Our Lovely Classroom

The first few weeks, I always focus on practical life skills, which are integrated in the Montessori curriculum from infancy to young adulthood.  We have talked about homework they can do that encompasses practical life that includes cooking, packing a healthy lunch, organizing homework space, following recipes, taking care of pets, and financial literacy.  Each student must record  what activities they chose for homework and get a parent signature in their planner each week.  Those who have turned in their signatures in their planners will be able to participate in additional outdoor environment, art, science, and music enrichment activities. As the weeks go on, we will include other subject areas for homework and we are already seeing students completing quite a bit of academic work at home.  Our new planners arrived on Monday and most students have been pretty diligent in taking them home and returning them to school each day.  In these planners, stude...

Due to some constructive feedback and revelations from parents, I have changed the homework routine to make it more concrete and specific.  Your child should be coming home with a homework plan that lists four areas of focus for the four hours of homework required each week. (1 hour per day, Monday through Thursday) They may choose work in each of three categories (practical life, language, math) and may choose a fourth activity in any category.  They must include some written documentation of their work (IE math problems, reports, written work, reflection of what was learned) and the bottom should be signed by the parent, if they witnessed the completion of the work stated on the form.  Feel free to not sign if incomplete--this does not impact their grade, and is a valuable piece to help build independence and responsibility. Homework must total up 4 hours each week, and if needed, homework may be completed over the weekend.  Thanks for your support in helping your...

Cannot wait to see everyone tonight!  Everyone has worked so hard for this night!  After the performance, we will have a brief presentation and time to enjoy the refreshments made by the children.  Here are some links for some good articles on parenting that support our Montessori approach as well as resources for homework: How to Land your Kid in Therapy Involving Children at Home Montessori FAQ Practical Life Kahn Acadamy Typing Web Watch Nova Science Online

This week, the children have been constructing arguments for a persuasive essay about something they would like to change about the school.  We have looked at the pros and cons of each issue and talked about constructing counter-arguments in order to form a solid persuasive position.  Next week they will continue to refine their work and eventually we will post our work online to vote on it!  If anyone is skilled in the area of web publishing, we would love your help and/or input with our project! Also today, the students formed groups to choose a recipe to make in class on Wednesday, November 27. They will be deciding on the recipe on Friday and may start bringing in ingredients as early as Monday, November 26.  Please encourage your child to choose a simple recipe that they could share with their group as a cooking possibility for next week.  We have crockpots, breadmakers, cooktops and the use of the oven for part of the day.  Parents are welcome to j...

I am proud to announce that students have an opportunity to learn to type at school and home via a website called typing web. Click here to find out more!  If anyone is interested in volunteering in the classroom, I am looking for someone willing to give private lessons to small groups of students for about 20 minutes per group, preferably in the afternoon or late morning.  To login to typing web, please use your first name and then mec for the username and 123456 for the password. For example, my username would be Lizamec and my password would be 123456.   Try it out with your child at home if you can.  The accounts are connected to my email account and I am able to track everyone's progress in learning to type!

 Halloween Homework Tonight or tomorrow, before you begin eating your hard-earned candy, your assignment is to count and classify all your goodies for some fun math work that we will do on Friday and Monday.  You may classify your goodies in any way (brand name, flavor, size, etc) and record the quantity of each using the empty data table on the other side.  (Just fill out the first two fields of information:  “Type of Candy” and “Quantity” In class, we will work on inputting data into a NCES website called Create-a-Graph in order to find the data for the remaining fields and present the information in a bar graph or pie graph format. ( http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx )  You are welcome to try it out at home if you dare! J   Keep checking our website to see pictures from our big presentation day!  We are so proud of all the hard work from each student in our room.  There is not a single student who did not show...

It is hard to believe the big day is approaching tomorrow!  It was so satisfying to see everyone working so hard on their reports and presentation boards.  Everyone has come so far as a writer, reader, and researcher, that I cannot wait to see the fruits of their labors in the morning.  Some Final Announcements: Most students have finished their reports and most of their boards.  Some have printed up their photos at school and will assemble at home, while others made their photos at home and assembled the board at school.  Students were allowed to bring home scrapbook paper, poster board and other materials to finish their presentations.  Some may need help typing their final copy, while others may need some help with their costume. Students may arrive as early as 8:00am in room 102 without incurring a daycare charge.  We have colored hairspray and facepaint available for use to help students with their costumes.  Parents are invited to drop ...

Dear Parents, Some children may bring the Buckle Down Aims (BDA)  books home for homework to either catch up or work ahead.  I wanted to make sure that every parent realizes the purpose for the BDA books and how they can support their children at home for school success.   First of all, the BDA books are designed for test preparation that is aligned to mastery of the state standards.  I always provide lessons prior to having students work in their BDA books, unless the material has been previously mastered.  If your child is unable to complete any portions of the BDA, I encourage them to skip those problems so that a followup lesson can be given in the classroom.   I may also give more simplified work to help build important pre-skills before moving on to the next portion of the BDA. Please remember that I do not expect parents to spend time teaching these lessons at home.  You can support your child best by helping them find an appropriate time t...

By fourth grade, most students feel pretty comfortable using the internet to find answers to questions, what they may not realize is that not everything found on the internet is completely reliable.  This week, students will learn how to use the internet to find scholarly resources.  This means resources that are considered reliable enough to use for publication.  When we first had a talk about using the internet, students insisted that Wikipedia was the best place to go.  While even adults use Wikipedia for fast answers (myself included), using it to support facts being presented is not considered a valid source for published research because anyone with a computer can go in and change the information presented without fully backing up their facts. One of the first search engines that can be used to find scholarly research is Google Scholar.   click here  Using Scholar, you will have access to many scholarly journal articles and online books.  The d...

This week, the fifth graders had a lesson on bias in persuasive writing.  We talked about using loaded words, exaggeration and euphemisms.  We also talked about tricks that advertisers use, such as the bandwagon effect, peer pressure, loaded words, stereotyping and repetition. The homework for this week is to choose at least 3 print advertisements that may be an example of one or more of these terms.  They are to cut out or print out these ads and bring them to class. We will discuss and share our findings on Thursday afternoon.