Keystone Montessori School

In our Summer Program, children had a lot of fun creating puppets and props based on The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

The children worked together to color a backdrop for our puppet theater. The backdrop was used for the puppet show performance of the story.

Children also made “brown barbaloot” puppets from paper bags, “swamee swan” puppets from socks, and “truffula trees” from pipe cleaners and pompoms.

The group talked about the story’s message of environmental responsibility.

Next week we will make finger puppets and sewn felt hand puppets, then try out everything we’ve made in our puppet theater.

The project culminated in a puppet show performance of The Lorax. Children enjoyed working together on this multi-media project:  coloring, making puppets, reading, discussing the story, and then acting it out for their friends.

The Lorax brought their attention to environmental responsibility, and how our actions can affect our world.

Experimenting with a variety of art techniques is part of the fun of the summer program. Here are children doing bubble art. First blowing bubbles in a bowl of colored water. Then, placing a paper on top to make the bubble print!

Another fun medium is Spin Art! While the paper is spinning, the child drips some paint onto it. The result is beautiful, swirled, and colorful. You can even observe how the colors mix when they overlap with each other.

One of the multi-faceted activities this week involved the story The Rainbow Fish. Mrs. McMahon read the story, and the children enjoyed using paper and foil to collage their own colorful rainbow fish!

The children in the summer program are respectfully observing the mother robin and her nesting activities.  When mother left the nest, one head popped up!  Later, mother returned with some food, and the children saw three heads pop up. We think there are three babies.

This part of the climbing structure is temporarily closed. Children enjoy the other parts of the climbing structure, and have plenty of other playground activities.

We reorganize our day a bit in the summer. Children begin with outdoor time from 8:30 until about 10:00 a.m. Then, they enjoy indoor work time, lunch, and rest. Outdoors again in the late afternoon. With this schedule, children avoid the hottest part of the day, and enjoy the cool mornings, and cooling late afternoons.

Our teachers create some extra activities for children to enjoy outdoors. It’s a great place to do some artistic push-pinning on the picnic tables, or set up an easel and paint freely!

Our summer program runs for ten weeks, from June 12 through August 27. In the summer program, children can continue to work with the full spectrum of Montessori materials in their classroom. The summer program also takes advantage of pleasant morning weather outdoors, and children enjoy some extra outdoor activities.

In addition, summer presents some extra art projects, often related to a book or topic of interest.

Here, we see two children working with the cube off the trinomial. This is a challenging puzzle, which is also a concrete representation of (a+b+c) cubed!

Students develop their skills in observation in many ways. Through careful examination with a magnifying glass, and through experiments like sink and float.

In this experiment, the child anticipates what will happen (hypothesis). Will this item sink? or will it float? Then, placing the object in water, the child observes what happens. Removing the item, the child puts it on the classification sheet. Observing the final results… which items sank? which items floated?… the child may change his hypothesis about what sinks and what floats. In this simple, self-contained experiment, the child experiences the scientific method: hypothesis, experiment, observation, analysis.

Throughout the school year, students in the elementary program at Keystone Montessori School have sold Equal Exchange products to raise money to support the Lowell Wish Project.

Every aspect of this program has been of value to the students, and to children throughout the world. As part of their study of Fundamental Needs of Humans, our students look at the ways that people have satisfied their need for food, clothing, shelter in different times in history, and in different parts of the world.

Even today, children around the world live in very different kinds of homes. Climate, and natural resources have a lot of influence on the way different cultures provide food, clothing, and shelter for their children.

The Equal Exchange curriculum provided some activities that helped students experience how wealth is distributed in some parts of the world. Students were excited to learn that selling the Equal Exchange products would make for a better life for children and farmers around the world.

When our students discovered that children nearby, right here in Lowell, do not have beds, they were SURE they wanted their fundraising to support the Beds4Kids at the Lowell Wish Project.

Today, we had the opportunity to spend time with Donna Hunnewell, Founder and Executive Director of the Lowell Wish Project. Our students told her about their experiences selling Equal Exchange proudcts. Ms. Hunnewell told our students about how she decided to create the Lowell Wish Project.

Right now, there are over 100 children in Lowell who need beds. Our contribution of over $700 will purchase about 9 beds. Keystone students were very pleased to know that these children will soon have a bed, blankets, sheets, and pillows. Many of our students remember sleeping on a floor at some time, and could easily imagine that it would not be fun to have to sleep on a floor all the time!

With this cycle of service learning, our students learned more about the fundamental needs of humans around the world, and right here  in Lowell. Their efforts make a real difference in the lives of children near and far.

Studying minerals using a microscope

Keystone Montessori School has been filled with minerals, crystals, and jewels. In one of our Children’s House classrooms, children enjoyed a presentation about minerals and gems.

Our elementary students enjoy looking at minerals using their microscope. They had a special presentation by a parent, who is a geologist. He talked about color, shape, hardness, streak, cleavage, and luster. Using these attributes, students can identify and classify minerals.

Keystone will have an Exhibit of Children’s Work on May 2, from 1-3 p.m. This will also be an Admissions Open House and the public is invited.

Throughout the year, children have done art using a variety of media:  paint, pastel, crayon, watercolor, paper mache, polymer clay, mosaic, and other media. We will show some art work, as well as some of the academic work done by the children throughout the year:  maps, illustrated books, research projects, stories, and books.

We hope our parent community will come to see the Exhibit of Children’s Work. We invite the public to see what young children do here at Keystone Montessori School. Guests can tour our classrooms and meet our teachers as well.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Horne Family Foundation, obtained by the Keystone Montessori Parents’ Organization, we have a rich program of music and art activities for all of our classrooms. At a time when budgets are tight in every school, and many public schools are cutting their music and art programs, we are so pleased to be able to continue with a program that gives varied experience with movement, instruments, percussion, and a variety of art media.

This week, the elementary program continued exploring rhythm using a variety of movement activities, and drums. Here is a short video glimpse into an elementary music class.