Author: Alejandro Malespin
8 Ways to Help Your Child Deal With Mean Kids
Elementary age children are in a socially sensitive period and are developing their moral judgement. Their world is opening and building relationships with peers holds more value than ever before. In this article entitled “8 Ways to Help Your Child Deal With Mean Kids” Patty Shade talks about what parents can do to validate their children without making them feel like victims of cruelty. Managing those emotions and sifting through others children’s behavior can be a difficult task for our children as they begin to explore new and different relationships and try to maintain and manage ongoing relationships.
8 Ways to Help Your Child Deal With Mean Kids by Patty Shade
“Ben is being mean to me!!”
“I don’t like Allie. She’s SO mean!”
Surprisingly, complaints like this are common in my Lower Elementary Montessori classroom. And, I’m guessing that, at one time or another, you have heard something similar from your own child.[Read More]
Building Confidence by: Edward Fidellow
One of the great attributes of success is confidence. While success breeds confidence, confidence also breeds success. However, there are no real courses on success, no seven easy steps, no magic potions, so how do we help our children build this important component into their lives?
The first level of building confidence is the ability to finish a project. In Montessori you introduce activities that are reasonable for the child to achieve. Second, you then give the child the time to achieve. Third, the project has to have value; it has to be worthwhile. (Learning to tie your shoes for a young child meets this need.) For confidence to build the project also has to have an element of real challenge – not one that can be accomplished in a moment or a day – learning to read fills this bill. Real confidence has to take you through all kinds of situations for which you are not prepared – which is pretty much a definition of life.
A Montessori classroom offers a child the ability to work at a problem (and the one that follows that etc) for a long time, while making mistakes (and not being devastated by them) and working your way to a satisfactory conclusion. Confidence just doesn’t come from finishing but by surmounting the problems that prevent you from reaching an easy victory. Confidence comes amidst the obstacles, the problems and the difficulties.
As parents, we don’t want our children to struggle so we often short circuit the confidence process by doing the heavy lifting or rescuing our children. We often don’t hear the child’s inaudible cry, “Help me do it myself.” Dr. Montessori heard it and developed a whole environment to make it possible for them to do it themselves.
Confidence also comes and is aided by people who tell you that you can, instead of telling you that you can’t. The seeds of confidence are tiny and are watered by small words, small deeds and small accomplishments. A Montessori environment opens to your child not only the realm of the possible but the realm of the impossible. When you are three or four years old so many things seem impossible – math, riding a two wheeler, jumping rope. Ironically, as you grow the list of the impossible grows along with you because now there are so many more things you never even know about that seem to go on the impossible list.
This is where real confidence begins its ascent of the mountains of impossibility. Everyday in a Montessori classroom where your child has a plan of activity, works through mistakes, takes one bite at a time of the problems, is being encouraged and works at the challenge again and again is laying the bedrock for a lifetime of confidence.
Confidence is like the ancient story of the shepherd boy David who said, “I killed the bear and the lion, this Goliath (of a problem, a challenge an impossibility) will be no different. Confidence – been there, done that – bring it on!
by: Edward Fidellow
www.crossmountainpress.com
Elementary Didgeridoo Presentation
Montessori Community School’s Elementary students have been loving learning about Australia during our Summer Adventures Camp. Leraine Horstmanshoff plays, presents, and teaches our students different elements and techniques pertaining to the Didgeridoo and Australian culture.
Parent Center Demo
As a parent at the Montessori Community School you have access to a private parent center which allows you to interact with your child’s teacher and classroom, collaborate with other parents, communicate with the school and others in our community, find educational resources.
LOCATION (MAP)
Elementary Curriculum – Language
The elementary reading curriculum is designed to incorporate phonics, whole word and phonetic exceptions. Lower elementary students progress through a leveled reading program using the Pink, Blue and Green Montessori reading exercises while additional materials and experiences allow them to perfect their reading skills, develop their fluency and comprehension. The Grammar and Vocabulary materials allow the students to assimilate an understanding of the structural rules that govern the English language. Literary elements are explored during Group Literature. Lower and upper elementary students practice writing on a daily basis in classroom journals that cover a variety of writing forms. In lower elementary, Writer’s Workshops are held throughout the year to target specific writing skills. In upper elementary the different varieties of writing and writing skills are integrated into their cultural, science and literature studies. Our goal is to help the students become comfortable using writing as a communication skill. Students learn to think clearly, to research, and to express themselves with confidence and clarity in writing and speech.
| Lower Elementary | Upper Elementary | |
| Reading | Reading readiness, phonic skills, guided reading, sight words, contextual clues, S.S.R. (Silent Sustained Reading), vocabulary | Shared reading, dictionary skills, fluency, expression |
| Comprehension | Responding to questions regarding Story-time book (sequencing events, recapping & summarizing, identification of character, plot & setting) context clues & main ideas | Continued study of main ideas, sequencing & context clues, assumptions/inferences, following written directions & instructions |
| Penmanship | Metal inset exercises, D’Nelian print & cursive, spacing, left justification, neatness | Mastery of cursive |
| Spelling | Unconventional to conventional, leveled spelling works | Conventional spelling lists, spelling demons, vocabulary, spelling rules |
| Mechanics | Ending punctuation, capitalization, commas | Apostrophes, commas, quotation marks |
| Composition | Complete sentences, journaling, picture prompted stories, modeled writing, editing | Journaling, character & plot development, proofreading, revising, publishing |
| Study Skills | Categorizing, table of contents, index, beginning reports | Outlining, note taking, organizing information, skimming, advanced reports, paraphrasing |
| Grammar | Parts of speech, parsing | Sentence analysis, verb tenses |
| Speaking | Poetry presentations, in-class reports, drama, story-telling | Poetry presentations, in-class reports, drama, story-telling |
Elementary Curriculum – Mathematics
The elementary Montessori math curriculum takes the students through a series of precise exercises using specifically designed materials that support the students’ emergent abilities to abstract. Using hands-on manipulative materials the students in 1st – 3rd grade are given tools by which to do their math work and so acquire a concrete understanding of math skills and knowledge. This solid foundation allows a smooth transition to abstract understanding and application of math skills during the 4th – 6th grades.
| Lower Elementary | Upper Elementary | |
| Numbers | Linear counting, sequencing, place value through millions, before & after numbers, <, =, or >, skip counting, ordinal & Roman numbers, one-step word problems, patterns & relationships | Factors & multiples, rounding numbers to nearest 10s & 100s, prime numbers, squaring and cubing, estimating, multiple-step word problems |
| Operations | + – x / of whole numbers, regrouping, missing values, inverse operations, memorization of numerical patterns | Large operations in all 4 operations (including long division, multi digit multipliers), operations involving decimals, memorization of tables, percentages, averages |
| Functions | Identification of fractions, addition & subtraction with common denominators, multiplication & division of fractions by whole numbers, equivalencies | Mixed numbers, + and – of fractions with unlike denominators, simplifying fractions |
| Measurement | Standard and metric units of measurement for length, mass & volume | Perimeter, area, capacity, word problems |
| Time | Telling time to the minute | Elapsed time, 24 hour clock, word problems involving time |
| Statistics | Interpreting data, block and bar graphs | Line graphs |
| Geometry | Classification of solids, quadrilaterals, triangles and polygons, study of lines & triangles | Study of circles, congruency & symmetry, use of protractor and compass |
| Money | Coin value, totaling amounts | Making change, word problems involving money |
The Elementary Curriculum Overview
Different from a traditional school setting where teacher-directed curricula determines the daily lessons, the Elementary Montessori students choose their own work. Under the guidance of the teachers, the Montessori students select activities that reflect their ability levels yet present opportunities to practice and perfect skills. Students and teachers work together for large blocks of uninterrupted time within a classroom that is rich in resources. The students work at their own pace while the Montessori teachers observe and facilitate the learning process. The curriculum’s goal is to encourage students to become active learners rather than passive participants in education.
The elementary Montessori curriculum is designed to meet the needs of students between the ages of six and twelve. Elementary students have an increasing ability to abstract and to imagine; the curriculum engages the students in activities that utilize these affinities. While the curriculum builds upon the student’s early childhood classroom practice, it expands to include experiences, opportunities and instruction that are appropriate for the students’ developing minds. The Montessori materials continue to play an important role as the students transition from the concrete to the abstract. The teachers’ lessons involve exploration, research and hands-on experiences that guide the students in developing their reasoning minds.
Elementary studies include geography, biology, history, language, mathematics, science, music, movement and art. Studies are enriched through field trips, visitors and workshops that support the curriculum and expand the learning outside of the classroom into the community.
The Montessori Teacher
“Follow the child” – as Dr. Montessori asserted, the Montessori teacher focuses on the whole child and not on the daily lesson plan. Dr. Montessori wanted to create a clear distinction between the role of the Montessori teacher and that of a traditional teacher. She coined the new title “director” or “directress” for the adults in her classrooms and as the name implies their role is that of a director of activities. Nowadays the term “guide” is more commonly used. The Montessori classroom is a student-centered environment rather than teacher-centered. The teacher is rarely the center of attention. She spends the majority of her time in individual or small group activity or observing the progress of the students.
The Montessori guide:
- tailors lessons and activities to suit the student’s learning style and abilities.
- prepares the classroom environment to promote autonomy amongst the students.
- maintains an investigation and discovery approach when presenting topics rather than giving facts and figures.
- is trained to assess knowledge and achievement through observation of the student.
The Elementary Montessori Teaching Method
Elementary Montessori programs emphasize active learning rather than passive reception of information.
- The elementary Montessori curriculum builds upon the student’s early childhood experience. The Montessori materials continue to play an important role as the student transitions from the concrete to the abstract.
- Lessons involve exploration and hands-on experiences. The student in the elementary classroom learns by doing hence the classroom is rich in materials, resources, movement and conversation.
- The curriculum is individualized. The needs, ability, interests and skills of each student are taken into consideration when lessons are planned and knowledge assessed. The Montessori student will receive extra help or direction on areas where she needs it and move rapidly through other areas where she excels.
- The elementary program teaches the student how to think clearly, how to research, how to express herself in writing and speech.
- The program fosters independent work as well as group effort.
- The multi-age classroom creates an atmosphere of non-competition making it possible for the student to work at her own pace, unrestricted by traditional grade standards.
- The program supports a variety of learning styles.
- Elementary Montessori education integrates all the different areas of study rather than compartmentalizing them.