Montessori BLOG

School Reopenings

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School reopenings are occurring more and more each day. Our school district has been 100% virtual since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I type, students are finishing up spring break and preparing to head back to in-person school for the first time this year.

I would be lying to you if I told you I didn’t have any misgivings. I’m convinced the general public has little idea as to what hoops schools need to leap through in order to raise the façade of normalcy for its families. I also believe many students will be coming back with the mindset that school might look close to what it was like before March, 2020.

Thank you

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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

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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

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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.

Unschooling Movement

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Unschooling Movement is an informal learning approach encouraging learner-chosen activities over adult-chosen ones. It was inspired by John Holt, widely regarded as the ‘father of unschooling.’ He served in the military during WWII. As a civilian, he served as a dissatisfied elementary school teacher.

Coining this term in the 1970s, Holt came to the conclusion reforming the American school system was an impossibility. He began recommending to parents to keep their children at home; to let them decide what to learn and when.

Various parents have asked my opinion about veering from the traditional route and opting for a form of homeschooling instead.

Project-based Learning

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Project-based Learning is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in personally meaningful projects. These projects are designed to engross learners in solving a real-world problem or by answering a higher-level question.

Current research shows significant evidence of the effectiveness of project-based learning for all learners. This includes both young and old, all socio-economic levels and even those historically marginalized.

Literature Circles

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Literature Circles are a lot like Writing Circles. Students do not need to join them with anything prepared ahead of time. Each group can have a variety of reading levels. They can also be randomly assigned. The idea is for students to get excited to read what their peers are reading. And, with some practice, to get excited to share their own book!

Growth Mindset

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Growth Mindset: How to Nourish your Mindset to Make It Thrive!

Growth mindset is one of two belief systems we might have about our own abilities. Growth mindset has a more stagnant counterpart known as a fixed mindset. Research has shown encouraging different types of behavior might predict a person’s future successes.

Motivation Research has shown that these two mindsets are manifested from a very early age. Our mindset governs our behavior and our relationship with success and failure. This occurs in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately affects our capacity for happiness in life.

Writing in All Subjects

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Writing in All Subjects: Over the past two weeks, we’ve explored writing and ways to encourage reluctant writers to simply get words on paper. Now that your students/children are writing, what comes next? Writing can be used as a learning strategy, too.

Research has shown information is quickly forgotten if it’s not quickly reinforced. Writing can help to strengthen a student’s memories of material they’re currently working with.

Montessori Blog - Brainstorming Graphic Organizer Elementary Montessori Creative Writing Worksheet Grumble Services Learning Resource

Writing strategies Part Two

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Writing Strategies: Two Strategies to Help Young (and old) Writers. In my teaching experience, writing is one of the most difficult things to teach effectively. Teaching effective and meaningful writing in a virtual setting becomes that much harder. In the classroom, it has taken me many years to develop what I believe to be effective strategies to teach writing. Two strategies I encourage to help struggling writers in the classroom or at home: Writing Circles and Writing Graphic Organizers.