Happy Labor Day, everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend.
With no school Monday and a half day Friday, we have a pretty squeezed week ahead of us. We have a lot to fit into those few days, including presentations, our regular weekly work, spelling and math facts, and the beginning of enrichments.
A huge thank you to Tony, who donated a brand-new 3D printer to our classroom!
This is a pretty cutting-edge printer that prints quickly and gives us a lot of possibilities for student projects. Students will be able to learn three-dimensional modeling and design, create pieces for their projects, and even design and build solutions to problems we encounter around the classroom.
Over the next several months, Tony will also be visiting the classroom to help students learn how to use the printer and work through different project ideas.
I'm really excited to see where the students take this. Having access to authentic tools like this gives them opportunities to move beyond simply researching or writing about something and actually design, build, test, and create.
I'm also excited to welcome Cindy as our classroom Peace Educator. Cindy will be joining us weekly or bi-weekly for approximately 30–60 minutes to work with students on different concepts from our peace curriculum.
Peace Education is deeply integral to Montessori education and really to the curriculum as a whole. Students will work on understanding how we build peace within ourselves and our classroom community, and then how we take those ideas beyond our classroom and into the larger world.
The goal isn't for these to simply be isolated lessons. Students will work to incorporate what they learn into how our classroom actually functions and how they interact with the people and communities around them.
Last week, students turned in their Beginning of the Cosmos projects, and I saw a significant improvement in the overall quality of their finished work.
The projects were much more polished and presentable than our summer projects. The presentations also showed more thought and purpose and were much closer to the level of work I expect from students at this age.
I think our combined focus, both at school and at home, on producing polished, finished work is starting to show.
Our next big area of growth is content.
Students are still learning how to demonstrate what they actually learned through a project. Over time, we're going to work on how to:
One idea we'll begin working toward is having students help develop their own project rubrics. Before beginning a project, a student should eventually be able to say, essentially, "Here is what I intend to learn, and here is how my finished project will demonstrate that I learned it."
That gives both the student and the audience something concrete to evaluate when the project is finished.
Students will also be presenting their River as a Body projects this week.
This project is a little more teacher-structured than some of our other projects, which should help us work specifically on that connection between content and presentation.
Students begin with materials on our classroom shelves that include diagrams of body systems. They can trace the diagrams and identify and highlight their different parts.
From there, students choose from a list of 12 project options. They read through the choices, select a project, and work through its specific expectations.
Because these projects include clearer requirements for vocabulary, definitions, and understanding, they give students another opportunity to practice making sure that a beautiful finished product also contains meaningful academic content.
Enrichments begin this week!
And a little hint from Teacher Bob: there are still a few openings in Teacher Bob's D&D enrichment for students interested in joining us Wednesday or Thursday afternoon.
This Friday we only need a Laundry Hero. There is no Pizza Friday this week, so we do not need pizza pickup or side-shopping volunteers.
There was a little confusion last week about our two Pizza Friday volunteer jobs, so I want to clarify them for future weeks.
Pizza Pickup is the quick job. A parent picks up the pizza and drops it off at school.
Side Shopping Going Out is a separate and more involved volunteer opportunity. The goal is for the parent to take the student or students who have filled out the classroom sign-up sheet to the store to shop for our Pizza Friday sides.
Money for the sides can come from our Pizza Friday funds. Just ask Teacher Bob for the money ahead of time, and please return the receipt and any change.
Parents are absolutely welcome to do both jobs, but please sign up for both volunteer spots on the website. That helps us make sure one parent doesn't accidentally take a volunteer job another parent has already signed up to do.
The parent who volunteered to be our Garden Coordinator, please reach out to me!
I'd like to get our Saturday garden work day on the calendar. The idea is to get a group of parents together for a morning at school, working together, hanging out, and getting our gardens ready for everything we'd like to do this year.
We have a tremendous amount of garden space connected to our classroom and a lot of potential for what the students can do with it. We just need to get that first work day scheduled and get everything set up.
I've put a couple of items back onto our Amazon Classroom Wish List that were previously purchased because we've realized that having a second one of each would be extremely useful.
The first is another dish-drying rack. Students wash their own dishes, and a second matching rack would give us enough room for everything to dry properly while also keeping the space functional and organized.
The second is another outdoor storage cabinet.
The students had an absolute blast during rainy-day indoor recess assembling our new cabinet. They used power tools, drilled the pieces together, figured things out as they went, and really took ownership of the build. It ended up being a very hands-off process for the teachers.
A second matching cabinet would make our outdoor workspace much more functional. It would give students space to safely store project-building tools, materials, and works in progress while allowing more of that work to happen outside.
Goal-setting conferences are next week.
Sign-ups are available on the website. You can use the conference sign-up link, or simply find the conferences directly on the website calendar and sign up there. Often, going straight through the calendar is the easiest option.
And don't forget our regular Wednesday spelling and math facts assessments. Please help your student study so they can continue progressing through our 1,200 frequent words and their math facts.
It's a short week, but we have a lot happening!
Sign-ups are open for Pizza Delivery and Side Shopping. Chaperones!
There are also still spots available for goal-setting conferences.
Hello Parents,
Last week was a busy one. We had our first fire drill, introduced new math, geometry, language, and phonetic spelling lessons, and began our first full academic workload.
We spent the first two weeks establishing classroom routines. Now, students are learning how to manage their time while completing lessons, follow-up work, and projects. Some students brought work home this weekend to catch up. If your child had makeup work, they also brought home a letter for you to sign so we can maintain clear communication between home and school.
As we adjust to these new expectations, it is important that parents and teachers continue to believe that students are capable of completing the work. Assignments are scheduled according to the independent work time available during the school day. There is enough time to finish the work, but students are still learning how to plan, prioritize, and use that time well.
All students have been assigned a Beginning of the Universe/Cosmos Big Bang project. Each student submitted a proposal and received a big Teacher Bob Approved stamp.
The due date is written on the proposal. Projects are due this Tuesday so Sam and I have time to assess them before presentations later in the week.
Sixth graders presented their Geometry Town projects on Friday. The projects were of good quality, and students are beginning to understand the connection between presenting a project and demonstrating their understanding.
A few projects are still late. Sixth-grade parents, please check with your student and make sure any unfinished project is completed and turned in.
This Friday will be our first Pizza Friday. Almost everyone has submitted a permission slip. If you have not, it is available on my website. Please complete it so we know whether your child may participate.
Pizza Friday accounts must be at least half paid before a student can participate. If you pay half now, the remaining balance will be due on the first day of the second semester.
As everyone becomes more familiar with our classroom, I want to explain some of the routine work students will see throughout the year.
Our 1,200 Frequent-Word spelling tests take place on Wednesdays.
Students are working toward mastering the 1,200 most frequently used words in English. Some of these words do not follow common phonetic rules, while others appear so often that students need to recognize and spell them automatically. Students move through the list at their own pace.
Our other spelling and word-study work comes primarily from Words Their Way and Wordly Wise.
Students receive short lessons on phonetic patterns and language concepts, followed by word sorts and other activities that help them apply what they have learned.
Words Their Way begins with foundational skills, such as identifying vowel sounds, and gradually moves into more complex spelling patterns and word roots. Wordly Wise explores vocabulary, definitions, etymology, and Greek and Latin roots.
The goal is not only to memorize spelling words. We want students to understand how words are constructed and develop tools they can use when they encounter unfamiliar words.
Each student receives a monthly Storyworks magazine containing fiction, nonfiction, and other articles. The accompanying lessons focus on skills such as context clues, paragraph structure, reading comprehension, comparing texts, and citing sources.
Storyworks assignments will appear regularly in students’ weekly work.
In the coming weeks, we will begin novel studies. At different times, the whole class or individual grade levels will read a book together.
Students will participate in discussions and occasionally complete reading logs or assignments connected to the chapters. Novel-study work will usually happen once or twice each week.
We teach cursive, and it requires careful, repeated practice. Students will periodically receive cursive packets and may see similar practice again when a particular letter, connection, or habit needs to be refreshed.
Some weekly work introduces new concepts. Other assignments provide the repetition students need to become fluent and independent.
This week, students will continue their weekly work and lesson follow-ups while beginning their student work portfolios.
These portfolios will be part of student presentations and our upcoming goal-setting conferences. Students will review their work, reflect on their progress, and begin identifying goals for themselves.
We have also started our Montessori cultural and science study called The Body as a River.
In this lesson, the functions of the human body are presented as ports along a river. The river represents the circulatory, digestive, and nervous systems and helps students understand how the body’s systems are interconnected.
Students have begun research projects about body functions of their choice. Because this work involves discussing all parts and functions of the body, we also talked about communicating maturely, respectfully, and scientifically.
During their student-run class meeting, the students decided that one of our classroom goals should be:
"Don’t be gross on purpose."
They managed to address table manners, respect, and scientific communication in one very clear agreement.
The students have now held two class meetings almost entirely by themselves, and they are taking to the responsibility well.
Learning to respect other people’s voices while moving a group conversation toward a productive conclusion is an important part of participating in a democracy. It is also a fundamental part of Montessori’s work of peace.
Students are practicing how to listen, disagree respectfully, solve problems, make agreements, and move their classroom community forward.
Thank you again for all the donations coming into our classroom.
Tony took home a salvaged 3D printer that I found in the office and worked hard to get it running. Unfortunately, it was an older model that took an extremely long time to print and experienced frequent failures. Tony then very generously purchased a new 3D printer for the classroom. I know the students will be excited to use it in their projects and learning.
We also received a new tool shed from our wish list. We will build it in the coming weeks. As the temperature drops, my goal is to turn our front outdoor environment into a project lab with cardboard cutters, modeling tools, paint, building materials, and other equipment students can use for projects, presentations, and experiments.
Thank you to everyone who has donated supplies, materials, time, and support. You are helping us create an environment where students can take an idea and turn it into something real.
We have another full week ahead of us. Thank you for supporting students as they adjust to greater independence, responsibility, and academic expectations. The habits they establish now will help carry them through the rest of the year.
Teacher Bob
Summer Notes