In April we began our study of the Universe and the planets. As is the way in Montessori education, we began with the large (the universe) and moved to the small (the planets).
The children were fascinated to learn that we are part of the Milky Way Galaxy. All the stars that our eyes can see in the sky are part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our Earth and all the planets are also part of this galaxy. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy.
We each made a spiral galaxy using sequins for the many stars and planets.
Our galaxies were so beautiful and sparkly! We were finding sequins in our classrooms for weeks!
We then moved on to our Solar System. We had a model of the Solar System in the classroom, along with individual planets to be manipulated and individual books on each planet. These materials provided the children with many different options to explore the planets. We read the individual planet books to discover more about each planet. The children were very sad to hear that Pluto used to be a planet but is now considered a dwarf planet. They felt that now poor Pluto couldn't have any fun with the rest of the planets. We were quite sad for days about this.
Some of the four, five and six year olds decided to make Planet Books. Here are a few pages from a book made by a child who recently turned six.
A three year old in the classroom wanted to make a book too. The beauty of the Montessori classroom is that each child moves at their own pace. Our little three year old joined the older group and here is part of his Planet Book. This little three year old was so proud to have printed all of the names and drawn the planets all by himself!
No comments:
Post a Comment