We have been learning that different plants grow in the forest, and that some of them are very tall, and some of them are very small. Older students are learning about the layers of the forest and some of our New Zealand native trees and plants. We also had a go at the sponge painting technique. Year 4 students painted aboriginal dreamtime paintings with sponged backgrounds after they learnt about different creation stories.
Room 13 Montessori juniors made flowers and 'bugs' while the seniors made clay creatures (we will have pictures of these when fired!).
to learn more about them. This term we continued to learn about Air (and the carbon cycle at senior level) and Space and Climate Change...we also had fun with chemical reactions.
We learnt a lot about bees and had a great trip to COMVITA, where we had a go at acting like bees to learn more about them!
We have been working hard. We have been lworking on maths (especially place vaue - juniors, and multiples - middles, and algebra/cubing - seniors). We have been learning about our brain and how our actions affect it (with Life Ed and Harold too), learning about ourselves and how we learn, learning about life cycles and bees in particular, learning where places are around the world, practicing for athletics, learning about patters, making and getting creative, making complex origami shapes (thanks for the help Liam!), doing science experiments, learning about Chinese New Year, Waitangi, and learning more coding and ICT skills. Here are some pictures of us at some of our more creative work!
We choose our work (in any order). We have lessons and then we do follow-up work. We read, research, plan, write, type, code, blog, spell, analyse sentences, do grammar and learn about parts of speech, do zoology and botany, do science experiments, art, technology projects (like the slime dispenser!), we share, we snack, we measure, we calculate, we make and cook, we sketch, draw or paint, and we learn to think and work independently.
We don't do rewards but we get rewarded by that amazing feeling you get when you complete a big piece of work, or something you weren't sure you could do. We have freedom but it comes with responsibility. This is Montessori, welcome to our world! |