A kind, gentle North Austin community school
In a Montessori classroom, many materials on the shelves come and go, but one of the staple materials in our classroom is the Metal Insets. Earlier this month, some of our five & six year old students started making books about the solar system using the Metal Insets. They used the circle inset for the planets and free hand for meteors. […]
Our classroom is warm and dry, and busy as always. But we still love to go outside! On this spring’s un-sunny days, we like to have fun in the mud… mudplay from Highland Montessori School on Vimeo.
A popular topic among many of the older students last week was the planets, so true to Montessori our teachers followed that interest and we got out some of our spacey books and materials, and the students created some of their own. They are still busy with them this week!
To celebrate Mothers’ Day, our young students put on a special music class for all of our Parents. Mrs Laura did an excellent job preparing the little musicians–in addition to showing off multiple rhythms and songs, they took a bow at the end!
Maria Montessori once lamented on “How often is the soul of man – especially in childhood – deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature?” In this spirit, some of our families went camping together last weekend. By all accounts, a good time was had! (Many thanks to some of our parents–and […]
Montessori schools have big closets. Well, ours is a shed, but the point is that we have more available for children in storage than is actually out on the shelf. Of course, there are some always-available Montessori classics like the pink tower, counting rods, continent maps, and sandpaper letters, but much of our classroom is in […]
Children love to construct, and to de-construct. This is part of the imaginary play in which every child engages. In a Montessori classroom, the building materials are specially-designed to promote future success in math and reading. The blocks and cylinders are built at proportional increments. A child working with these materials will intrinsically become acquainted with […]
Maria Montessori tells us to “Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.” So when our teachers recognize that some of our young scholars need some down-time, even on the playground, we respond. The photos below show the kids’ appreciation of their teachers’ efforts.
Our little scholars have returned from Spring Break and went right back to work. Our teachers couldn’t help but notice that the children themselves must be feeling the Spring Fever, as their choices of works seem to reflect the warm breezes that we are feeling outside….
With the awesome help of two of our parents, we now have a lovely new garden in the playground, surrounding our spritely young oak tree. In the spirit of the idea that you will take care of what you create, the students planted all of the new plants! One more from Friday, when we took […]
This morning we had a visitor–one of our Grandpas–and he shared his rock collection with us! There were lava rocks, crystals, fossils and even a meteorite!
Tuesday, Feb 16: We released the butterflies to nature this morning, and all five flew away! Saturday, Feb 13: While at school this afternoon, Rick noted the last butterfly has emerged! It’s the smallest of the five. Wednesday, Feb 10: This morning we arrived to the third butterfly and the fourth, the smallest one yet, secretly and […]