Elementary and Middle School students at Greensboro Montessori School work and play hard in their physical education classes. Lower Elementary works out 1 day a week for 55 minutes, Upper Elementary works out 2 days a week for 50 minutes and Middle School works out twice a week for 55 minutes. Early in the school year, each class starts off with a fitness evaluation. In this evaluation, we test each student's 1) resting heart rate, 2) muscle strength with push-ups and sit-ups, 3) cardiovascular levels with 1/2 mile or 1 mile walk/jog and 4) flexibility with the sit-n-reach test. The first test is a benchmark for the year; then each student will do a retest before Winter Break and again before summer break.
So far this fall we have completed units on soccer and football. In soccer, students, practiced all the foot skills associated with that sport. Soccer is still the favorite sport of every class - Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary and Middle School. We then moved into a unit about American football. To keep all the students interested, we changed it up and converted the game of ultimate frisbee to ultimate football. Students got plenty of practice with eye hand coordination skills, team work skills and had a fast moving game to play at the same time. This unit worked in conjunction with the Middle School after school sports program All of the age groups are getting to develop their skills towards the big goal of playing on the middle school flag football team.
Occasionally we take a break from the schedule and work on our teamwork skills with a good ol'game of floor hockey or kickball.
Duncan Page graduated from Greensboro Montessori School in 2011 after 11 years as a GMS student. He attended high school at the Early College at Guilford and this fall enrolled in the NC State University program for electrical and computer engineering. Visit the Early College at Guilford homepage.
Duncan and two classmates from NC State were top performers in a recent global online programming contest known as IEEEXtreme, ranking 2nd in the U.S. and 24th in the world. IEEEXtreme is a global challenge in which teams of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Student members compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems. IEEE, the world's leading technical professional association for the advancement of technology, conducts the programming competition.
Click here to read more about the competition.
Duncan is the youngest three siblings all of whom are Montessori alumni. Duncan's older brother, Griffin, is a senior at NC State studying Computer Science, and his older sister, Courtney, completed her master's degree in Historical Archaeology from Eastern Carolina University and now works as the lab manager for Blackbeard's - Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck, which draws together some of the leading scientists around the nation to collaborate and use the latest techniques in the science or preservation. Duncan's parents, Judy and Brian Page, live in Greensboro.
This month, in which Latin America remembers the “Encounter of Two Worlds”, the students were busy in the classrooms learning, working, researching and presenting their work about our rich Hispanic culture and its people. Below is a glimpse of our activities.
Primary
by Yeny Hernandez [dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
Children in Tracy's class learning different aspects of the Hispanic Heritage Month
This has been an active month in Primary in Spanish. The students worked with geometry, recognizing the different geometrical shapes and naming them as they created figures with them.
We also celebrated the Hispanic Heritage Month, talking about different aspects of it: history, geography and art among others.
We look forward to another month of exciting activities!
Lower Elementary
by Susana D'Ruiz [dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
In cultural studies, we covered Mes de la Herencia Hispana (National Hispanic Month), songs and cultural content. As an end to cultural month, we read about one of the most renowned Mexican artists, Diego Rivera. In phonetics, the emphasis was on /m/ sound and syllable formation for first level students, and /d/ sounds and syllable formation for second and third levels.
Albert and Andrew listen attentively about Diego Rivera's life.
Students working on their phonetics books
Working on a Diego Rivera painting
Upper Elementary
by Susana D'Ruiz and Sandra O. Lee
Fourth Level
The fourth level students have transitioned well into Upper El. This past week the lessons focused on noun gender. In vocabulary the emphasis was on useful phrases for the Spanish class.
Fifth Level
This month the students have been busy working on vocabulary and sentence analysis. They compared the Spanish versus the English patterns using the Montessori Grammar Symbols. They continue working on vocabulary and phonetics.
David analyzes sentences in Spanish using Montessori grammar symbols.
Middle School
by Sandra O. Lee [dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
Part of October has been marked for the visit of our friends from our sister school in Costa Rica. Our kids had the opportunity to make new friends, practice Spanish and get ready for their trip to Costa Rica in May. But we do not forget about academics during "Mes de la Hispanidad" in which we celebrate the "Encounter of Two Worlds". The students in Middle School researched and presented their work about different people, natural wonders and monuments from Spain and Latin America.
Sixth year girls work on their schedule in Spanish
Middle schoolers working with some of our new friends who visited from Costa Rica.
Collaborating with colleagues speaks of community and shows our students that we support each others work. Lower elementary art students have been helping our librarian Erin Carmola with her reading challenge called Reading is a Piece of Cake. Students are helping to promote the reading challenge by creating pieces of cake in art class. These will be displayed on the bulletin board outside the library. The element of art we are studying in October is line. Look for a variety of lines used in these delectable looking pieces of cake. Notice how each artist uniquely expresses their interpretation of a piece of cake.
Reading is a Piece of Cake
Three -dimensional line work
Collaborating with Upper Elementary Teachers
5th level upper elementary students are studying about Rome and we have been making mosaics in art. This has been a valuable learning experience. Students have learned that art is a process that evolves over time. They have used problem solving skills when realizing their design was too detailed for the mosaic pieces to work in their image. Reworking the design became a natural part of this learning process. This process has been grueling at times but upper elementary students are very proud of their finished pieces!
Mosaics Designed By Upper Elementary Students
Grouting is the next step in this mosaic.
All this fabulous art work will be coming home at the end of this first trimester.
Art and music will be working together to create scenery and costumes for upcoming winter concerts. Students love when their classes overlap and there is continuity in their day. It is such a blessing to work with such talented colleagues and to come alongside such eager learners.
From September 15th to October 15th is the National Hispanic Heritage Month. As part of this celebration in our classrooms, the students will be working on different activities related to Latin American countries and Spain, their culture, artists and landmarks.
Primary [dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
We started the month reviewing greetings and learning the Buenos Días song. The students have enthusiastically practiced the song, as well as greetings, colors and numbers inside and outside the classroom. When we finish our lessons, we also sing the "Roll, roll, roll your mat" song in Spanish - "Enrolla, enrolla, enrolla tu alfombra."
During this month, we will be learning and practicing colors in Spanish through the painting “The Flower Carrier” by the Mexican artist, Diego Rivera.
Lower Elementary[dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
Susana working with small groups in Lower Elementary
This month, Yeny, a native from El Salvador, will be talking with the Lower El students about her country and its culture.
A, B, C, Ch, D, E, F, .... Gee what a lot of fun we had these past weeks. Our names have been very important this week. We are looking for letters that are the same in each other’s names, counting letters, comparing the length as well as looking for letters that we have learned. We also reviewed greetings in Spanish and vowel sounds. In addition, the students are working on a tongue-twister in Spanish: El hipopótamo Hipo.
Upper Elementary
by Sandra O. Lee and Susana D'Ruiz
Fourth Level
We used the first weeks of school helping students to get to know one another and become comfortable with various classroom routines. One of our goals is to help students become independent workers, so students are currently learning how to organize work in their Spanish notebook, folder and on index cards.
Fifth Level
This month we started our writer’s workshop. The students are very excited, working on constructing and connecting sentences with the final goal of writing paragraphs in Spanish. To do this, they are working on vocabulary lists, spelling exercises and analyzing sentences. Looking forward to share their writing with you!
Middle School [dt_sc_email emailid="[email protected]"/]
Alex explains to Robbie how to use the Spanish textbook
September has been a busy month in Spanish. Sixth level students have transitioned well. They are getting familiar with the different components of the Spanish 1 program, and I must add they are doing a great job!!!
Evan listens and practices vocabulary
Seventh and Eighth levels are working on their projects and presentations about a Hispanic – American landmark or people. The projects will be presented the last week of September. I look forward to see the result of their research work!
In early August, GMS music teacher, Betsy Bevan, attended a week-long workshop titled “Music Makers Around the World” taught by a Musikgarten teacher trainer from New York. The workshop was held in Greensboro and people attended from as far away as California and Canada. It was a wonderful week of learning new songs, children’s dances to classical music, activities that teach young children about the world of music, music note reading and instrument playing. Betsy is now certified as a Musikgarten teacher.
The Musikgarten program uses the Montessori teaching style and is based on a combination of prominent music traditions such as Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, Ed Gordan, classical and folk music literature and studies in neuroscience about brain development by Dee Coulter.
"I found it to be a fun, active and in depth curriculum that suits Montessori education very well. I’m looking forward to presenting some new music material to my students!" said Betsy. This year she will facilitate a music class once a week in each toddler and primary classroom. The toddler music program is called Sing with Me, Dance with Me and Primary music class will use the Cycle of Seasons Musikgarten curriculum of singing, movement, song games, note reading and a variety of other activities which match with their class studies. Lower Elementary will be following the Home Place, Woodlands, Marshlands and world Musikgarten program and Upper Elementary will draw on the world music curriculum.
At Back to School night on August 17, our families celebrated the opening of two beautiful and newly renovated Lower Elementary classrooms with a ribbon cutting ceremony.
We had a tight window of time for the renovation this summer and wanted everything ready and in place for the children on the first day of school. Construction started the Monday after the last day of school in June. With everyone working together, the project came in on schedule and within budget. The new configuration showcases two large and airy classrooms that lead out to the gardens, have maximum natural light, brand new bathrooms and kitchenettes, and flexible floor plans for open circulation. We achieved our goal of using environmentally friendly materials in the construction, and selected fixtures and fittings with high standards for energy and water efficiency.
Thirteen current and former GMS students participated in the 2015 Summer Film Camp.
Their feature length film entitled Gestalt debuted at local movie theater RED Cinemas on Monday, July 27 at 7pm. Special thanks to the Kotis family, proprietors of RED Cinemas, for dedicating two of their theaters for the showing and then also opening a third to accommodate all of the guests. It was standing room only!!
The students, led by Middle School teacher, Jonathan McLean, spent four weeks learning all that basics needed to make a high quality film - script and screenplay writing, scoring a sound track, sound and video editing, pre- and post-production, location and studio shoots, etc.
Check out their film trailer below.
The GMS Board of Trustees made its top priority the complete renovation of the Lower Elementary wing this summer as the next stage of facilities modernization. This renovation ties to the development of a complete site master plan for our campus.
Since we had such a tight window of time and wanted everything ready and in place for the children on the first day of school, construction started the Monday after the last day of school in June.
With everyone working together, we are proud to report that we are on schedule and within budget and will be ready for Back to School Night on Monday, August 17.
The new configuration showcases two large and airy classrooms that lead out to the gardens, have maximum natural light, brand new bathrooms and kitchenettes, and flexible floor plans for open circulation. We achieved our goal of using environmentally friendly materials in the construction, and selected fixtures and fittings with high standards for energy and water efficiency. We can’t wait for you to see the finished product on August 17.
The Lower El renovation is clearly consistent with the goals of the Vision 2020 Strategic Plan. Funding for the project comes from Vision 2020 donations and capital reserves.Tuition is not funding these improvements to the campus.
