Student Portfolios

Creating the future, without fear.

// Curriculum Update: First Week in December //

In Writers Workshop, we finished up our non-fiction small moment stories and started right way on our new unit.  This time we will be writing a fiction story and have been discussing the different kind fiction pieces we are familiar with.  We discussed fables, fairytales, folktales and series of books.  The children are encouraged to come up with their own entertaining story or series of stories in the vein of Aesop’s Fables or The Frog and Toad series.  The children are excited to create fun new characters and share their stories.  

For our cultural studies the first levels learned about MRS. GREF, the characteristics of living things.  Ask your student to tell you what it stands for!  They then looked at a collection of items from the park and explained if they were living, once living or non-living.  The second graders went a little more in-depth with this by giving more detailed descriptions of the characteristics.  The third graders begin their biology study by learning about the different domains and kingdoms. Since we learned about the types of rocks last week we built upon this by studying volcanoes.  We learned the parts of a volcano and function of those parts.  

Finally our 3rd levels had the opportunity to visit an Upper Elementary classroom this week.  They were able to spend time in the morning work cycle and also what the Readers Workshop looks like.  They will get another opportunity to visit again later in the year.                            




// Photos: First week of December! //

// Week of Nov. 26: Curriculum Update //

We took the time during the short week before Thanksgiving to come together as a classroom community.   All the children took turns helping to make cranberry sauce, washing and sorting the berries, adding sugar and orange juice and cooking.  We also shook heavy cream until it turned to butter and enjoyed it with fresh bread. We reflected on what we were thankful for and our hopes for a peaceful year ahead.

In Culture we started breaking Europe down by region, Northern Europe, British Isles, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Mediterranean Europe.  We will look further in by region to learn the countries, capitals and major natural or man made structures.   

We had the Second Great Lesson this week, The Timeline Of Life.  The whole Lower Elementary program came together to continue the story of our planet.  We learned how out of just the water in the oceans and sun, algae formed and kick started life as we know it on Earth.  We look forward to continuing the story of life.  

// This week at HPMS //

We want to thank our families for taking to time to meet with us for parent/teacher conferences, we love sharing what your children are doing in class.

In Culture we continued our physical study of the Earth by studying land and water form.  We looked at island/lake, cape/bay, isthmus/strait, peninsula/gulf and archipelago/chain of lakes.  Please ask your children to help you identify them.

Earth Room still is loving idioms, we took the time to create a fun guessing game.  We took well known idioms and drew the literal interpretation of them, if you find yourself on the third floor please take the time to play along.  

Many new lessons were happening around the room this past week.  The first graders had their introduction to fractions, the second graders did triangles by angles and third grade did fraction work.

In literacy we started our new unit of genre and how the different stories we ready fall into different genres. We started with fairytales and the themes that they have in common.  

We also want to thank the parents who came in to celebrate Diwali.  It’s always a pleasure to have parents come in and explain a culturally significant event. 

// Curriculum Update: Week of November 5 //

Last Friday, we combed Hamilton Park looking for the most beautiful examples of autumn leaves we could find and brought them back to the classroom.  We pulled out the leaf press which was gifted to our classroom many years ago and Ms. Melissa explained the the children the process of preserving the leave and flattening them.  The leaves were placed between sheets of paper to help draw out moisture, then altered with sheets of cardboard before being clamped down between two sheets of plywood.  We will check in on the leaves on Hibernation Day and the will be used in future lessons on parts of leaves. 

In Culture we further studied our planet.  The first levels studied the layers of the Earth, creating booklets highlighting each layer.  The second levels did an atlas scavenger hunt about the continents and oceans and the third levels studied lines of longitude and latitude and used those to find points on a map.  

In Writers Workshop we’ve begun wrapping up our small moment stories.  We are creating endings that are hooking our audience leaving them wanting more.   Soon we will begin the editing process and look forward to the complete product.  


//Curriculum Update: Week of October 29 //

Last Friday we introduced the estimation jar to the class.  We read a story that gave us hints about how to estimate the amount of seeds in a pumpkin and the children took turns making their most educated guesses.   We then scooped out the pumpkin and dived up the seeds for everyone to count then used our Gold Beads to tally up the total-573.  After an exciting count we had our first winner of the year, Henry who was only off by 12 seeds!

This week we’ve had the wonderful opportunity to invite parents into the classroom to show off what we have been working on.  Since most Montessori work is done using our incredible materials it’s nice to be able to welcome in families to see the works first hand. Thank you all for your time. 

In literacy this week we learned about Idioms.  Earth Room friends had a good laugh while reading Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, as she always takes these phrases as truths.  The class got a good laugh when she was told to steal the base she actually picked it up and ran away.  She also thought she was being sent home when the boys yelled for her to score the winning run by “running home”. The students then stopped to think about any well known idioms they could use in their stories and tried to create some of their own.  

// Photos: Week of October 29 //

// Week of October 22: Curriculum Update //

This week we looked at the Earth and how it is sectioned off.  The students did a study of the the hemispheres and learned about the lines of latitude and longitude. They created maps that showed these that will be on display shortly.  We also studied the Cardinal Directions and figured out where we are in relationship to other parts of New Jersey and the rest of the globe.

Many friends had new lessons in Math this week ranging from Subtraction to Division, these are always a favorite with Earth Room students.  First levels had the Compound Word lesson which is always a big hit because they get to use two different objects to create a new word.  In writers work shop we learned an exciting new detail to add to our stories, onomatopoeia!  We had lots of bangs,  splashes, booms and sizzles going on at circle.  

// Week of October 15: Curriculum Update//

Our trip to Abma’s farm last week was a lot of fun.  It was so nice to get out in the fresh air on a day that really started to feel like autumn.  We started with a nice hay ride through the part of the farm where they grown flowers and vegetables.  We saw lots of beautiful mum plants, kale, corn,  rainbow chard before stopping in the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins.  After lunch the farm provided a fresh warm apple cider donut and juice box before we spent some time in the petting zoo.  We enjoyed petting and feeding goats, sheep, alpacas, cows, pigs, rabbits and ducks.  

Back in Earth Room we had many new group lessons regarding time, money and grammar.  The first levels had their first Grammar Key Experience lesson.  They studied nouns, these Key Experiences will continue on through their school career, covering all points of grammar.   In math money was introduced by studying the humbe penny.  The second levels studied the different kinds of sentences and proper punctuation to go along with each. They also further divided the clock adding in 5 minute differences in time.  Third graders took the time to learn about different types of triangles based on the angles within.   They continued their language study by learning about possessives and how and when to use apostrophes.      





// Curriculum Update, week of Oct. 9 //

This was a short week in Earth Room between the holiday weekend and our field trip to Abma’s Farm but we were still able to pack in a lot of work in this short time.

We continued to talk about adding vivid details to our Writers Workshop stories, the details really help to create a scene without pictures.  We practiced by drawing a detailed picture on paper then using words to describe what we drew.

Our Cultural curriculum has brought us back down to Earth as we started our study of continents and oceans.  This will be the launching point for our intensive continent studies of Europe and Oceania later in the year.  

// Photos from the week of Oct. 9 //

//Curriculum Update: Week of October 1 //

We started the week following up our Solar System lesson.  We colored planet maps and did research on our celestial neighbors.  On Thursday we took an Interplanetary Hike where we mapped out the solar system to scale.  We zoomed in closer to Earth by studying our closest neighbor, our very own Moon and why we see it go through phases. 

HPMS celebrated another birthday combined with our Peace Day celebration in the park.  We sang songs and enjoyed coming together as a whole school community.