The path had begun years ago, but COVID expedited our emphasis on spending time on our playground.
Category: Children at Work
Play is the Work of the Child
We adore Mr. Rogers. His long-running show, and its spin-off Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, are the only TV shows we recommend to our families. He not only has a universal message of love and compassion, but he had a way of saying it all so simply, speaking to children and adults alike. One of our favorite […]
Our Sensorial Shelves
Our Sensorial shelves include many of the materials that Montessori is best known for: the pink tower, the brown stairs, the knobbed and knobless cylinders and the varieties of insets. Maria Montessori herself designed most of these works, based on her own experiences of how young children learn. If you’ve ever seen a two-year-old […]
Dia de los Meurtos
At HMS, we regularly talk with children about death as part of the natural life cycle. After all, the children have seen dead bugs, some have had pets die or have even experienced death in the family. Death is a part of life so this is not a topic that we shy away from when […]
Spooky new materials are on the shelves
We routinely change out the materials on our shelves. With the turn of the calendar and the change in the weather, this weekend the teachers were busy making new works. The children were eager to try out the new materials, including a variety of counting works, coloring calaveras, basting water into pumpkin molds and the ever-popular […]
Birthdays as History Lessons
Like many Montessori Schools, we go out of our way to celebrate birthdays. We do so in a way that emphasizes the passage of time a child’s life. The children discuss how the Earth goes around the sun each year, getting an idea of their place in time. Essentially these are among the first History and Science lessons […]
New Year, New Works
This new school year has brought with it some brands new works on our shelves: flowers and dinosaurs. With the help of our awesome parent community who brought in some cut flowers, we are happy to offer a flower-arranging tray for our students. To complete this multi-step work, they are asked to choose from the available […]
Friends help friends
One aspect of Montessori that differentiates it from mainstream schools is the multi-age classroom. At any given time, about 1/3 of the students in our classroom are in their third year at HMS. In fact, a Kindergarten student is in her fourth year with us. Thus, in our classroom, when a child asks a teacher for help it […]
Springtime is here
Springtime has arrived, both on our playground and inside the classroom. Bugs are on the shelves and blue and yellow (ahem, green) paints are on the easels. Art class has been outside several times, “baby” loquats and peaches are on the trees, butterflies flit around the playground, and flowers tend to come into the classroom. […]
Now presenting: BUGS
This spring, teachers have left many “buggy” materials on our shelves. More and more every week! We are doing bug puzzles counting bugs drawing bugs writing about bugs making our own bugs. In the process, we are learning the names of the body parts, learning about the life cycle of bugs, finding the similarities and differences between spiders and […]
Love for Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is a popular one for children. We started a few weeks ago with various heart-shaped materials on our shelves (why do we rotate our shelves?) and discussions of what and who we love. This week, students brought in their homemade Valentines to the school, and, like past years, the holiday culminated with our […]
The Differentiated Classroom
Visitors to HMS marvel at the varied activities going on at the same time. This morning we noticed these two age-appropriate activities happening at the same time. To the untrained eye, these may seem two different activities, but what is going on is simply that children of different ages have different abilities. It is well-known […]