Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

And We’re Off…

Anna — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:07:26 +0000

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ―C.S. Lewis

We have had an enjoyable and relatively smooth start to the new school year at Meadowbrook. It has been so nice to catch up with returning friends & get to know our new friends. We played several ice breaker games to help us become familiar with each other. One activity required students to play reporter and interview someone else in the classroom. The reporters then presented their interview to the group. We discovered that we all have lots in common (I believe that a love for cheese pizza was unanimous).

We spent a lot of time settling in this week – learning the expectations, getting the routines down, finding the right notebooks and supplies, etc. We did have time for a few science experiments & language lessons. Next week we’ll be in full swing with book groups, violin lessons, art studio and daily subject area lessons.

Last year the students asked repeatedly for more work space in the classroom. Over the summer we moved many of the lower el materials to the new upstairs classroom and left large open spaces downstairs. Every day, the upper el students rearrange the furniture, so that they are all working in the same room – leaving the other 3 rooms empty. Upper el students are certainly social beings! Most of my favorite childhood memories come from ages 9-12, so I am truly enjoying spending time with this age group.

Our new lower elementary intern, Christy, is a big hit with everyone. The students have been quick to learn new signs and they are enjoying asking Christy to teach them new ones. If you missed parent orientation, please stop by the classroom and introduce yourself.

We are very lucky at Meadowbrook to have beautiful classroom environments. The ugly plastic switch plates being the one exception. The students helped us fix that this week with a decoupage project. Take a look at these fun switch plates! I’ll post more photos soon or you can peek in the classroom during drop off. Thanks to my creative neighbor, Nicole, for this great idea.

We were thrilled when the rain let up on Wednesday afternoon and allowed us to take our first trip to the Freeport Community Library. Everyone was glad for the chance to curl up with friends & a good book. Students received their first book group assignments this week – look for a note about book groups early next week.

For more information about the week, remember to read your child’s Friday Note, which they will bring home tomorrow. Enjoy the weekend! I hope to see some of you at HenryFest on Sunday at Skyline Farm in North Yarmouth.

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Color Theory

Anna — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:18:00 +0000

Color Theory

The elementary students began a 3 week color theory workshop today. This week they investigated the nature of hues. Students were very excited to work with paint! Josh told them about the history of some of the pigments and how they got their names.

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Does Handwriting Matter in a Digital World?

Anna — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:29:00 +0000

Does Handwriting Matter in a Digital World?

At Meadowbrook, we believe the answer is a resounding yes! Here is an excerpt from an article that appeared in Education Week earlier this year. The link to the full article is below.

When handwriting is not taught, reader comprehension may suffer, according to Steve Graham, a professor of special education and literacy at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn., whose research was slated to be presented at the conference.

Karin Harman-James of Indiana University in Bloomington based her findings on results from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, scans taken of children as they wrote and typed. The brain scans indicated that “handwriting, not keyboarding, leads to adult-like neural processing in the visual system,” which Ms. Harman-James says suggests that handwriting may have a particular role in setting children up for reading acquisition.

Summit to Make a Case for Teaching Handwriting

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Early Life Fair

Anna — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:04:00 +0000

Early Life Fair

Thank you all for coming out to the Early Life Fair last night! In the Montessori classroom our history studies are organized around a series of timelines. Second grade students study the earth before humans. We began 600 million years ago in the Cambrian Period and concluded in the Cenozoic Era, which is when the first mammals appeared and is the era directly before the first humans. Students are often surprised to learn that life existed for almost 400 million years before dinosaurs appeared and that these popular reptiles only roamed the planet for 100 million years or so – a relatively short snippet of geological time. Throughout our journey through the eras, we paused often to give thanks to the many plants and animals that preceded us on earth. We examined the movement of the continents from Pangea to Gondwana to our present 7 continents. Students studied the major mountain ranges – many were surprised to learn that the Appalachian Mountains are some of the oldest on earth.

The 3rd & 4th grade students spent the year exploring the timeline of humans. We examined 6 different early human species and the ways they met their fundamental needs. Students discovered that early humans came up with ingenious ways to survive the harsh conditions of ice ages and other climactic extremes. We learned about important archaeologists and some of their key early human discoveries. This group also experienced many moments that inspired gratitude and respect for our ancestors.

Below are some of the projects created by the elementary students:

Early Human Brain Sizes

Students were surprised that Homo neanderthalensis had a larger brain than ours. We discussed the parts of the human brain and discovered that bigger isn’t necessarily better. Neanderthals were lacking in critical thinking and speech.

Early Human Food

A balanced meal was hard to come by 2 million years ago. Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus ate what they could find: leaves, berries, lizards, snakes and small rodents. They also took advantage of kills made by other animals. The students noted that before fire was discovered, there was no way to cook meat, which caused a lot of disease. Neanderthals favored the Atkins diet, as you can see from the plate of meat. They ate nearly 5,000 calories per day!

Early Human Shelter

For many thousands of years, early humans found shelter in caves. They were always on the move and didn’t have the time or resources to make a home. Eventually they found that sticks, animal bones and stones made decent shelters. We discussed some of the potential downfalls that come with living in a home made of sticks. Students decided that it would be difficult to experience a Nor’easter in such a shelter.

Early Human Communication

Earlier this year we had a class debate about what the first word might have been. While we never could agree on one particular word, students discovered that almost every word they thought of was a noun or a verb. Many students thought the first word would have been something that meant “run!” Others thought a word for ‘mom’ might have come first.

Cave Art

About 35-40,000 years ago, early humans began creating art. Most of the caves that have been discovered were stumbled upon accidentally – one was happened upon by 2 boys out looking for their lost dog! Early humans mined ochre and used it to create their cave drawings.

Prehistoric Dragonfly

How would you like to encounter a dragonfly with a 4ft wingspan? During the Carboniferous Period, conditions were just right for dragonflies and other insects. Some students were surprised to learn that these creatures have been around for over 300 million years (they even predate dinosaurs!).

Sea Scorpions

We humans owe a great deal of thanks to sea scorpions. They were among the first animals to move onto land. Along with lichen, the sea scorpion helped break down the hard rock to create soil. That allowed more plants to grow and more animals to leave the water.

Trilobites

Trilobites ruled the ocean for hundreds of millions of years. They eventually met their match when nautiloids appeared – they could grow to be 15 feet long, so the poor trilobites didn’t stand a chance! A large deposit of trilobite fossils was discovered in Oklahoma, which led students to ask how that was possible. They had fun trying to imagine Oklahoma covered in a prehistoric ocean.

Books

Students created books that walk through each timeline. They wrote poems, made comics and filled their books with information.

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Anna — Wed, 09 May 2012 00:08:00 +0000

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

DNA

Anna — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:07:00 +0000

DNA

To help the 3rd & 4th year students better understand the science behind the timeline of humans, we began talking about DNA last week. We discussed how scientists use DNA to analyze the early human bones and artifacts that they find. Today we built DNA models using candy. Not only did this give students an opportunity to better understand the building blocks of life, it also inspired a long conversation about which candy is actually the worst for your teeth (they left it at a tie between DOTS and Jolly Ranchers).

Everyone took advantage of our open lesson policy this morning, so don’t be surprised if your 1st or 2nd year comes home with a DNA model!

We learned that…

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.
DNA is found in all living things.
DNA forms a double helix and has a pattern.
It can unzip and make new DNA.
The environment can cause mutations to happen (they’ll learn more about that next year)
If we unwrap all the DNA you in our cells, it could reach the moon 6000 times.
We all have 99.9% of the same DNA – the last tenth of a percent makes us unique.
We share 50% of our DNA with bananas!
DNA can help solve mysteries like ‘what kind of dog is this?’ or ‘who killed this endangered snow leopard?”
If you unwrap all the DNA you have in all your cells, you could reach the moon 6000 times

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Anna — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:53:00 +0000

The elementary students are participating in The Great Mail Race! Our class will send letters & questionnaires to Montessori schools in all 50 states (and Washington DC and US Territories). We hope to hear back from all of the states. We will hang a US map on the wall and place a pin in each state that replies. In addition to being a wonderful geography lesson, this activity is a fun way to practice letter writing. It also gave us a chance to have a discussion about some of the reasons that Maine is important.

What is your state famous for?
What are some important attractions in your state?
What are some important land and water formations in your area?
Which large city are you near?

Students spent the afternoon discussing these questions. Our younger students thought very locally - Maine is famous for LL Bean, Wolfe’s Neck is an important attraction, Moosehead Lake is an important water formation, etc. The older groups made lists (as usual) and debated each item. Which is more important to our state, lobsters or blueberries? Some people travel a long way to eat lobster, but people all over the country also eat food with Maine blueberries. What about pine trees – we are called the pine tree state. Do people in other states know about Prouts Neck or should we just list the Gulf of Maine as an important formation? Is Portland a large city or should we say Boston?

This is a great example of the shift in thinking that occurs around age 8. At that time, students enter a new plane of development that allows them to think more globally. They can put themselves in other people’s shoes – if you lived in Oklahoma, would you think Winslow Park is an important attraction? Portland is the largest city in Maine, but it isn’t as big as Boston – would someone from New York think Portland is a big city? It isn’t on the list of “major cities” in our atlas. Another question asks if Freeport is rural, urban or suburban, which allowed us to discuss and define those terms. They quickly ruled out urban, but the rural/suburban debate was still going at the end of the day.

It is important for students of this age to have many opportunities for these types of discussions. It helps them to practice higher order thinking skills. For those of you who have spent time observing our elementary classrom you know that these conversations are happening daily (hourly even!).

Feel free to peek into our classroom after spring break to see if we have any pins on our map or you can track our progress using Google Maps by clicking on the link below:

The Great Mail Race Interactive Map: http://g.co/maps/r27k9

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Swallowtail Jig

Anna — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:49:00 +0000

Swallowtail Jig

Here’s a taste of our new song!

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Anna — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine

Anna — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:49:00 +0000

The Moosehead Lake students have been working their way through the timeline of life. We are just about to finish up the Paleozoic Era, so we’ve been talking a lot about plants colonizing the land to make way for animals to move out of the water. Today the first and second years did some planting to celebrate the carboniferous period & help the school garden. They planted radishes, cilantro and a wildflower mix.

We also received our new compost bin today. Visit our facebook page for photos – don’t forget to ‘like’ us while you’re there!

www.facebook.com/meadowbrookmontessori

Meadowbrook Montessori School | Freeport, Maine