The Joys of a Chemical Reaction

*Note- When I post videos of the class on the blog, I will be routing through a private YouTube account and all the videos will be unlisted (private) so that they cannot be seen by the public. Hopefully that is okay with everyone. If not, let me know and I will delete them and then try to do it differently.*

Three Years Strong

I can't believe the third years are, well, kids I've had for going on three years now. This Montessori three-year cycle is a beautiful thing. Thanks Maria, for your genius. This three-year system means I have 13 leaders in my classroom...kids who know the procedures and are there to help the younger students find their way. The are so comfortable with the curriculum and have a very strong sense of community. How smart it is to allow a teacher to keep her students for more than one year. I feel like I know them all so well--what their passions are, what makes them tick (or not), the things they struggle with... it is one of my favorite parts of being a Montessorian. Couldn't ask for a sweeter group. Here they are, hard at work on some cultural essays:

"'Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself if a tremendous thing.'"- E.B. White, Charlotte's Web 

Language Updates

Hi all. I just wanted to post a short update about some of the things we've been up to in the language curriculum.

The first years have been learning about nouns and they spent some time labeling nouns in our classroom.

(In the Montessori grammar curriculum, a noun is represented by a large, black pyramid. Hence, all the black triangles.) As you can see, even the hedgehog wasn't safe. The tape is my personal favorite. The second and third years were quite confused. "Why is everything in this room labeled?" as they try to maneuver a drink from the labeled fountain. :)

The second years have been working on compound words and proper nouns.

*Photos courtesy of Skyler's notebook

The third years have been working on prefix and suffix, subject and predicate, and possessive nouns.

*Photos courtesy of Gabby's notebook

*Photos courtesy of Kyle's notebook. Sentence #4 is a gem.

Hope you enjoyed!

The First Great Lesson

The Montessori cultural, science, and history curriculum is founded on The Five Great Lessons, which were created by Montessori to spark the child's imagination while being presented with big concepts regarding how the world has become what it is today. These stories are told with great drama and visual demonstrations and lead to further studies and investigation in the curriculum. The First Great Lesson is the story of how the universe began. I have found this to be a "touchy subject," as everyone has a different idea about how the world came to be--whether it was made by a creator or an explosion or any of the other ideas science has brought to the table. Before giving this lesson, the children and I discuss how our beliefs are the same or different, and I explain that I am going to tell one story about how the world perhaps began. They are all quite satisfied with hearing another story, may it be different from their own. 

Here is what the storytelling rug looked like before the students returned from music class:

When the students arrived, the room was dark and celestial music was the backdrop to the story. There are a few different versions of the story, and my training center has one that takes about 25 minutes to tell, pausing for the various demonstrations. 

Demonstrations from left to right: a great explosion, the light of the first stars, how stars group together to form galaxies, the solar system

Continued: the comparative sizes of the sun and earth, the density of liquids, volcanic eruptions, solids/liquids/gases

The lesson was a great success and a wonderful experience for all of us. I've never had so much "ooo-ing and ahhh-ing" or seen so many interested faces.

Hope you enjoyed a little peek into our First Great Lesson. :)

Incubation!

Dear Families,

I just wanted to post an update about our chicken egg project. The kids and I are anxiously awaiting the hatching of our 8 chicken eggs. We have them in a Hova-Bator incubator and are now on day 7 of the 21 day incubation period. This project has been FULL of learning so far, as the students are learning about the chicken life cycle, as well as embryo development inside the egg. The project has been fascinating and I have also been learning a lot--way more than I ever intended to know about the successful hatching of chicks in the classroom. One thing is for sure, the students and I discovered that it is way more work than anticipated, as the temperature and humidity inside the incubator must be JUST right and must be carefully monitored. We have all turned into "mother hens" checking the temp every so often, to make sure our babies are safe and sound. Each day, a different student is responsible for being the "Temperature Monitor" (checking the temp every 30 minutes), and another student is the "Egg Turner," who turns the eggs every few hours to ensure even heating. We are collecting and charting all of our data thus far on a timeline in the classroom. Tomorrow will be very exciting, as we will be "candling" the eggs. We will be using a bright light in a dark room to see inside the eggs to observe the development and hopefully see some tiny chick embryos moving inside. Very cool--so sometime tomorrow, all 27 of us will be crammed into a closet somewhere in the school examining chick embryos. Always something new! :) I will be sure to post pictures from the candling soon. Here are a few pictures of our project in progress:

The top of the incubator. Notice the thermometer reads 99.5--the perfect sweet spot!

The whole incubator set up. *Note my paranoid message to the maintenance staff. And the sweet handwritten instructions from the farmer. :)

And here's a cool chart of the development:

Thanks for reading,

Alex