Bad News: Last week I rewatched The Bad News Bears. The movie came up randomly in a conversation with a loved one, as most things do. She mentioned she had never seen the movie. This caught me by surprise. I suggested we watch it that night if I could find it available in a streaming app.
I’m not referring to the new, sterilized 2005 version, mind you. Rather, the raw, gritty 1976 original. I warned her it would be a little rough to watch. Boy, how I understated that!
Summer Learning: Ever notice kids tend to misuse the word bored?
As a teacher, it can be frustrating to hear this word from one of our students. In my Montessori classroom, I give the children a beautifully prepared environment. I try to keep all the materials on the shelves as relevant and as appealing as I can.
Then it happens.
One day, about midmorning, a student will come sit next to me. We look at each other without saying much. I might ask them, “how is your morning going?” They share, “I’m bored.”
Summer Learning Loss – Fact or Fiction? Most of us have heard of the so-called summer learning loss, sometimes referred to as the ‘summer slide.’ Back in the early 1980s, researchers came to the conclusion that students’ achievement scores declined over the summer months. To this day, it remains the go-to industry standard.
Fast forward to now. We definitely continue to hear proponents endorsing the idea of an increasing learning gap and harping on its message. However, researchers are now questioning the validity of a research project occurring so many years ago.
Last week we began exploring how homework can sometimes benefit students. But, under the wrong set of circumstances, it can sometimes hurt students too.
What the research shows us is the correlation between homework and performance is stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades.
I limit the amount of homework I assign to my students. When I do assign homework, I hope to get the most “bang for the buck.” I try to focus on the areas that seem to count most: Reading & vocabulary, mathematical reasoning skills and practical life activities.
The controversial topic of homework. As a teacher, there seems to always be an end of the year push to quicken learning over the few remaining days. This is especially true during this weird, broken one. We believe, for whatever reason, many students have seemingly fallen behind. There must be a way, we think, to catch them up during these last few weeks?
It can be tempting to turn to homework. On the surface, using homework to pick up the slack seems advantageous. But, it may be less effective of a strategy than most of us think.
Empowering Children: The DIFFERENCES Between an ACTIVE and a PASSIVE Childhood can last a lifetime.
What do I mean by active vs. passive childhood? An active childhood is one where a child is encouraged to create and to think for themselves. They are expected to carry their weight at home. Even more, they are given free, unstructured time just to be alone, to be still. A passive childhood would then be the opposite.
Independence sometimes feels like a lofty but unobtainable goal for your child. I’m here to tell you it isn’t! Here are six strategies for empowering children.
Standardized testing plays a momentous role in our Nation’s education. The goal is to provide a measure to evaluate student performance across state, national and even global standards.
However, does our far-reaching focus on standardized test scores actually meet this lofty educational goal? This modern educational practice has ignited a national debate about the effectiveness of testing and how well they truly measure student achievement.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting my educational undertakings over this past year. It is hard to believe one year has already come and gone for Grumble Services!
Since March 2020, I have updated and created many learning resources and Montessori materials in order to share them with the world. My goal was to have them available for both teachers and families by the beginning of the new school year. I’m happy to report I accomplished what I had set out to do.
Montessori Parent Education is an integral part of each child’s academic success. As we all journey down this virtual-hybrid-physical school path together, I have rediscovered a few important truths. For me, the most critical of these is what we call parent education. I believe this is more critical now than ever before!
The Montessori Method is a unique educational approach nurturing a child’s intrinsic desire to learn. Montessori focuses on the whole child—their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development.
Outdoor Learning includes the discovery, learning about and connecting to our natural world. Getting students outdoors, even just for 30 minutes, and engaged in environmental activities offers many benefits. This is true during the pandemic and beyond.
When I first started teaching about 13 years ago, I worked for a central city Milwaukee public school. Being a Montessori public school, our students had a slight advantage over many of their neighborhood peers. Connecting to the outdoors and the surrounding communities was already built into their learning curriculum.