Garden Gratitude

Today, we are grateful for our sunny butterfly garden--and the many beautiful visitors who enjoy its native plants.

We are especially honored by this gorgeous guest!

Doesn't it make you joyful just to see her?

“He . . . who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”--Albert Einstein

Fluffy Clue #6

Fluffy and I had a fabulous summer adventure. We've gotten carried away by the school year, and I've neglected my clue-giving duties. It is also time to confess that we visited not one but three countries on our trip. (Fluffy thinks this confession is long overdue and that it was very unkind of me to let you believe it was only one country.)



Today's clue comes to you from Mystery Country 1 (and it is also an excellent excuse to show off my underwater photography fun!). Fluffy suited up in this crazy contraption (ScubaDoo, an underwater scooter!), I grabbed my snorkel and mask, and off we went on an underwater reef adventure.

Given that it was winter (and I am spoiled by the bathwater temps of Galveston Bay), I feared the water would be very cold. Thankfully, it was not. Now, for those of you who swim but have never snorkeled, it is an amazing thing to put your face in the water and breathe! My swimmer brain had a little trouble with this concept. ("No, don't breathe in the water! Bad for human lungs! Bad!")

It's worth the brief brain battle, though, because you find yourself immersed in an underwater world, with secrets to which we aren't normally privy. Instead of looking in at the aquarium from the outside, you're in it--privileged to be a part of this alternate water world, just for a while. You hear your own deep Darth Vader breath and everything else of this world disappears. The clutter and clatter--it all fades away. It's incredibly relaxing and somehow, at the same time, be-careful-not-to-dislodge-your-mouthpiece exciting. I saw so many breath-taking creatures, I wish I hadn't stopped for lunch!


One student has already identified the first country! She won't tell, though . . . can you use the clues to solve the mystery?


Clue Review: Clue #1 (A clue that is true of all three countries.)
Clue #2
Clue #3 (Photographs from Mystery Country 2)
Clue #3.5 (Photograph from Mystery Country 3 . . . but we spied many of the same animal in Mystery Country 1)
Clue #4 (Photos from Mystery Country 2)
Clue #5 (Photos from Mystery Country 1)
Clue #5.5 (Photos from Mystery Countries 1 & 2)
Clue #5.75 (Photos from Mystery Country 3)

More Fun than Recess

"Human consciousness comes into the world as a flaming ball of imagination . . . Subjects must be presented so as to touch the imagination of the child, . . . and then add fuel to the burning fire that has been lit."
--Dr. Maria Montessori,
To Educate the Human Potential



Maria Montessori suggested that instead of offering children fairy tales to satisfy their hungry imaginations, we should give the imagination something bigger and juicier on which to munch--something based in reality. "Let us give him a vision of the whole universe" (To Educate the Human Potential). "If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, . . . it will create in him admiration and wonder. . . . A greater curiosity arises, one which can never be satiated; so it will last through a lifetime."

Montessori noticed that elementary age children are interested in the "why?" and "how?" of things. They ask lots of questions. This is a perfect fit for lots of science! By placing science at the center of our Montessori elementary curriculum, we tap into the child's natural curiosity. We invite the child to ask questions and embark on a delightful search for answers through investigation and research. In doing so, we help children connect school with the joy of learning! (Sadly, this seemingly obvious connection escapes many learners in many schools.)

We start the year (the first week of school!) with the imaginative, dramatic Story of the Universe (complete with swirling stars and steam and an erupting volcano!)--the first of the Five Great Lessons. This story sets the stage for all of our science, geography, and history work to come--and places this learning in the larger context of the universe. In Montessori classrooms, we refer to these subjects as "cultural" because they are human constructs, accumulated knowledge that builds and changes as it passes from generation to generation. An integrated 'cultural curriculum'--"that mixture of history and science, story and study"--is "the heart and soul of an authentic Montessori elementary classroom" (Duffy). "Math and language should be called upon to serve that cultural core."

The Universe Story is followed by detailed study. This is where I act as the guide, providing materials and opportunities, while the children take the active role in doing the work. We begin by experimenting with force and motion, "the laws governing the universe." In order to understand why planets are spheres and why they revolve around the sun, we must begin to understand the laws of physics.

To do the work of science (and sometimes social studies), the children are grouped in Cooperative Investigation Teams. Each team of four or five students is a mixed-age combination of first, second, and third graders. Third graders serve as Facilitators, the leaders of their team, making sure that everyone understands the directions and that everyone gets a turn. The team also has a Materials Manager, a Clean-up Coordinator, a Scribe, and an Illustrator. Last year, I purchased a set of goggles for each group and created matching sets of color-coded job tags (which made me giddily happy). Each member of the team wears the goggles that match the color of his/her job tag, eliminating disputes over goggles color. I love when groups decide they'd better wear the goggles, "just to be safe" or "because we need eye protection." Our young scientists are sometimes very serious . . . and wearing goggles helps.

I know Montessori was on the right track with her ideas about science because when my children return from ancillary to find that the tables have been moved into position for "Science Groups," they quietly hiss "Yes!" grinning and, with bent elbows, pulling fists to their chests, as if they have just successfully executed a slam dunk or a homerun. "We're doing science today!" YES! Science is sometimes a lot of work, at least if it's done well--with hands-on, minds-on experiments. There are activities to research, record sheets to develop, materials to gather, and set-ups to prepare. But inquiry-based science is also an awful lot of fun!

A couple weeks into the year, our Cooperative Investigation Teams assembled for their first experiment--exploring force and mass. At the start of each experiment, children are asked to propose a hypothesis. They record the hypothesis in pen because in the past, children have been known to erase their hypothesis and "correct" it at the end of an experiment when the results don't support the hypothesis. We have discussed how exciting it can be when a scientist discovers that the results of an experiment are not what s/he expected! It means we learned something new! Who would want to do an experiment if we always accurately predicted the outcome?

We also consider safety: What could happen? What is necessary to make the experiment safe and avoid unnecessary messes? The children use a balance and gram weights to measure the mass of an empty Jello box and a full Jello box. (Tip for teachers: So as not to supply crawly critters with sweet sugary snacks, I have replaced the Jello powder in the full boxes with carefully measured bags of sand.)

The children then construct a ramp with books and a grooved ruler. They tape everything into place so that the apparatus remains the same for all trials, a "fair test." A golf ball is rolled down the ramp into the empty box and then the full box. The distance each box travels after being hit is measured with a meter stick and recorded in a chart. Which box consistently travels farthest? Then the real work begins. The children must discuss and decide what it all means. What forces are acting on the boxes? Why does one box behave differently from the other? What is the relationship between force and mass?

So much learning can be incorporated into a single experiment--discussion of variables, repeated trials, and safety, reading directions, cooperating with a group, measuring mass and length, making observations, recording results, and drawing conclusions--and it's fun. It brings learners to life, recruiting them as joyful participant-owners of their own education.

During the experiment, we overheard a first grader excitedly exclaim, "This is so much more fun than recess! Science is more fun than recess!" (P.M.). The same week, when I announced to the class that I was sending home extra homework on forces, the children cheered. Seriously--could I make this stuff up?!


What We're Reading:
Earth Story by Eric Maddern
The Everything Seed: A Story of Beginnings by Carole Martignacco
Forces Make Things Move by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Resources:
To Educate the Human Potential by Maria Montessori
Children of the Universe: Cosmic Education in the Montessori Elementary Classroom by Michael and D'Neil Duffy
Hidden Heart of the Cosmos by Brian Swimme
The Univserse Story by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry
Teaching as Story Telling by Kieran Egan

Hello Gorgeous!

Early this week, I was giving a clock lesson on half hours to first graders when I noticed the shadows of several second graders, lurking on the edge of our little circle. It started with one or two, slowly sidling by, eyes sliding over the work. Before long, they were hovering, hands on hips, jaws dropped open with outright jealousy. At the end of the lesson, more than one approached me indignant, "When are we going to get a lesson with that?" Outraged, even--as if I have withheld beautiful Montessori secrets from them for an entire year. "How come we didn't get that lesson when we were first graders?"

Ah, the Hello Wood Montessori Teaching Clock . . . I don't blame them. I'd be jealous, too. It is truly a gorgeous piece of work.

Much to my high-pitched, squealy, hand-clapping delight, over the summer we received ALL of the "Magnet One-Time Funds Requisition" materials request that I submitted to the district Magnet Department, including Golden Beads that are actually beads and gold colored (rather than the wooden cubes, with which we made do for years), two new Small Bead Frames (to replace our 25-year-old, chain-hanging-on-by-a-thread frames), a cloth Checkerboard (so that the beads won't roll around necessitating that students restart extensive multiplication problems from the beginning), an additional box of fraction pieces, a full set of Solid Grammar Symbols, a box of flat wooden grammar symbols, and . . . the piece of material that excites me most of all, actually makes my Montessori mind drool, just thinking about it: the Hello Wood Montessori Teaching Clock.

I began to covet this clock the moment I spied its beautiful brilliance in Montessori Life. It is more brilliant that I can explain. The circumference has a groove for the blue five-beads, marking five-minute segments with a material with which the children are already familiar from the Colored Bead Stair and the Bead Cabinet. The clock also has a cut-out in the center to demonstrate "half past," "quarter past," and "quarter 'til," using the Montessori Fraction Circles with which the children are also familiar. It's the sort of obvious cleverness that makes one wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?" or perhaps more appropriately, "Why didn't Montessori think of that?!" (Sacrilege, I know.) It even comes with a fabulous toolkit! Since I first laid eyes on it, I have visited the clock at conference booths just to fondle its smooth wood finish and rededicate my devotion to its design-brilliance, but the cost of this clock is $109 and I never dreamed it would actually find its way to the shelves of Room 28! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Heee, heeeeeeee! Hel-lo, Gorgeous!

Secret Decoder Ring

"It is only through careful observation that a teacher may evaluate a child's readiness for a particular lesson, tailoring the curriculum to each child's individual needs."
--Dr. Maria Montessori, Discovery of the Child

In the back of my mind, I've been aware for a while now that I mostly write about what we do together as a class in the afternoons. In doing so, I neglect the wonderful individual, mostly independent work to which the children dedicate our daily three-hour morning work period. I also know that sometimes children are not especially forthcoming about how they spend their hours at school. As a child, when my brother was asked how his day was (on the ride home from the Montessori school he attended), his response was usually, "Fine, fine." What did you do today? "Nothing." His stories have eked out over the decades since, but other parents may encounter similar reticence. I would hate for families to believe that we do "nothing." So much goes on that I sometimes feel as if I am choreographing an elaborate (though structured) circus! At any given time throughout the morning, almost every child may have out a different piece of work.

After we spent part of our week discussing coded ways of sharing cultural stories through art, it occurred to me that even parents with more talkative children are hearing seemingly coded versions of what their children are doing at school. "So you say you did Teddy Bears?" "You worked with Golden Beads?" "The Colored Bead what?" So what are all those first graders doing? For this, I offer you your very own Secret Decoder Ring:

OPERATIONS
One of Montessori's greatest strengths is in the brilliantly well-designed math materials. Each successive piece of work leads the child to take one small step to greater complexity. The idea is to get an in-depth understanding of how numbers work and what it means to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. In the case of first graders, right now we're working to really understand the concept of addition. With the Montessori "Operations" strand, we're always working with big numbers, usually at least into the thousands. For older children, they're solving problems into the tens of thousands and even millions.

Golden Beads
The Golden Beads are the most concrete of the Operations materials, and they provide wonderful physical representations of place value. Many mainstream classrooms now use "base ten blocks," copied from Maria Montessori's "Golden Beads." Right now, first graders are using the beads to understand addition and beginning a very concrete introduction to "exchanges" (often referred to in mainstream classrooms as "borrowing" and "carrying"). First graders will eventually use the same materials to learn how to subtract, multiply, and divide.



FACTS
Ultimately, the goal of the Montessori "Facts" strand is for children to learn math facts, but we don't begin with flashcards and memorization. In fact, I often caution parents to shy away from memorization at the start of first grade. At first, the children are exploring addition and subtraction with objects they can count, working with the concepts of combining and separating groups, and noticing patterns. For first graders, I alternate back and forth between addition and subtraction facts lessons so that they have a firm understanding of both before the Stanford test in January. With so many first graders, right now we have students working with four different hands-on materials:

Colored Bead Stair
This work is important, not only for guiding practice with horizontal addend combinations but also because knowing the colors of these beads will be helpful when we use them later for exploration of algebraic formulas and in numeration work with the Bead Cabinet chains.


String Beads
Vertical addition facts
The appropriate number of beads are pulled from the top to the bottom of the string and then counted. This is something that easily could be made for home practice.





Teddy Bears
Horizontal subtraction facts






Unifix Cubes
Vertical subtraction facts







NUMERATION
First graders are working with linear counting. We are also noticing patterns in numbers.


Hundred Board








Odd & Even










Square Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . photo coming soon!





FRACTIONS
We introduce fractions in a very concrete way. We start with the red "one" bead from the Bead Cabinet. The children are shown that if the bead were squashed like a ball of clay, it would look something like our red "whole" fraction circle. We then discuss "fair shares" and numerators and denominators. The children spend some time learning to name and record fractions. Next week, many will begin adding fractions with like denominators (1/4 + 2/4, for example), which will also reinforce addition facts practice.



Clock Work
You may have already read about our beautiful new Montessori Teaching Clock. After the introductory lesson, children practice matching clocks with their associated times.






GEOMETRY
We begin with tangrams, which we refer to as "Shape Pictures." The idea here is to give the children some comfortable, engaging work as they settle into a busy work cycle. The tangrams also help the children begin to view shapes as constructors of other shapes.

Polygons in the "Geometric Cabinet": We give children the etymology of "polygons," explaining that they are straight-sided shapes with "many corners." The children then begin a series of activities that lead them to identify pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, octagons, and nonagons--with the aid of the Greek and Latin etymologies of the names.

SCIENCE
Classification: Living/Non-living and Plant/Animal
Much of the science work on our shelves is based in classification and nomenclature. First graders begin by classifying picture cards as living or non-living and then as plant or animal. To add another level of depth and provide a way for children to record this work, I have incorporated bar graphs into most of the classification work on our shelves.

Sequencing Planets

LANGUAGE ARTS
Movable Alphabet
Most of our first graders arrive as strong readers. This is one of the assets of receiving first graders who have been in our Montessori program since the age of 3. They have already been exposed to a huge number of reading readiness activities, and they have been lead naturally into reading. I rarely have to teach a child how to read. Mostly, the work of Montessori lower elementary (grades 1, 2, & 3) is using reading to learn. The children who have been in our program before they join me as first graders will have already used the Movable Alphabet to build words. Writing and reading go hand-in-hand (often with children writing before they read!). We use the Movable Alphabet in first grade to work with spelling patterns. First graders are working with "sh" and "ch" and some have moved onto "ai" and "ay."


Grammar: Function of Words
The children are introduced to each part of speech, one at a time. We begin with the noun. The children learn that "noun" comes from the Latin "nomen," meaning name. Nouns are naming words. The first words ever used were probably nouns. This is certainly true as babies begin to talk, pointing and naming everything in sight. Each part of speech is given a concrete symbol. Because nouns are probably the oldest type of words, it is symbolized with a black pyramid--black to represent coal (formed millions of years ago) and the shape in honor of the age of the pyramids.


Word Study
Word study begins with alphabetizing. The children learn to organize groups of words in order of the alphabet.

WRITING
Journals
We begin each day with writing. The children arrive to find a "love note" from me, welcoming them to our learning community and describing what I'd like for them to discuss in their journals. (This is also a sneaky way for me to incorporate environmental print that the children must read on a daily basis!) Often, the journal topic is a reflection on the previous day's group lesson. The children cheer when the topic is "author's choice," meaning they, the authors, can choose any topic for their morning writing.


Research
First graders are introduced to research with "name research." They begin by finding their own name in a book of baby names, and they each learn the etymology of their name and its language of origin. Writing also includes creative stories and letters (birthday pages, thank you's, letters with questions for experts, and notes to our pen-pals at another public Montessori school).

Fabric & Folklore

Every year, we use an art project to decorate our "take-home" folders. We honor the children's finished work by creating a beautiful package in which to present it to parents and other family members. After procrastinating this project way beyond a reasonable start-time last year (for which I'd like to blame Ike), I vowed that this year we would start early!


Inspiration for this year's folder art arrived with Mrs. D in the form of a "mud cloth" bag (from Hallmark, of all places!). We began by discussing Bogolanfini, the lovely black and white textiles created by the indigenous Bamana people of Mali, Africa. We studied the laborious process by which these fabulous fabrics are created. The women incorporate signs and symbols into their designs in order to relay stories about important community events.


We then examined similarities to the artwork of the Aboriginal people of Australia and the symbols they use in the secret-sacred origin stories of "The Dreamtime." It is remarkable that two groups of people, oceans apart, use surprisingly similar symbols with which to cover their bodies in the stories of their people. Both cultures reflect a time when art and language were more integrated forms of communication. I spent last weekend swimming (treading water) in html code, learning how to update the website for the Public Montessori Educators of Texas 2009 Conference (hence the extended blog break!). Much like this modern code, the hidden messages behind the Bamana and Aboriginal symbols are designed to remain somewhat elusive to outsiders!

First, the children coated manila envelopes in a layer of black paint. (Watching their various techniques and strategies for this process provided fascinating insight into the ways in which each child approaches a project.)


To develop individual designs, the children studied traditional African and Australian symbols, in addition to creating their own new symbols.

Using Q-tips dipped in white paint, the children applied their designs in repeating patterns.

The folders are beautiful--and every one of them different and unique, a sure sign of art project success!

Special thanks to a sociology professor friend for sharing articles about the fascinating craft of Bogolanfini!


Resources:
More symbols in Aboriginal artwork
Desert Dreamings by Deirdre Stokes
Virtual "Make your own Bogolanfini"
"History, Origin, and Significance of Mud Cloth" by Kimberly Michelle Jones

Apples & Honey

Happy New Year or L'Shanah Tovah to our Jewish friends! Rosh Hashanah marks a new beginning in the Hebrew calendar. This is a holiday about committing to a more peaceful self and thereby building a more peaceful community. The days following Rosh Hashanah are thoughtful ones, during which Jewish people reflect on their lives and any unkind acts they may have committed during the previous year. They make amends and commit to becoming a better person in the coming year. As one of our second graders thoughtfully pointed out, this is much like the two-faced Roman Janus (for whom January is named) who looks back to the previous year and forward to the coming year.

In a Montessori classroom, we strive for a more peaceful world by celebrating the diverse traditions of people around the world. Through knowledge and appreciation of our beautiful differences, we also come to understand how much we have in common as human beings living together on this one planet Earth. In honor of this holiday, we shared apples and honey "for a sweet new year."

Because I like to take advantage of every learning opportunity and squeeze as much as possible into our limited time together, this was also the perfect chance to introduce our many first graders to fractions! We begin with the familiar "half" and discuss "fair shares." We also teach the children about fractus, the Latin root of the word "fraction" meaning "to break" (also the root of the word "fracture"). Our first graders have been introduced to the concepts of numerators and denominators, for which I use my best Schwarzenegger "Terminator" voice (probably lost on this generation of children). They will spend the next days learning to name all of the fractions in our Montessori fraction insets. Before long, these first graders will be using cut-out fraction pieces to add and subtract fractions with like denominators!

Special thanks to Mrs. R for fetching apples from home so that this was not an opportunity missed!

Update: A Jewish friend wrote to me after reading this blog entry, "It is interesting that Ramadan ended Friday night and Rosh Hashanna started Friday night. New beginnings of the year. According to Wikipedia, 'During Ramadan, Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins, pray for guidance and help in refraining from everyday evils, and try to purify themselves through self-restrain and good deeds.' Sounds an awful lot like Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur." Yes, I think we all have more in common than we realize!

"Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education." --Dr. Maria Montessori, Education and Peace


What We're Reading:
Rookie Read-About Holidays: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by David Marx
Rookie Read-About Holidays: Ramadan by David Marx