This week in Readers Workshop the students enjoyed re-telling stories to a partner. They learned to compare their re-telling to ice cream cones, the more scoops the better. Just like retelling, more details the better! Remembering the order of a story, and story details, is key to understanding. Good readers can anticipate the next part of a story, which helps beginning readers to form good guesses about unfamiliar words and advanced readers to learn to read more quickly. In addition, being able to put information in a sequence is also an important part of problem-solving in all subject areas.

For our science this week, the kids were so enthusiastic, learning about sound vibrations. They were able to get their hands on a material to test out vibrations in different types of matter. They investigated what happened when putting a vibrating tuning fork in a bowl of water.

In Writers Workshop we have started a new unit on poetry! The children have learned that poetry is a special type of writing that follows a pattern. To kick off our unit, we started learning about acrostic poems. The children are most familiar with this type of poetry because we do them during our class birthday celebrations. Each child is learning to choose a topic word, brain storm ideas or phrases to fit the topic, and then write their poem.

In addition, the children and I have been working on a song and dance for the past couple of weeks. This song is called “La, La, La, Si.” Encourage your child to teach you or another loved one the song/dance!

This week in Lower Elementary the students started a study on biomes. We learned that biomes are natural areas on Earth where certain types of plants grow and animals live. There are over thirty types of biomes on Earth. We are taking a closer look at nine of those biomes; wetlands, grasslands, oceans, deserts, temperate forests, mountains, tropical forests, and polar regions.

For follow up practice, there is a material called Biome Readers. This work introduces different plant and animal life that are within each biome. The children are loving working together!

The kids are thrilled to be back! The classroom has been buzzing with excitement being back with familiar faces and friends.

Before break, the students began a series of lessons on the study of time. This week, we took a closer look at the year and its parts. These lessons also introduce the concept of equivalent fractions. We took a look at the full year and compared it to one whole. We cut the whole into twelfths, and noticed that the year can be divided into twelve equal parts as well. Each twelfth is called a month. The children also learned about subdivisions of the year; semester, quadrimester,  and trimester.  Each subdivision has a suffix “mester” which means month in Italian!

The children were so excited the past few weeks as the anticipation of sharing their research with their friends and family crept up. They were thrilled to be sharing their projects with their classmates, who they love so deeply. The third-year students had their first official public speaking experience, presenting to their classmates. They were amazing! Although it was optional, some second and first years wanted to present to their peers as well! They were all so brave! All of the children worked diligently and should be very proud of their work, as am I.

I hope everyone has a great spring break! See you in two weeks.

The teaching of grammar is an integral part of the Montessori language curriculum for elementary children. The aims of this work are for the children to learn the parts of speech and to understand the relationships between them. This work also provides practice in reading and writing and enriches the vocabulary of the children. Introductory lessons for each part of speech are given as part of a story; their purpose is to give an impression of the function played by each different part of speech. The children are introduced to grammar symbols for each part. Lessons are followed up with work which is a tool for the children to explore the parts of speech. The first years are learning about adjectives, second years are learning about the verb family, and the third years are learning about interjections.

We have been hard at work completing our research projects! Next Thursday, the third years will present their projects to the class. Afterwards, the second and firsts will have the choice to present as well. They are eagerly waiting to share their hard work with their friends!

A short but eventful week in Lower Elementary. The first and second graders started the study of reptiles, specifically a turtle. The first graders are examining the external parts meanwhile the second years are taking a look on the inside learning about the body functions.

The third graders received the lesson of interjections this week. They are very excited to have finished learning about all nine parts of speech within the three year cycle. Soon, they will begin the study of sentence analysis!

If you walk into our Lower Elementary classroom you will find children working on independent and group research throughout the year. The children absolutely love researching topics of their choice as one of their work options during our work cycle. Although research is a frequent occurrence, this time of year is special because the entire class is focused on one common goal, completing their research projects. This common focus connects us as a class and allows opportunities for the older children to take a mentoring roll and help the younger children who are new to research.

The third graders did an outstanding job mentoring the younger children and teaching them about the research process. Each child was patient, kind, and very helpful as the younger children got acclimated to the new process.

The children are exhilarated to share their research projects and posters with their classmates and families within the next couple of weeks!