JM Blog

Fun with Soil

Fun with Soil

Posted on by Lisa Good

Children can enjoy exploring with different kinds of soils or dirt. They can compare which soil can hold water best, what kind of living things are found in soil, or just discover what is happening in a small patch of grass in the backyard. An area can be marked off with craft sticks and yarn or rope to be explored.

Younger cildren can draw their findings and older children draw, label and/or write about their discoveries. Perhaps they can look at the patch of grass before a rain and after a rain. Different times of the day can also be recorded. However, your children have a chance get their hands in the dirt, it will be a great!

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Weather

Weather

Posted on by Lisa Good

Today, we talk about our Lesson Science 47, which focuses on the weather.

We have talked about the four seasons that make up a year. Ask the children the name of the seasons? During the different seasons, the weather changes. We experience different kinds of weather in different seasons. There are many kinds of weather. So, continue asking questions: What might the weather be like in the Wintertime? How about in the summer? What makes the weather? What is weather?

Let us find out more…

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Hemisphere Map – From the Archives

Hemisphere Map – From the Archives

Posted on by Lisa Good

I decided to present some lessons from the past school years. I will choose some from the weeks and days of the curriculum pages, as this school year progresses. I will also choose some pictures of children working with materials that are on classroom shelves during that month of the lesson presented. This is the lesson on the Hemisphere Map found in Week 3 Day 5 of the curriculum pages.

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Top 20 Montessori Terms Defined

Top 20 Montessori Terms Defined

Posted on by Lisa Good

Many parents (and even new teachers) can get lost in the Montessori terminology. So, I did a little research and found that there are about twenty terms searched for the most in the Montessori Glossary. These are the top twenty glossary terms asked about and searched (hope this helps):

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Group Lessons

Group Lessons

Posted on by Lisa Good

We start to introduce group lessons about the middle of the second week of school. We introduced the five classes of vertebrates. On another day we read about mammals and found out how we now if an animal belongs in the mammal group. We will continue with remaining groups during the next few months.

In coming weeks, depending on when you start school, we will discuss further vertebrate groups, including amphibians. This is how I introduce Amphibians in Week 9, in case you want to use it as a template:

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How is Montessori different from traditional education?

How is Montessori different from traditional education?

Posted on by Lisa Good

It is interesting that when someone hears about Montessori Methods of teaching, they, many times, come to a wrong conclusion. Even some of my family took it as free-for-all environment where the children control the classroom. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. So I thought I would highlight the differences. I think it is important to understand that some of the most famous people in history we Montessori students: Anne Frank, Larry Page (Google), Sergey Brin (Google), Princes William and Harry, and many more. Jeff Bezos himself was a student and has 12+ Montessori schools of his own. Anyway, here you go…

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The Sun

The Sun

Posted on by Lisa Good

We read about the sun and looked at parts of the sun last week in our Science 68 second circle. Here’s what we discussed…

The weather is getting warmer outside. What shines down on the Earth to warm us up? The Sun. The sun is a middle-sized yellow star. It is a star just like the ones we see in night sky, but it is the only star we see during the daytime. The Sun is so big that you could fit more than 1 million Earths in it! it is a huge ball of hot glowing gases. How hot?

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Montessori Method Basics

Montessori Method Basics

Posted on by Lisa Good

I thought I would answer one of the most asked questions about Montessori. It is a great exercise to hit all the basics in a short space. So, here it goes…

The Montessori Method of teaching is an educational approach that was developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. It is based on the following principles:

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Coins and Presidents

Coins and Presidents

Posted on by Lisa Good

Just a quickie, but I wanted to share a couple of thoughts and ideas with you…

Talk with the children about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. This is a good time to also talk about money and have a Penny Polishing work in Practical Life. Lemon juice and salt work great to make pennies shine!

We read about coins and some of the presidents that can be found on them. We also looked at which president is found on the dollar bill. The children can choose to make a coin booklet.

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Bees

Bees

Posted on by Lisa Good

We have started talking about the invertebrate group of insects. Bees are another kind of insect. There are about 20,000 species of bees. Some of the ones we may be familiar with are honey bees, bumble bees, and sweat bees. Bees are found all continents except for Antarctica. Bees have two antenna and two pairs of wings. Bees live in colonies and may have up to 40,000 bees in them!

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