Ms. Marlowe's Classroom Update

Elementary students presenting their book reports.

December is an exciting time of year for all children, but it will be especially exciting in our Montessori elementary class. This month, we will be reviewing our phonics and learning cursive as we practice writing "The Night Before Christmas" from memory. We will read the story Muggy Maggie by Beverly Cleary about a little girl who, unlike us, is afraid to try to write in cursive.

Last month, we began learning to make projects in class as we started an anatomy project called “Wearables”. We will complete this project, and begin working independently on another body project as we continue to learn about body systems.

In the first four months since school began, our kindergarteners have grown immensely! They have done lots of reading, and our top kindergarten readers have now read over 250 library books. They have learned all their addition facts, and can now quickly do a hundred problem sheet of addition facts from memory. They can write all their multiples including the eights and nines. And, with the help of the Montessori small bead chains, they are learning their perfect squares and square roots to 10 squared. They can write their 1s to 200, 2s to 200, 5s to 500, and 10s to 1000. 
Next semester, they will learn to write these numbers counting backwards as they continue to practice number patterns and sequences.


Our kindergartners have been labeling science boxes, and building puzzles of the United States and the solar system. This month, they will begin labeling and drawing maps of the world (oceans, continents, and seas), North America, South America, the United States, Canada, and Australia.This month they will continue to learn and grow. They will continue to work on place value and begin learning about money and time. They will continue to be introduced to subtraction facts as they practice -0,-1,-2,-10 and – for doubles. They will discover that multiplication is a special type of addition, and that division is a special type of subtraction, as they explore and practice the Montessori multiplication and division bead boards.


All of our kindergartners can feel proud knowing that they are growing and learning. Each child in our classroom community is learning independence, self-confidence, and a love of learning and discovery. Most importantly of all, however, in this season of loving and giving, we are pleased to see our children are becoming  the kind, helpful, and loving friends we encourage them to be.  

November at Far Horizons -- Primary Class

This month, our preschool story time and craft projects have been centered on Thanksgiving, the seasonal changes of fall, and harvest time. 

In our school gardens, our summer crops have been replaced with lettuce, cabbage, green beans and peas.  

 Our classrooms have become a lively, vibrant community of friends working, growing and playing together.

Presently most of our new three and four year olds have learned their phonetic alphabet sounds and are blending well. They are now ready to begin working with object boxes, moveable alphabet and reading 3-letter short vowel words.

Many of our K-4 students are already reading short and long vowel books, while others will soon begin reading library books independently. Our K-4 children are also creating monthly calendars, learning to write upper and lower case letters, and writing their multiples from memory.

 The last week before our break, we were able to harvest some of our vegetables and make a delicious Stone Soup!

I hope you all had a wonderful break, and I look forward to sharing all our school fun with you!