TNSM sixth graders reflect on their Washington, D.C. trip

Each year, New School Montessori 6th graders have the opportunity to explore Washington D.C., its monuments and other important museums and sights as they travel by plane and public transportation with teachers and chaperones. Students try new foods, learn to budget their meal allowance and enjoy the thrill of our nation’s capital. Students wrote a reaction paper about their week-long field trip. Here are some excerpts from their papers: “I knew the White House was fancy, but not as fancy as it actually was…I couldn’t believe I was in the President’s house!” Owen “There were just so many cool things to …

LuAnn Adams wows elementary students with multicultural storytelling

LuAnn Adams, from Cincinnati Playhouse, gave award-winning performances of her multicultural stories to our elementary students. The children were completely engaged with LuAnn’s dramatic performances and even helped LuAnn tell several of the stories. In rapper style, the class joined LuAnn in telling a “hip” version of Little Red Riding Hood, and Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat gave students another opportunity to take part in the drama. LuAnn performed a Brer Rabbit story, a tale of a tricky caterpillar and an India folk tale about how parrots came to have such colorful wings. Sam I Am (1 minute vignette)   Little Red Riding Hood …

Studying magnetic fields

Students learned about our Earth being a natural magnet and that a compass is attracted to the Earth’s magnetic poles. The students got to see how compasses react when they are near man-made magnets.

Who Am I?

Each year at TNSM, elementary students celebrate Halloween in a special way. The slideshow below shows some of the famous characters from history and literature we identified from their clever costumes and spoken clues about their lives. The 6th graders shared their love of anatomy in a “D’em Bones” song, listing bones from (head) parietal bone to (toe) the distal phalange. During recess, students, teachers and parent volunteers enjoyed games and healthy-Halloween snacks.

Students in (6-9) are being guided and mentored by quality literature.

(6-9) teachers have brought their lessons to life by reading examples of literature that embody elements of good writing. As you can see from the headings and books below, children are exploring a rich variety of fiction and can choose what kind of storytelling they’d like to employ once they begin their own writing projects. As the children bring their strong characters to life, their stories will be replete with sensory detail, dripping with varied sentence structure and brimming with adventure and intrigue! Let the writing begin…   Mentor Texts for Fiction  Using Illustrations to Convey Information:     A Medieval Feast, by Aliki The …

Community-building activities pair (9-12)ers with (3-6) students.

Community building is an important goal at TNSM. Not only do students interact with children in their (3-6), (6-9) or (9-12) level, but we create opportunities for older students get to know and mentor the younger ones outside of their level. Last week, Sophie and Tatum visited (3-6) on the back porch to read to a group of hungry-for-books preschoolers. On other days, one or two (9-12) students will sit with a preprimary lunch table to foster relationships and leadership.

From carrots to cotton – Greenacres (3-6) field trip had it all!

Preprimary students enjoyed their field trip to Greenacres last week where they focused on gardening. Students held handfuls of worms in the the worm garden and saw how compost is processed by worms to become rich topsoil. They tasted a carrot that they pulled fresh from the garden and felt the soft white fluff and the brown crackled outsides of a cotton boll bursting open like cotton candy, waiting to be picked. Many thanks to TNSM parents who helped chaperone and drive.    

What perseverance looks like

Jonah chose to do the addition fact memorization chart. It’s a big work that can’t be completed in one afternoon. He diligently returned to it after completing his other work for four days in a row, carefully fixing any magnets that had been bumped out of place while he was away. He was so proud when he completed it!    

Students studied magnetic energy and ran tests

As part of their study of magnetism in physical science, students created temporary magnets and tested how long a temporary magnet could keep its magnetic energy. To see how the magnetic field can pass from one object to another, students experimented to see how many paperclips they could add to the chain before the magnetic energy became too weak.