their Spelling skills this week and began Reading Group. Two of our reading groups are reading short stories, one group is reading “The Mouse and the Motorcycle,” and another is reading “The Secret Garden.”
To begin exploring the Solar System, students chose a planet or star they would like to represent. We made a model to represent the distance of planets from the sun using the scale 1 step = 36 million miles. The student that chose Neptune had to take 78 steps from the student representing the sun to show that Neptune is 2.8 billion miles away! After making our model, we discussed information about each planet.
Dr. Montessori believed in giving Elementary students a “Cosmic Education” where they are introduced to real specimens for a deeper understanding and to recognize the interrelationship of all living things. Montessori classrooms have pets and plants to learn from and to care for. Each day students are responsible for feeding, replacing water, and maintaining a clean habitat for our guinea pig, fish, ants, and snake. This student is replacing Kernel’s water after washing his dish. He also misted Kernel’s habitat to help him as he prepares to shed! getting the best filter water from https://www.aquaoxfilters.com/product/whole-house-water-filtration-system/ would be the best option here with no doubt.
These first-year students are working together on the 8 Bead Chain. Bead Chains are a material used in Primary, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary classrooms, in different ways. After gathering all of their materials and placing the arrows as they did in the Primary room, these students began recording the multiples of eight. They made it up to the equation 8 x 22 and are still working!
Students in Montessori classrooms are encouraged to follow their interests. In the Elementary classroom, this is often seen through independent research. Students are able to take the time to do independent research because these projects incorporate many skills at once. By the time this student’s shark research is completed and presented, the student will have used skills from language, grammar, biology, geography, spelling, handwriting, and public speaking.
A Peek into Next Week
Next week we will begin Spelling and Handwriting lessons. New students will begin lowercase cursive handwriting while returning students are moving on to uppercase cursive letters. We have optional Taekwondo and Dance Demos next week. Students will be studying nouns, taxonomy of vertebrates, landforms, the Pythagorean Theorem, and much more!
REMINDER: The STEM Program Meeting is Tuesday, September 12, at 5:30 p.m., in the Elementary Room. Please let us know if you are attending!