Living Biographies in the Upper Elementary

November and December are living biography months in Upper Elementary. The students pick out an autobiography or biography of a person that interests them. After the student has read the book, he or she takes notes, prepares an outline and makes notecards for the presentation to the group.

The rules of the speech include, a 3 to 5 minute length, and the child needs to become the person, use of the pronoun I, is imperative. The students not only dress the part, but also bring props.  

Parents are invited to be in the audience. Thus far, we have met, Harry Houdini, Peyton Manning, Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. Please ask your child which day he or she has signed up to present.

Submitted by: Helen Muffoletto- Upper Elementary Teacher at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Math Magic

If you were one of the lucky parents who attended the Parent Education night on November 1, then you saw how exciting the subject of math is in the Montessori curriculum.  The teachers showed us how the child begins with the beads and works through a variety of materials that not only help her learn math facts, but that teach her brain how math works.

                                   

Ms. Kolata enthused about how, working with the bead bars, the child will gain a sensory understanding of, for example, 9². Many of us memorized the times tables and learned that 9 x 9 = 81.  The Montessori student will have a visual and tactile experience of how when 9 is taken 9 times the bead bars can be made into an actual square. Then he can take the squares of 9 to make a cube…making a reality of 9³.  And the magic doesn’t stop there.  Mrs. Muffoletto demonstrated the decanomial board and the mathematical secrets of squares and square-rooting that a student can uncover for himself while working with this material.

Mrs. Reynolds gave us a peek at the fraction works and how a child can discover the rules for adding fractions—not by memorizing, but by laying out the equations and finding out what happens with the numerator and the denominator in an addition problem.  (Read Mrs. Reynolds blog “Learning about Fractions and Eating Them, Too” http://tmaatedisonlakes.blogspot.com/2011/11/learning-about-fractions-and-eating.html if you want to know more about fraction materials.) Mrs. Dennis took us into Upper Elementary materials, revealing the advanced checkerboard and its uses as a tool in working problems with decimal numbers.

As Mr. Poole told the parents at the end of the evening, learning math with Montessori materials gives the child an understanding of math that is deep.  This understanding forms a foundation for math at higher levels in Jr. High and beyond.  In fact, Mr. Poole said he often reminds the Jr. High students of things in algebra that they have already learned by using materials throughout lower and upper elementary.  He took the opportunity to remind the assembled parents that the Montessori math curriculum provides a foundation for reasoning that will be applied instinctually to many areas of learning.

In the Montessori curriculum, the materials are not just there as extras, they don’t just illustrate facts from a book.  The materials are the curriculum.  The materials teach your child math in a way that allows the child the joy of making mathematical discoveries.

It also turns out that while using Montessori materials the student is using multiple parts of the brain.  If you want to read more about how the Montessori way of learning is good for the brain, you might want to read the book Math Works by Michael Duffy.  Duffy illustrates how modern neuroscience has caught up with just how brilliant Dr. Maria Montessori was in her approach to the learning of math.

Submitted by: Meg Rooney- Librarian at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Visits to Arborwood

Community service is a vital part of the Upper Elementary cosmic education. The purpose of the cosmic curriculum is to prepare students to be life-long, contributing citizens. Learning to live and work together in a peaceful world, as well as helping others, is essential for developing confident, respectful citizens of the world community. In addition to the leadership and help given to others within the school, the upper elementary students have weekly trips to Emeritis at Arborwood, an assisted living and Alzheimer facility. The students interact with the residents, helping them with memory skills and having social interactions.  The residents, in return, share their life stories and add a bit of knowledge to the younger students.

The children take many of our Montessori materials from Early Childhood and Lower Elementary with them to the facility. The children work with the various materials as they help the Alzheimer residents with memory skills. Music is also a great stimulator. When the children begin playing the piano, the reaction of the residents is joyful. One woman, who rarely speaks or responds, sat next to the piano with a rapt expression on her face and actually lifted her hand and began to tap the keys in order to make music. Another resident came dancing in from the hallway. One gentleman sat down and played a beautiful piece for our children. Ask your children about their experiences to hear some heartwarming stories.

Contributed by: Becky Dennis an Upper Elementary Teacher at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Spanish in the Lower Elementary

Spanish students in lower elementary use puppets with dialogue as a dynamic tool to learn the language. Each student has the opportunity to perform as well as observe which helps them grow in a fun environment.

Third graders in studio class present a play about a family who travels to Mexico with their pet Parrot (Perico). The students combined complex vocabulary and comprhension of dialogue to enhance knowledge.

Article and Videos Provided By: Aida Atkinson- Spanish Teacher at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Learning About Fractions and Eating Them, Too

On a recent morning I gathered the first year students in my classroom to give them their first lower elementary presentation about fractions.  Some of my older students seeing me take the metal fraction insets and a bag of apples from the classroom smiled knowingly and offered to become a part of the group for the presentation.

Seated at the table the first year students immediately recognized the fraction skittles and metal fraction insets. They were familiar with these materials from their early childhood classrooms.

We used the fraction skittles first, talking about how first the whole skittle and then the skittle divided into two equal pieces. The students quickly volunteered that these pieces were called halves. We then talked about the skittles divided in thirds and fourths.

After we named these skittle pieces I introduced the terms numerator and denominator. The students learned that the denominator is the bottom number in a fraction and tells how many equal pieces the whole has been divided into while the numerator is the top number in a fraction and tells how many pieces of the whole we are talking about. 

After practicing placing fraction labels next to the proper skittle pieces we went on to doing the same thing using the metal fraction insets. The students enjoyed finding groups of fractions insets to match the labels.

As a final step in identifying fractions the students watched as I cut the apples and several oatmeal cookies into different fractional parts which they identified. Then came what the students said was the best part of the presentation – eating these tasty fractions!

Submitted by: Rhonda Reynolds- Lower Elementary Teacher at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Photographs provided by: Rhonda Reynolds