In Turquesa the community has a happy, busy hum. Children are settled, independent and highly motivated. I’ve noticed more and more over the past several weeks that students are helping each other, giving guidance and assisting others. There is a general air of competence and confidence in the classroom that is wonderful to witness.
Recently Forbes Magazine published an interesting article about success in business, linking innovative, solution-oriented, human-centered business success to a Montessori-like approach. Something happens in Montessori classrooms that are multi-age and child-centered that enables children to thrive. We embrace challenge, we accept mistakes, we look for solutions. Here is the article if you're interested: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2015/12/16/corporate-kindergarten-how-a-montessori-mindset-can-transform-your-business/ A large contingent of Turquesa students traveled to Mary's Place before break to deliver the results of our incredible Basic Needs Drive. In addition to loading and unloading a huge rented van and the back of an SUV, we had a tour of the shelter. This was a really meaningful experience for all of us. I hope you've seen the pictures on MCH's Facebook page. They speak volumes about the importance of our contribution, and the lives of the people who rely on Mary's Place. In a class discussion this afternoon, we decided to investigate what the city of Redmond is doing to support homeless families. Today, our students learned first-hand that the efforts of a small group of children and families can really make difference in the lives of others. In our history studies, children have begun research for their Colonial Collages. Each child is following a set of guided questions, and there is a buzz in the room about life in colonial America as children share their research and make connections. I wish you all a Happy New Year! Peace, Nicole
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I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving and that everyone enjoyed their breaks. We have three weeks until Winter Break, and we’re going to be really busy!
It will feel really good to get in the groove with our routines this week! In history, the children are presenting their Explorers Timeline Team Projects today. Tomorrow, we will be formally launching our study of Colonial America. In language arts, we’ve been examining the parts of the paragraph while also enjoying sentence analysis. In geometry, we have several different groups of students who are learning about different aspects of geometry including the relationships of lines, intensive study of circles, and equivalence. This week, in a rare group math lesson, we will be learning about data collecting and graphing. The children are going to track their own time commitment to their math studies, and graph their results. From these results, we will draw conclusions about how much time is being spent daily and weekly on math in our classroom. It is important at this stage in the year for children to hone their self-awareness and make decisions based on information instead of vague notions. This graphing exercise will offer an important opportunity for meta-cognition.This is real-life word problem work! In other math news, we have a new math practice program that we are using to assess students’ math fundamentals and mastery in order to effectively target review and practice work. Most Montessori Elementary students enter Upper El with a firm, reliable foundation of skills that helps them progress rapidly and confidently through math. However, some students need a bit of extra focused support. The practice program is called Symphony Math. At a school in New England where he worked previously, Mr. Robin was closely involved with the beta test of the program and is guiding our exploration of it. It is a diagnostic tool and also targets practice activities to specific individual math concepts if there are areas of weakness in the child's understanding. It is a web-based program that children will be able to use at home for 20 minutes a day if necessary. We will be in touch with each family to share benchmark information and recommend at-home practice if necessary. So far, students are enjoying their work with it. It is possible that we will consider replacing the paper math homework packet with Symphony Math for a handful of students. In other essential work, we are formally launching our basic needs drive for Mary's Place today. Turquesa students will be creating posters and banners for the campus, and passing out flyers. We are excited about supporting Mary's Place, and we're hoping you get a chance to talk to your children about their service learning work. Elementary-aged children are really capable of hard work, and can change lives! On Dec. 17, we’ll be delivering our collection to Mary's Place in Seattle.This will be a voluntary going-out experience for the children (they can sign up to help out with the delivery), and we'll need parent drivers whose vehicles hold lots of cargo. In the coming months, we have a number of important dates for you to keep in mind, and I want to make sure you get them into your calendars as soon as possible. Dec. 11: Nutcracker Field Trip Dec. 17: Delivery to Mary's Place (please let me know if you can drive and look for a Bloomz sign-up too) Dec. 18: Pajama Day in the Elementary Classrooms! (more info is coming soon) Jan. 22: Early Bird In-Class Curriculum Event - Join us from 9-10 as the children display and share their Colonial Collages Feb. 25: Upper Elementary Colonial Feast at Beaver Lake Lodge - 6-8 pm Please stay in touch if you have any questions or suggestions. Peace, Nicole It was such a pleasure to spend time with so many of you at Harvest Fest on Saturday. From the feedback I heard, it was pretty much the best Harvest Fest on record!
Last week in Upper El, after sharing our history stories and completing the first project of the school year, we turned our history studies eastward toward Europe. We are only taking a brief respite from North America in order to prepare the stage for the Age of Exploration. Last week, we looked at the cultural, religious and economic forces that propelled the Europeans across the Atlantic. This week, we will look at the advances in shipbuilding that made transoceanic travel reliable. Towards the end of this week, I will introduce the second history project of the school: a team-based project to build a timeline of explorers. Throughout our studies, we will continue to connect the arrival of the Europeans with the impact to the indigenous peoples. This is a complex year of history work for us, but I can see that the Turquesa students are hungry and curious and unstoppable! In science last week, we began an energetic study of fungi with a great Ted Ed video (see the link below - we watched until 3:51) and an hour-long fungi hunt on the hillside behind our building. We were so dirty and so excited to see the incredible variety of fungi! We brought many carefully extracted samples into the classroom to examine under microscopes and hand lenses. We also made a variety of spore prints. In essence, we covered the different parts of fungi and their functions, while also looking into reproduction. We will continue to delve into this life science work throughout the month. This week we are beginning sentence analysis lessons, continuing geometry work with both equivalence and the Pythagorean Theorem, and conducting mini-vocabulary investigations called Etymology Projects. In homework this week, every student has a lit book reading assignment and should be reading their Choice Book on a daily basis. Also, students with Wordly Wise should be completing the first half of Lesson 2. I hope you'll join me next Monday evening for a parent education night that is all about Upper Elementary Math! Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Nicole P.S. Here's the link to the fungi video: http://ed.ted.com/featured/u5TXiYXi We are settling into our post-IslandWood routines and the classroom is a busy place humming with lessons, projects and collaborations. We feel lucky to have the couch and library area as well so that down time and brain breaks are within easy reach. It is always our goal to help students stay motivated and purposeful about their choices, and sometimes that means relaxing with a good book. We’ve noticed that the couch is especially popular after lessons that involve new ideas and a lot of focus. I am happy to see people learning that self-regulation involves setting an effective pace and meeting their individual needs.
Every child starts at our morning Community Gathering, making a plan and setting their priorities for the day. Then they proceed through open class time, making decisions, asking for math lessons, making progress on projects, completing follow-up assignments and pursuing independent interests. Some students need help structuring this time, others need occasional check-ins from teachers, and others move efficiently through their decision-making. In our classroom, Mr. Robin and I work hard to make sure everyone is getting just the right amount of guidance to feed their sense of autonomy while also staying organized. History is one area in particular that gives students many opportunities to practice time- and project- management skills. In September, we were setting the stage for our exploration of North America with an intensive focus on the amazing array of independent tribal nations that have occupied the continent “since time immemorial.” We have been learning about tribal sovereignty and Native American culture areas, with stops along the way to experience story-telling, explore our own Coast Salish tribes and the idea of tribal homelands. Today we had a lesson about the importance of rivers and salmon to the Snoqualmie, Duwamish, Suquamish and the other Lushootseed tribes. We watched a series of amazing videos about the un-damming of the Elwha River in Olympic National Park. If you’d like to follow along, you can go to http://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/restorationoftheelwha.htm. Currently, students are working on their first history project of the year. I designed this project, called the “Infinity of Nations Story-Telling Project,” to help children connect more deeply and personally with the richness of North America’s original nations. It will also help them experience leadership, develop presentation skills, and integrate their imaginations into science. Each child selected a traditional story from incredibly reliable collections compiled by Michael Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. Right now, students are learning their stories so that they can tell them to a small group of Morado students. They will follow their story-telling by giving a nature-based science lesson that integrates concepts from the story with current research. In order to incorporate arts and help children summarize their story-telling experiences, each student is designing a component of a mural that reflects their story/tribe/culture area. We will all paint the mural next week. If you’d like to help with the painting, please let me know. I’m sure it’s going to fun and messy! We will celebrate the mural and the end of the project week after next with a story-telling gathering. I really enjoyed spending time with you at Goal-Setting Conferences yesterday. Thank you for your time! Keep your eyes open for next week’s all-school newsletter. I’ve got a couple of key articles related to IslandWood and our upcoming curriculum night in it that I’m hoping you will enjoy. MCH Sixth Grade Exit Project: The Island Project 2015-16
Teacher: Nicole Champoux Goals & Objectives Overview The Sixth Grade Island Project is a culminating experience for students in their final year at Montessori Children’s House. All of their experiences are drawn together and brought to a close through this year-long undertaking. While each Sixth Grader student creates his/her own project, the fact that all of the Sixth Grader are on similar journeys provides many opportunities for community building, shared work and shared strength. The Island Project is an opportunity for Sixth Graders to showcase their proficiencies and bring their Elementary experience to its completion with a tremendous accomplishment. The Ability to Do Big Work The Island Project is a monumental undertaking and requires a tremendous commitment. It incorporates a great deal of thinking, reading, writing and creativity. First, the student pictures the world, and everything they’ve learned about it over the years. Then they select a longitude and latitude – an actual location on the globe – where they will spend the academic year creating a place from scratch. Once a location has been selected, the student is committed to it and it cannot be changed. The project happens in segments over the course of the school year. Each distinct task lasts anywhere from two to eight weeks. Students must manage their own time and efforts in order to accomplish each segment; each task feels large and important due to the student’s on-going investment in it. The Island Project tackles big concepts and requires big effort. Students directly address some of the most important concepts in global development and survival, like the confluence of geography, culture and economics. This work brings the hypothetical/imaginary (yet complex) world of the student’s Island directly into the modern world of current events and ethics. Independence Each student must choose a unique geographical location. This means that they have sole responsibility to independently research the geographical, biological, historical, cultural, economical and sociopolitical aspects of the region in which they’ve placed their island and the country upon which they have modeled it. The Island Project papers that are handed to the students include all of the descriptions, tasks and due dates. Each student is on an individual journey, with many long and short term goals and objectives throughout the year. Collaboration Although each student’s Island Project is a unique and solo endeavor, the project involves frequent opportunities for students to work together. They work together in seminar-like discussions, grappling with a wide variety of complex and sophisticated ideas. Students talk together, share articles, help each other, and give each other formal and informal feedback on their writing. They participate in each other’s projects and present together at the end-of-the-year Island Night. Throughout the process, they become aware that they are dependent upon one another, essential contributors to the learning community. Click here to download the rest of the overview. I hope you've been enjoying the three-day weekend! We had an amazing first week in Turquesa, and I'm hoping that your child shared a lot of it with you already.
I'll be sending out weekly emails this year in order to fill you in on what's been happening in the classroom and what's coming up. I'll be sharing a lot of information with you tomorrow night at Upper Elementary Parent Night (6 pm in Turquesa), but I couldn't wait to share a few highlights from our week. Last week, we really focused on community building. We played a whole bunch of getting-to-know-you games throughout the week - everything from Classmate Scavenger Hunt to Poison Dart Frog. Mr. Robin and I are already impressed with how caring and attentive our people are to the needs and feelings of others. At this age, children have really strong social needs and it's important to incorporate that drive into communications and academic work. In order to give them intellectual and organizational community events, I purposefully introduced several free-form collaborative team-style exercises. For example, they split into teams of 5 in order to make a scale-model mobiles of the solar system. This was a review lesson that anchors our earth science work, but it was also a great chance for me to see how they work together, how they express their ideas and how they respond to each other. I have to be completely honest and say that I've rarely met a group of children who are as naturally and easily compatible as this year's Turquesa, while also being amazingly diverse in terms of learning needs and communication styles. Wow! I'm really excited for this year! Beyond community building, we had a full array of history, writing, science and literature lessons. Math and reading assessments, as well, were happening throughout the week. I hope to see you tomorrow evening for Parent Night and Friday afternoon from 5-7 for the Recess Monkey Back-to-School BBQ! As always, please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you! Nicole Thank you for joining us for our amazing Renaissance Feast on Friday evening. It was such incredible pleasure to have a chance to gather to Upper Elementary community together and revel in the pride and accomplishments of the children! I really appreciate the parents who volunteered to help too - thank you!
We have two weeks left of school! This coming week we will stick with our normal routines. We will continue to have regular lessons in math, language, science and history. Students will also be going through their cubbies and beginning to build a portfolio of this past year. The portfolio will contain samples of their best work and most memorable experiences from the school year. The portfolios will go home the last week of school with everything else in their lockers. This coming week, during class time, students will be creating their final Choice Book Projects as well. They will be invited to choose from among a wide array of projects and share the experience of creating their projects with their classmates. One of the most impressive aspects of this particular group of children is how excited they are to work together and how successful their collaborations have been. We have spent a lot of time this year focusing on communication skills and team-building, and I believe that the students are able to engage such valuable teamwork because of our work in Talk-About, class meetings, lit circles and beyond. When I consider the future selves of my students, I am always thinking about how we can help them to become clear, reliable, creative communicators. As we prepare for the End of the Year Party, I've been in touch with many of my former students and I believe that all of the time we spend on this hard-to-quantify aspect of human development is completely justified! The final week, we will be sticking with our regular daily schedule while focusing on community wrap-up work, cleaning/organizing the classroom and bringing closure to this school year. It's important for children to participate in these closing activities and begin to transition to summer. Everyone will be bringing extra clothes, boots, indoor shoes, and other supplies home by Wednesday, June 17th. With all that out of the way, the students will be able to really relax and enjoy the final 2 days of school. On Thursday, June 18th will be our elementary “Spirit” day. This will be a combined Crazy Hair Day, Mix-It Up Day and Game Day all-in-one! We will also be having an afternoon Talent Show! Upper Elementary students are making a presentation to the Morado students about this event and will be providing a flyer with details. Friday, June 19th we will have our field day! We have planned several fun activities - including dance party, piñata, crafts and more - for the students to celebrate the last day of school. Hello Folks,
It's hard to believe that the school year is winding down! I have been working on end of semester Progress Reports; this task always make me simultaneously nostalgic for who the Turquesa students were at the beginning of the school year, impressed with how much each of them has grown intellectually and excited for their futures adventures. Speaking of adventures, this coming Friday, June 5, is our annual Upper Elementary Feast. This year we are celebrating our history studies with a Renaissance Feast! The Renaissance Feast is our way of using our history studies to bring our community together one final time to celebrate this wonderful school year. Tomorrow, students will research the culinary traditions of the Renaissance and will be designing a menu using authentic recipes from primary sources (of which there are quite a few, thanks to the printing press!). We are approaching the feast is a slightly different way this year. My goal is to make an even more immersive practical life experience. Students are involved in every phase - from research and menu planning to budgeting and shopping to cooking, setting up and hosting to cleaning up! After we choose our menu, we will create shopping lists. This year we are taking teams of interested students on shopping expeditions to a local grocery store so that they can fully immerse themselves in the experience as a community. We will conduct these excursions on Thursday morning. If, for some reason, you and your child are not able to join us on Friday evening, please let me know as soon as possible. We will spending all day on Friday cooking and preparing the feast. In past years, the food is delicious and plentiful! We have plans for a beautifully arranged banquet - manners and protocol and arrangements had an extremely important role during the Renaissance. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Nicole This month in Turquesa we've been working hard on Medieval Book Projects. This is a culmination of our year's worth of history studies.
We have experienced new worlds this year in our explorations of Europe in the Middles Ages and the Golden Age of Islam. With their powerful imaginations, the kids can really put themselves into the stories. We've also done some very careful questioning and critical thinking about history - always looking for the "why" and always looking beyond the obvious for connections and themes. For this 5-week project, students are researching and pulling together information for at least ten different major aspects of the Middle Ages in Europe. I say "at least" because there is flexibility built into to every project - students are welcome to rearrange, combine and add to the list of topics in order to follow their own particular interests. The standard topics for this project include feudalism/manorialism, knights, chivalry, castles, the Crusades, the Plague, daily life, and much more. Using the formal writing process, students take their research and format into chapters full of carefully written paragraphs. In language arts lessons, we've been working on finding the main idea in paragraphs, and our writers are incorporating their specific language arts lessons into this long-term project. There is a tremendous amount of excitement in the classroom this week as students begin to revise their 1000+ words drafts. They are working together with peer reviews, working solo with revising checklists, and meeting independently with me in revision conferences. This is an intense and focused effort! This is where the real hard effort of writing happens, and a draft becomes refined and organized and precise. The next step is to edit drafts and then bind them into the final published pieces. Each chapter will begin with an hand-drawn illuminated letter. Each book also contains a series of hand-drawn illustrations. We will be hand-sewing the books, and sharing them with parents at our Continental Breakfast on May 1. These projects are requiring tremendous effort, focus, flexibility, organization and inspiration. When complete, they will represent a year that has been as rich and full as life in the Middle Ages. Next, we will journey to the Renaissance! All of this project work, of course, happens concurrently with math lessons, community service, science, gardening and more. We also have a handful of students who are embarking upon Passion Projects too! It always amazes me that we can cover so much learning territory on our daily journey in Turquesa. What a beautiful spring day!
Well, we finished the ITBS and looking forward to getting back into our routines. The students seemed to enjoy the process and the extra recess/drawing/reading time. I'll be hand-scoring the tests and will get the results to you by the end of Spring Break. This week, in the midst of ITBS, we had several wonderful afternoon work sessions. Our history studies have circled back around to medieval Europe, and this week our history lessons are focused on the dramatic story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Next week, we'll investigate the Crusades from multiple perspectives. The kids were excited to make the spontaneous connection between Eleanor, her sons Richard the Lionheart and King John and Robin Hood. We're going to see the Seattle Children's Theater production of Robin Hood in May, so things feel wonderfully integrated in our minds right now! I share in the children's joy when things come together like this! On Monday, I let the children know that their math requirement for the week was the ITBS. I also invited anyone who wants a math lesson because they are excited about their work to ask for lessons. As a result, I was delighted to give a whole handful of "extra" math lessons to our irrepressible students! I can't wait for you to see what they're doing at Math Day on April 17. Today, students are going to be introduced to their new history project. This is a cumulative project called "The Medieval Book Project" and involves quite a lot of research, organization, and energy. We are following the formal writing process with this project, as with all of our other history projects. The research phase will last a couple of weeks, then children will create drafts, get feedback, revise, edit and publish. The end product is a hand-made book that summarizes the Middle Ages. Tomorrow we are beginning our theater residency with Book-It Repertory. We will once again be working with talented and dynamic Gillian Jorgenson. We'll be sharing pictures and anecdotes along the way, so I hope you'll feel included. If you'd like to feel even more included, you can help us out! We need parent volunteers to help with costumes, running lines, and hosting next Friday's performances. Please let me know if you can give any time (either at home or in school) in the next week! Also, make sure you reserve your seats for the performance time you prefer. Over the past several days, I've had been meeting with the MCH Leadership Team to create plans for next year. This is an annual process, and I always emerge from the meetings with a whole bunch of excited developments, and approximately 1,000 tasks. This year, one of the areas that we have identified as full of growth potential is our parent volunteer system. If you are interested in helping us revamp, re-ignite and reorganize our approach to parent volunteering, I would love to meet with you. At this point, we're still in the brainstorming phase so this is not a long-term commitment, just a couple of meetings. Please let me know if you are interested! Enjoy the lovely day! Nicole |
Ms. Nicole & Ms. AlyxEl Salon Turquesa Co-Lead Teachers Archives
May 2018
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Montessori Children's House
5003 218th Ave. NE Redmond, WA 98053 Phone: 425-868-7805 Fax: 425-502-6608 office@mchkids.com |
Founded in 1987
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