“Why aren’t you ready for school yet?” “I can’t find the book I need for class.” “Have you finished cleaning your room?” “Why do I have to clean my room – it looks good to me.” As a parent, I had conversations like these numerous times with my daughter, and I suspect they were not exclusive to my household. Often, adults ask children to complete large, multi-step directions and forget that they are still building the skills needed to complete the complex tasks successfully. Setting goals, organizing materials, initiating tasks, sustaining attention and self-monitoring finished products are all aspects of Executive Function (EF) skills. EF skills begin to develop in early childhood but do not

Winter weather often leads to extended periods indoors both at home and at school. Art activities are a wonderful way to help curb cabin fever! Here are a few suggestions that can be easily incorporated into the home environment. Homemade Play Dough I recently made Kool-Aid Play Dough for the classroom and highly recommend it! An added benefit is that the children can help make it. You will need: 1 cup flour 1/2 cup salt 1 envelope (0.13 oz. to 0.23 oz.) KOOL-AID Unsweetened Drink Mix, any flavor 2 tsp. cream of tartar 1 cup water 1 Tbsp. oil Directions: Mix first 4 ingredients in medium saucepan until blended. Stir in water and oil. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, or until mixture forms

Children are natural performers. They are uninhibited, a little wacky and can cry on cue! All you need to do is watch a few minutes of recess and you will see a variety of plays happening: family, princesses, good versus evil, etc. Primary Drama is, in part, about harnessing this natural “dramatic play” and channelling it onto the stage. What are the plays about? This year each Primary Classroom will perform a play based on a Patricia Polacco book as part of an author study. Most of her stories are true (which the kids love) and are based on events from her childhood. What happens behind the scenes? During the month leading up to a performance, the second and third year Primary students hav

This year, NMS has partnered with the Boston Museum of Science to bring their exciting “Engineering is Elementary” curriculum to the Lower Elementary classrooms. This curriculum pairs perfectly with the Montessori physical and earth science curriculum. It presents children with real-world problems and asks them to apply both their creativity and knowledge of science, technology and math to find a solution (or even better, more than one solution). One of the core understandings that students take away from this curriculum is that there is no one “right” answer in engineering. Mistakes are celebrated and failures are viewed as opportunities. These opportunities for creative problem solving hel

As educators, we value creating a community of learners both for children and adults—teachers and parents alike. The best way to help our students be life-long learners is to model this expectation in our lives, and we do so with ongoing professional development. There are several avenues of professional development and learning available to teachers throughout the year, from books, to on-campus presentations, to off-site conferences. Division Leaders choose texts to discuss during their monthly division meetings. This year, the books are: Interactions by Marilyn Friend and Lynne Cook (Beginners) How the Brain Learns to Read by David Sousa (Primary) Understanding by Design Guide to Creating