written by Jean Peters, Elementary Program Director

Montessori elementary students love to do BIG WORK!! Guides give lessons to inspire students and encourage them to follow on to learn more. This can either mean working with a material, doing a timeline, writing a skit, making a diorama, or so many other things!

Sometimes this work is so BIG it needs to be done in the hallway. This can either be big work that will not fit in the classroom or require space for a small group or space to spread out a lot of materials.

It is amazing to walk through the halls and see the variety of work that is going on. You often have to step over or around the work or walk through play practice.

AND, it is not just seeing but also hearing, students are playing guitars and ukuleles, giving each other lessons and serenading people in the hall.

AND is it not just hearing but smelling. Today there was baking going on in classrooms and the smell of baked bread and apple pie was spreading through the hallways. Students in Outdoor Ed also learned how to make a camping stove out of a pop can!

AND it is not just smelling it is also doing. Students work in the hall doing Bal-A-Vis-X, a program that students use independently or in small groups to work on balance and hand eye coordination.

AND, we have people come from the community to talk to the students. Nancy Loewen, a local author came and did a presentation for some interested lower el students.

Hope you enjoy a few pictures of this, if you have not come and observed, please sign up so you can see all of the big work going on!