A Peek at Our Week | Elementary | Week of November 26 - Absorbent Minds Montessori School

“We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself.” – Maria Montessori

We enjoyed being back together this week. This week has been busy with students presenting lessons, students presenting research, students assisting in lesson presentations, and of course, Christmas Show practice! Three of our reading groups have completed the stories they have been working through so far this school year. Our “Rocket Readers” group has completed the book “Tornado” by Betsy Byars. After completing their story, they wrote a research book about tornadoes which included information about what a tornado is, how its severity is tracked, and how to stay safe when one is spotted. They shared this information with our class! The “Six Scoops” group finished reading “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and researched the historical figures mentioned throughout the story. The “Senior Readers” group completed “The One and Only Ivan” and are writing persuasive essays about whether or not animals should be kept in cages.

One of our first year students asked before break if he could present a lesson on tracing to the first and second year students. After break, he worked with me to add his lessons to our schedule and invited children to a lesson, just like we do. He even assigned them follow-up work! Our older friends were so interested they asked him for a lesson, too! It is so wonderful to see our newer students showing their skills to older friends and all our students showing so much respect during the lessons!

This first year student is researching marine reptiles from the Mesozoic Era. She used books to find what the name of her plesiosaur meant, where its fossils were found, what size it was, and why it is so memorable. Our first year students will share their research at Community Meeting Monday.

These second year students are working with our “Prepared Angles.” This work is comprised of task cards that tell students the size of an angle and the length of the angle’s sides. The students then need to measure the angle with a protractor and make sure the sides match the length listed on the cards. This work gives students practice measuring with a protractor and a ruler.

This fourth year student helped me present a lesson about the eye, the ear, and the tooth. Last year as a third grader, she had lessons about the human anatomy and was able to share that information with the current third graders. The third graders will continue to study the human body and build a model of it throughout the year.

“A Peek at Next Week”

Next week, we will begin new novels in our reading groups that finished their books. The second year students will be joining each other in a reading group and will be voting on the book they want to read. The third year students will join our Upper Elementary students in reading “A Fish in a Tree.” Our lower elementary students will write biographies about their peer mentor, will study sentence analysis, and will discuss light and friction. Our Upper Elementary students will study portmanteaus, interjections, density and matter, and decimals.

“We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself.” – Maria Montessori

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