The MyFWM Dashboard has a fantastic new feature called the HUB. Each morning we start our daily work cycle by visiting the Dashboard of MyFWM and checking out the HUB. There, the children are learning to check any messages they have received from teachers, see what the schedule is for the day, and look at their current assignments. They check off assignments as they complete them, and in this way are using the HUB as an organizational tool for their schoolwork. By making this part of our daily routine, each student is not only learning useful skills to help them become responsible, organized, and accountable, but they will also be prepared to use this tool in the event that we spend a portion of our year learning from home.

In Geometry the fourth years learned another way to prove the equivalence between a rhombus and a rectangle and fifths learned how to find the area of a parallelogram. Everyone really seemed to enjoy our Biology lesson this week on photosynthesis. We had a great discussion about the pigment chlorophyll and why most plants are green. The students enjoyed using a mortar and pestle to crush leaves into a pulp and then combine the pulp with rubbing alcohol to draw out the pigment. They also learned that plants need the sun, and without the sunlight, the pigment in the plant will die. Our fourth grade History lesson this week was on the Cenozoic Era, the age of mammals. Our fifth graders learned about the Azilian people of the Mesolithic, or “Middle Stone Age” culture. In language this week, fourth graders wrapped up their work with Sentence Analysis, and fifth graders did some in-depth work with main and auxiliary verbs.

Our week has been filled with fun and learning together. The fourth years learned about proving the equivalence of a rhombus and a rectangle in geometry and the fifths worked on finding the area of squares. In our biology work this week, we continued learning about the upward flow of water in plants with a focus on transpiration. We learned that as water passes out of leaves through the stomata and evaporates, the empty space it leaves is filled by water flowing in from the stem. This continues and creates a steady pull of water and nutrients from the roots, through the xylem and the leaves. The students were surprised to learn that this force is strong enough to pull the water ten times as high as the highest tree. In our geography lesson, we experimented to see which heats up and cools off faster, land or water. We started with some predictions; some thought land would heat faster and some predicted the water would. Everyone thought the water would cool off faster. The children impressed me with the reasoning behind their predictions. We learned, by monitoring the temperature of a jar of sand and a jar of water placed in the bright sunlight, that the sand’s temperature rose much higher than the water’s, and when we removed them from the sunlight, it cooled off faster too. This principle will be used when we examine the heating and cooling of land and water masses.

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.