Cowles Montessori Crier

Stewardship - Harmony - Independence

This week remember to use your time wisely!

Many Cowles Montessori Upper Elementary students have wrapped up their geology unit of study with individual research projects and/or model representations of geological features. As part of this cultural unit, all students attended an in-house presentation by Mike Blair, retired DMPS geology teacher and author of an Iowa geology book. All students also attended a day-long Iowa geology study at Jester Park. The research component offered children a chance to choose a geological topic of interest; complete research; compile that research into an understandable format and then write a research paper and create a visual board. Students in several classes were then available during a Geology Fair to discuss their research with Lower Elementary and other Upper Elementary students.

Sound busy enough? Well there's more. We have also just begun our annual Economics unit of study. During this unit, students learn about personal finances, business finances, and the economy of a city. They will examine the marketing and advertising of companies and how that affects consumers. They will learn to write checks and make decisions about how income is spent. Most importantly they'll spend time exploring the role of a consumer in an economy. The culminating event to this unit is a day at Junior Achievement’s Biztown. In preparation for this visit, students spend the month prior learning about their business in which they'll serve – determining a name, a motto, and its advertising. They will get their finances in order so that their business is viable that day. Then during their day at JA Biztown they will play the role of both employee and consumer.

Maria and Mario Montessori identified the child in the Second Plane of Development (age 6-12) as a part of a “Practiced Society.” In the second half of this second plane (age 9-12) the peer interaction and acknowledgment is especially observed. Both of the aforementioned Cultural Units of Study honor this developmental need for peer interaction, examination of the world, and practice for society.

The Cowles Lost and Found, located just inside the west doors of the building is overflowing with shirts, coats, shoes, and winter boots. If your child is missing an item, remind them to stop by the Lost and Found.

We are working hard on writing skills; narratives, fact or opinions, creating topic sentences, using what is first, next, last recipes for our writing. The students are learning how to add adjectives to make their writings more interesting. One class did a Paul Klee inspired self-portrait method and numbered them. The whole class chose three pictures to express what "wowed" them, what was unique and what their favorite part was. Since no one knew whose number they chose, it was a very positive and descriptive view of art through writing.

Another writing was disguising a turkey so it would be saved on Thanksgiving. They made disguises and a wrote from the turkey’s point of view who it was and why it should be saved. We had a Bald Eagle turkey, Taylor Swift, a tree, fireman, and many more creative ideas. The older students are doing Sentence Analysis and learning about subject/predicates.

Research has led us into how to choose a topic, what are good resources and how to find out more about your passions. Another class is interested in Ellis Island and having great discussions about what it was like. Some students choose to present their findings to the class and receive questions or comments on it. They also have the opportunity to create a project to share.

All classes are working hard on learning addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Some students are working on addition and subtraction operations. The others are doing multi-digit multiplication and long division problems. They go through the operations with manipulatives at first and gradually become more abstract through practice.