Stepping Stones Montessori School

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two Montessori children hugging
29 Feb, 2024
By Sarah Danielski 28 Nov, 2023
By Carmen Montopoli, Distance Learning Guide 24 May, 2021
Language, Language Everywhere! The Elementary environment brims with language throughout the subjects. We invite children to read the steps to a science experiment by presenting the experiment and then showing them where they can find and repeat it. Each area comes with its own set of nomenclature booklets that name, picture, and define key vocabulary in that subject. Montessori Grammar Boxes help students gain a deeper understanding of the parts of speech. Montessori Grammar Boxes help students gain a deeper understanding of the parts of speech. We isolate each part of speech in colorful grammar boxes that provide lots of practice with reading words in isolation and considering them in context. We investigate irregularities with dives into verb conjugation and explorations of language features like nouns that don’t change from their singular to plural, or that don’t indicate a plural with –s. When we introduce new vocabulary in a lesson, we write a label for it so we tie the visual to meaning. All of this
By Carmen Montopoli, Distance Learning Guide 12 May, 2021
Reading in the Elementary Environment One of the most beautiful things about Montessori education is the way its methods are so carefully aligned to child development. Children in the Elementary (what we sometimes call the second plane) aren’t absorbing everything in the environment anymore. Instead, they’re building concepts through analysis, logic, reason, and imagination. English Word Spelling: A Mystery To Be Solved We know from decades of research into reading that children need a multidimensional approach. They first need to be able to hear and manipulate the sounds in a word (a skill called phonemic awareness). Then they need to build understanding that those sounds can be represented by letters and groups of letters (phonics). While it’s true that English letters make lots of irregular sounds, with elementary children we approach this as a fun puzzle through which we can see the history of our language. For example, did you know that if words have a long-i sound spelled “igh,” they come from Middle
By Elizabeth Topliffe, Head of School 21 Apr, 2021
Children (and, let’s face it, adults) are often easily fooled into thinking that someone else is in charge of them, especially when it comes to education. When we allow ourselves a reflective moment, however, we are the only ones who can decide to learn. Each of us, individually, is responsible for our own learning, or lack of it. That is one of the great “secrets” of Montessori education. When our students truly own their education, beautiful things happen. Last month, several of our distance learning students, from computers in several locations, sparked a spate of impressive, creative learning among our entire elementary community. These three young women curated a list of Black Americans who have changed our country and our lives.
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