Measuring, creating, building, playing. At McGuffey, students grades 1-8 have art and music twice a week.
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Glaciers
As Upper Elementary continues to study Earth Sciences, they created models to demonstrate how glaciers affect the land. Using modeling clay, kinetic sand, gravel, and a large ice cube, they observed how the movement of a glacier changes the surrounding landscape and what the landscape may look like as the glacier melts. It was a fun, hands-on activity to show how the Earth came to look the way it does.
Posted in science, Upper Elementary
DeWitt Cabin Field Trip + Space
Lower Elementary recently went on a field trip to hike, explore the DeWitt Cabin, and had a naturalist talk about birds while enjoying the Bird Blind.
Second graders have talked about our distance from the sun and the impact it has on different areas of the Earth. The distance between the sun and the equator is a much shorter distance than that between the sun and the poles.
Third graders had an opportunity to present what they learned at their StrengthsExplorer workshop. They explained what a strength is and how it can be used for leadership. They also identified their individual strengths and fielded questions from curious first and second graders.
All Lower students wrapped up their unit about space by learning about the Hubble space telescope, learning that anyone can submit a proposal to use the Hubble space telescope and designing their own spacesuits.
Posted in field trip, Lower Elementary, science
Building Community
The entire school has been building community within their own classrooms and other classrooms across the school. We recently finished SOAR (Students Outside And Running) which includes older students making a giant welcome tunnel to Primary students on their first day running. The students also run and walk together the rest of the days. Walk, Bike, and Roll To School saw our biggest student participation to date thanks to Wendy Duvall and Vicky Rye’s organization. We also had our first Sing Along of the year when we welcome not only all students and staff, but families, too.
Posted in community, Lower Elementary, Middle School, physical education, Primary, Upper Elementary
Matter in Primary
Earlier this month, Primary students got to eat something icy cold that was part of their science study, experiencing changes in matter with all five senses! Mini cups of organic white grape juice became solid after a few hours in the freezer, and quickly began melting into a liquid again as they enjoyed them under the hot sun outside. They also combined outdoor care for the environment with this science unit by harvesting tomatoes, basil, oregano, and parsley from the class garden and by blending them, transformed solid ingredients into a liquid sauce. Along with these activities, students also participated in a sink or float shelf lab. In Kindergarten Studio, the science study was extended with an exploration in density with marshmallows and water, and by creating chemical reactions with baking soda, vinegar, and baggies. If your family ends up trying any of these projects at home, let us know by tagging McGuffey Montessori!
Posted in Uncategorized
Middle School Poetry
Middle School students are writing, creating, and studying poetry. They are working together to compile a list of poetic terms. Favorite poets have been identified and poems have been written in the style of famous poems. Content from their current science unit on cells and DNA is being used to black out words and create a type poetry called Blackout Poetry. The Epigram Wall is being added to daily. So Much Depends poems are being written and hung in the Orange Room. A Cloud Poem has been created by the entire class based on their summer reading book, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. During their study of the book, students wrote down one word from each chapter that caught their imagination. Those words were collected and collectively entered to form the poem. The Poetry unit will wrap up this week and lead into Short Stories.
Posted in language arts, Middle School
Lower Elementary
Lower Elementary has been busy! Students recently completed a Grandparents Day project. Working with a partner, they brainstormed, wrote a script, rehearsed, and filmed one another. The only part a teacher played was stitching the videos together so it can be delivered to grandparents. This was an exercise in writing, reading, public speaking, filmmaking, and gratitude and loved by all grandparents.
First and second grade Biomes spent time learning about cardinal directions and how to use a compass. They practiced orienting themselves in the outdoor classroom to see if they could follow directions using a compass. STEAM activity this year is the book “Wreck This Journal.” Over the course of the year, they are going to wreck our journals with activities and explorations. So far, activities have included using only red to illustrate a page, poking holes in a page, exploring line width, fingerprinted, challenged themselves to color in an entire page, launched pencils at the books to score points, and gathered a leaf to press. This has been a fantastic experience so far, and our students are loving having permission to wreck with abandon.
Posted in language arts, Lower Elementary, outside, science
Soil
For the last few weeks, Upper Elementary students have been learning about the ground under our feet. They have been exploring soil layers by reading and making models. They are also experiencing hands-on learning by digging a hole in their outdoor classroom. The hole is deep enough to have made it to the second soil horizon, subsoil, which contains more mineral deposits and clay content than the topsoil layer. While digging, students were thrilled to find archeological artifacts in the form of broken plates. As a class, students have decided to create a time capsule to bury in the hole so people can learn about us in the future. The 3d models are of the soil levels in our deciduous forest biome.
Posted in outside, science, Uncategorized, Upper Elementary
Mushroom Update
The mushrooms continue to grow and Middle School students are still collecting data. One mushroom cap measured at 20.5 centimeters! Almost as big as your head! Using inquiry based learning, students have changed their hypothesis. Will it grow again? And how long will it take or how fast will it grow again after the first harvest? Students are also thinking about recipes to cook at home and if the size impacted texture and taste.
Posted in Middle School, science, Uncategorized
Nature Bracelets and Partners
Preschoolers and Kindergarteners in the Primary classroom took a nature walk to make nature bracelets. Our campus provides ample area for exploration and the students gleefully added found objects to their bracelet, carefully adding items that had already fallen onto the ground, not picked from plants. Primary students also got to the meet with their Upper Elementary partners for the first time this year. They began designing a giant mobile based on the work of Alexander Calder.
Posted in outside, partners, Primary, Upper Elementary