An observer of our Upper Elementary classroom would see most of the children collaborating on their work; this is intentional. Montessori elementary communities are designed to support this collaboration because it is recognized as a need for this age group. Elementary children crave interaction, not just in a purely social setting, but also in organized groups where they are focused on a goal with their peers. At this age, children form strong attachments to friends and want to be surrounded by their peers. For this reason, most of their work is collaborative, with the exception of when they are working on individualized skills. This is also the phase for “acquisition of culture” (Montessori). This is one reason why there is such a strong focus on learning about how people throughout history have contributed to society. The children assimilate this new knowledge about history as they are learning to contribute to their own world, classroom and beyond.

This week our fourth grade geometry work focused on proving the equivalence of a triangle and rectangle. This work starts sensorially; the children use a metal inset material to prove the equivalence of the two shapes. After using the material, we discuss the requirements for the equivalence of a triangle and rectangle; when the base of the two shapes is equal and the height of the rectangle is half that of the triangle. The fifth graders focused on inverse area formulas. They learned how to find the height when given the base and area, and how to find the base when given the height and area. In biology we continued our lessons on the circulation of plants with a discussion and demonstration about capillarity; the upward movement of liquids as a result of surface tension. In history this week, the fourth years learned about the Mesozoic Era of the Timeline of Life (250 to 65 million years ago) and the fifth years learned about the Magdalenian people (17,000 to 12,000 years ago), the last group of modern humans in the Upper Paleolithic Age. The children’s enthusiasm about our Literature Circles continues to grow. They are enjoying discussing their books and sharing their roles with the group.

In Upper El we follow an open lesson policy. This means that small group lessons which have a target group (usually grade level groups for lessons in history, language, geometry, and sometimes biology and geography) are also offered to anyone else who wishes to attend. The “target” group is required to attend the lesson, and it is optional for anyone else who is interested. Sometimes fourth year students are interested in sitting in on a fifth grade lesson, sometimes fifth grade students want to see a lesson again, or sometimes I’ll invite someone to join who I determine needs to see the lesson again. The follow up work is assigned only to the target group; the others who join aren’t expected to do the follow up. This week, as I gave a history lesson on the Paleozoic Era of the Time Line of Life to the fourths, some fifth graders decided to join and see it again. Their participation with the fourths in this lesson added delightful enthusiasm and richness to the discussion. I was also pleased to see one of our fourths join the fifths for a geometry lesson this week!

In our Literature Circles this week, students shared their role sheets with their group. They did a wonderful job completing their roles and sharing with their classmates. Next week’s roles have been sent home, along with their books, to be completed as homework. For geometry, fourths learned about classifying regular polygons and about the different parts of a polygon, and fifths learned a theorem based on equivalent figures. Our biology lesson focused on the nutrition of plants and of the work of the roots, and included four experiments which will be ongoing for the next week or so. In history lessons, fourth years finished the discussion of the Paleozoic era and fifth years learned about the Solutreans, who lived 20,000 years ago. The focus of the fourth grade language lesson this week was identifying the elements of a sentence and adverbial extensions. The fifth graders learned about action verbs, linking verbs, auxiliary verbs, and verb phrases.

We used our time well during this short week and were joyfully busy! In geometry, fourth year students continued their work with classifying plane figures according to sides and angles and fifth years learned about equivalence of regular polygons and rectangles. For our biology lesson on vital functions of plants this week, we learned about the nitrogen cycle and how nitrogen is fixed so it can be used by plants and animals. As part of this lesson, we learned about the composition of air and that nitrogen makes up 78% of the air in our atmosphere. In our geography lesson on the work of air, we learned that air rises when it is heated. The children learned to make a paper spiral and suspend it over a heat source. They were able to see that the rising heat makes the spiral spin.

We had our first Literature Circle meetings this week and the children received their first role assignments. The role assignments are: reader, vocabulary enricher, illustrator, summarizer, passage master, and character captain. The children will get a different role each week, working their way through all six. They will be completing these assignments at school this first time while they are still learning how to do this new work. We are all excited to start this process!

The topic of our community meeting this week was playground safety. In our community meetings we are learning to state the problem as a question. This week our question was, “How do we stay safe when playing football on the playground?” After stating the question, we brainstormed ideas, solutions, and answers. Each child was given a turn to speak without being interrupted and each idea was recorded for the class to see. After brainstorming, we discussed the ideas and the children asked clarifying questions about some of the suggestions. We then categorized the ideas into logical groupings and voted on the solutions to our problem. The children did a great job speaking and listening and showed great respect for one another during our community meeting. We’ll follow this same format each week, learning to problem solve problems that are real and matter to the members of the class.

We’ve had another productive week in Upper El. We chose our books for Literature Circles. Fourth grade will read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and fifth grade will read Holes by Louis Sachar. The kids are excited about their books and many have already read well past the first assignment. They will be gathering twice a week to discuss their assigned pages. They will have assigned roles each week with tasks to complete before coming to Literature Circle. Assigning roles gives young readers the framework for a multi-faceted interpretation of literature. Eventually the children will spontaneously incorporate the roles into their literary discussions and when they do that, they will no longer need assigned roles.

Grammar lessons this week focused on adverbial extensions for fourth grade. They learned to take a simple sentence with a predicate and a subject, and, by asking the questions: when, why, where, and how, make the sentence more complex. The fifth grade focused on the advanced function of words. One example of this work using nouns is sorting words into the categories of plurals, possessives, common, proper, abstract, and collective. Over the next few weeks they will be working their way through similar work with adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, and interjections.

In geometry lessons the fourths learned about the seven triangles of reality and worked on sorting triangles from our plane inset cabinet into the proper place on a grid based on the sides (equilateral, isosceles, scalene) and angles (right, acute, obtuse) of each triangle. The fifths learned about proving the equivalence of a trapezoid and a rectangle.

Continuing with our lessons on the vital functions of plants, this week we learned about the needs of the plant. We had a great discussion about the origins of the 2,500 year old theory that everything is composed of a combination of four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. We discovered that, although this theory is from long ago, there is truth to it. We discussed that plants need sun (fire), air, water, and earth (minerals) to survive.

We kicked off a series of geography lessons focusing on the Work of Air with an experiment proving that air occupies space. Each student will have the opportunity over the next week to use the materials and try the experiment out for themself.

Many of the children have already been hard at work researching topics of their own choice. Today, three of them presented their research to the class. This is work they are very enthusiastic about and they will have the opportunity to continue to research topics of interest throughout the year, presenting as they are ready.

Please remind your child to wear something BLUE on Monday, September 21 to recognize and celebrate the International Day of Peace.  Blue is the universal color of peace.

We love starting our day exercising our bodies and getting the blood flowing before coming inside to meditate and write in our journals. These activities get our minds ready for learning.

This year will be full of different types of lessons in Upper Elementary. One benefit of Montessori education is that students are able to move at their own pace in math and some areas of language. One way we accomplish this is through individual lessons. Each student has at least one meeting time with me each week. During this time, I observe, evaluate, and work with them on the next step of their learning. Students also meet with me as small or large groups for lessons in geometry, biology, geography, history, and evolutionary chemistry.

This week we had small group lessons in geometry. The fourth year students learned about congruent, similar, and equivalent shapes and the fifth years learned about the relationships between lines in equivalent parallelograms and rectangles.

We also kicked off our biology and history lessons. In biology we are learning about the vital functions of plants. We started by learning about three different categories of vital functions: vegetative functions (nutrition, respiration, and circulation), functions of relationship (support, sensitivity, and movement), and the function of reproduction.

In history, our fourth year students have started learning about the Time Line of Life, a study of the changes life has gone through since it appeared on Earth. Our fifth years are learning about the Time Line of Modern Humans which is an overview of fourteen cultures of the modern human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, who lived in Europe during the last 40,000 years.

If you would like to access your child’s weekly schedule, including enrichment classes, you can do so on myfwm.org. Go to the Parents module and select Student Schedules. If you have more than one child at FWM, you can access all from this one location using the drop down menu.

Our first full week of school has been busy with math assessments, reviews, and lessons. We’ve been settling into our daily work cycle and have continued to spend time outside whenever possible. The children are very quickly getting used to staying a safe six feet apart while they are working, even when doing floor work. They are even able to do partner work, maintaining distance through use of their six foot measuring ribbon.

We enjoy going outside for our read aloud and writing time as well as at lunch time. We also did our morning meditation and journaling in the outdoor classroom one morning this week, before beginning our work cycle.

The children are working collaboratively in several different groups in the outdoor classroom, building structures. They have worked out a system with each other to trade branches they have collected, to add to their structures. It’s quite impressive to see them problem solve and voluntarily collaborate as they are building and trading. They are an incredible group of students and it is such a pleasure to work with them.