News Archives - Page 15 of 26 - Greenspring Montessori School

October 2022 Capital Project Update

We are excited to share that our Elementary Village is 90% complete! The final touches are being completed in November and we are patiently waiting to move into our new building.

Since the last update, we have seen many changes on the exterior. The site was graded, loamed, and seeded. The construction crew finished paving the roadways and lower parking lot. New canopies were also installed in front of the Elementary Village and the Friedberg Building. Inside the Elementary Village, the ceiling was installed, the rooms were painted, light fixtures were installed, and the installation of the floors began.

Capital Project - Greenspring Montessori School

Looking ahead, the cabinets, countertops, and appliances will be installed in November. In addition, the interior doors, access controls, and plumbing fixtures will be finalized. Unfortunately, there continue to be supply chain delays and worker shortages. We are still waiting for fire alarm parts, as well as for BGE to install our electrical systems.

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Right now we are looking at building delivery in the middle of December, assuming we get the fire alarm parts in. Thank you for your patience and support as we continue the important work of having our campus fully prepared!

Celebrating PhilFest! – 40 Years with Phil Adams

On September 17, 2022, we celebrated a special milestone with Phil Adams – 40 years in service to Greenspring Montessori School! Phil has served many roles here over the past 40 years including Physical Education Guide, Toddler Assistant, Discovery Assistant, Coach, and more. We honored Phil’s loving commitment to the children and families at Greenspring with a special event – PhilFest!

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Over 400 friends – including current families, alumni, grandparents, past staff and board members, and so many more – came together to play, sing, and dance at this joyous event, honoring our dear friend, Mr. Phil. He was the life of the party and everyone was eager to tell stories and reconnect.

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

– Henry Adams

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Phil is a special presence at Greenspring Montessori School. He goes out of his way to get to know every member of our community. Thank you Mr. Phil for 40 years of service!

Shofar Demonstration in Observance of Rosh Hashanah

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Ezra Buchdahl visited our classrooms in September to demonstrate blowing the shofar and talking about the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Ezra is a member of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and every year for Rosh Hashanah he blows the Shofar during Rosh Hashanah services. He loves sharing his traditions with children of all ages in the Baltimore area. Thank you, Ezra, for sharing your talent and traditions!

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Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are High Holy Days in the Jewish faith. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It is a day of celebration. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Some Jewish people observe this holy day with a day-long fast, confession, and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services. (Wikipedia)

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This demonstration was a part of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging focus on holidays and celebrations. To learn more about our DEIB initiatives, please click here.

2022 End of the Year Celebrations

Wheels Days

Our Children’s House classrooms hosted Wheels Days to kick off our end of the year traditions! The children love this tradition of bringing in their bikes, tricycles, scooters, rollerblades, and skateboards for a fun morning riding around the upper lot.

Flags of the World Parade

Our children came out to celebrate International Flag Day with a Flags of the World Parade! Children’s House and Lower Elementary students created flags for countries they were learning about and they paraded the campus to share their joy. Our toddlers and older students cheered them on from the sidelines. ⁠
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We love this special end of the year tradition!⁠

Adolescent Graduation

This week we celebrated our graduating eighth-grade students and all they have accomplished during their years at Greenspring. We are excited to usher them onward to their next great adventure – high school! ⁠

The Adolescents’ Microeconomy Work

In the third plane of development, the task of the Adolescent is to prepare for economic independence. Just as children in the first plane of development ask, “Help me to do it by myself” and children in the second plane ask, “Help me to think by myself,” Adolescents ask, “Help me live by myself.”

To meet this need, Dr. Montessori envisioned Adolescents participating in and managing small businesses (called “Microeconomies”) in order to experience economic activity in their community. This work provides “an opportunity to learn both academically and through actual experience what are the elements of social life.” (Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, Appendix A). Thus, the Microeconomy functions not only as a way for students to generate funds for their projects and trips, but as an integrated curriculum that provides the opportunities for real-world, experiential learning.

At Greenspring, our Adolescents learn that economies can be based on production and exchange, capital, services, or even reciprocal relationship and community. They explore different economic models and consider the full life-cycle impacts of an activity before selecting it. What are the impacts on affected populations of people? The environment? What systems does the activity reinforce or work to break down? Microeconomy projects are large, and require both collaboration and division of labor. This is another way that the adolescents practice working together. As Michael Waski notes, “teamwork is the superpower of the adolescent.”

This year, the Adolescents began the year engaged in a compost microeconomy, where they began providing a service to their community and the environment. They created lessons to teach the other classrooms how and what to compost, which provided moments of growth for many of our students. They enjoyed collecting pumpkins to compost in early November, which led to both cooking and preserving pumpkins to eat, as well as ideas for a possible pumpkin patch in the spring.

Next, the Adolescents researched deer-free fencing to enable more ambitious gardening projects. Their hard work paid off! They have successfully grown seedlings of tomatoes, basil, kale (and more).

Bicycle Repair

Bicycle Sale

Seedlings

The Adolescents recently collected donations of bicycles in need of repair. They refurbished the bicycles and held a bike sale. The profits from the bike and seedlings sales will go towards the Adolescents’ upcoming Odyssey trip.

One of the key outcomes of Microeconomy work is what Dr. Montessori referred to as “valorization of the personality.” This is her term for an Adolescents’ process of realizing they are useful and capable of great effort. Participating in real economic activity also serves a first step towards economic independence and allows them to measure the worth of their activity against an external standard.

Adolescents “…derive great personal benefit from being initiated in economic independence. For this would result in a “valorization” of his personality, in making him feel himself capable of succeeding in life by his own efforts and on his own merits, and at the same time it would put him in direct contact with the supreme reality of social life.” (From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 65)

Montessori observed that there is more than the intellect that requires nourishment during Adolescence. She saw the importance of adolescents having opportunities to be useful to their peers, to be valorized through their own labor, and to join in the actions of society.

The Importance of Classroom Agreements

Classroom Agreements for the Mulberry Lower Elementary class (ages 6-9).

Peace education is a major component of the Montessori classroom. In our article titled “Peace Education for All Ages,” we have discussed how mixed-age classrooms, the prepared environment, community meetings, and role-playing all support the development of conflict resolution skills.

Another tool that we use in Montessori classrooms starting in the Children’s House (ages 3-6) is the practice of creating Classroom Agreements. Rather than an adult presenting a list of rules and expectations, the children collaborate to create a set of guidelines for how they would like the classroom to operate and how they will treat one another. The Guide and Assistant ask the children to envision what they will need to contribute to create that environment. They provide coaching so the children phrase things positively (such as “We will…” rather than “Don’t…”). Typically we work on this during the first week of school each year, as this is a beautiful community building opportunity and sets the tone for the entire year.

Classroom Agreements for the Willow Children’s House class (ages 3-6).

The children sign the finished product and it is posted in the classroom. Students are invested in these commitments in a different way when they help to create them. I have observed a Children’s House student say to a classmate, “Remember, in our classroom we use kind words,” and point to the agreements posted on the wall. Just another example of the classroom belonging to the children. Dr. Maria Montessori coined the phrase Casa dei Bambini in Italian, which translates to ”the Children’s House”.

Our Upper Elementary students call their Classroom Agreements a “Classroom Constitution” in order to connect it to our nation’s constitution, which is an evolving document – revisited, studied and revised as needed. The Upper Elementary students revisit their Classroom Constitution at the beginning of every community meeting. During these meetings, they discuss challenges faced in the classroom or on the playground, brainstorm solutions, and find resolution as a group. When the group decides that a change or addition is necessary, they amend their Classroom Constitution.