Research in Lower Elementary

RESEARCH? At age SIX!? YES!!! Research at this age is as simple as asking a question and finding resources to answer that question - then just telling us the answer (or drawing it, or writing it out - or however the child wants to express himself). I guess that is the one requirement to research in the beginning: that they come up with an answer to the original question, even if they move on to other questions.

As they get older and are comfortable with knowing that they CAN do this research and that their questions WILL be honored, then we started with simple steps towards what we adults think of as research.

There is no one right way - except to follow a plan that is totally arbitrary to the child in front of you. Take a general guideline and adapt to the child's needs ;)

The first step for my son was encouraging him to write his answers in his own words. This lays the foundational skills for avoiding potential plagiarism. As he hit spots where he just couldn't do this own words because the others words were just SO wonderful and precise, I reminded him of quote marks to show the specific words of someone, and to put the name of the author and book in parentheses after his writing. Two years later, he is now footnoting these references.

When he starting getting into longer and longer research projects, he started writing his resources used on note cards. Then he could note page numbers of interesting bits of information for future referencing.

At age 8 1/2, he has not yet done full bibliographies with all the printing information --- did you at that age? Some people are aghast that Montessori at the elementary age encourages all this research, but not all the steps that you and I had in middle school and high school (and only minimally in elementary if at all!). When he puts a few paragraphs together, he does provide a list of his resources by title and author.

Speaking of plagiarizing and expectations - a girl at one of the local schools a year older than my son was talking about a report she had to write for school when she saw my son in the atrium doing some research on an ancient civilization. She saw him listing out his sources and where he got each bit of information - very loosely done but a step in the right direction. The two children talked a bit about research and I heard her comment, "I don't bother writing down where I got what, because I just copy sentences from different books and turn it in with a list of books I used." My son replied, "If you don't put direct copying into quotes, then it's not your work and you're stealing from that author who put a lot of work in that book!" (I never said those words to him! Not like that!) "Yeah, but I tell the teacher which books I used." "But if your report has your name on it, you're lying and saying it's your work when it's not. Just put it in quotes and say who said it - or say it in your own words. You wouldn't want to be a liar or thief!" She thought about it for a bit; walked away looking kind of angry and kind of sad; went back a little while later and asked him to show her what he meant. I didn't hear all the details, but I thought, "Wow - my son is really catching on!" And he wasn't being mean about things either (he can have a bit of an attitude so I was very proud of him in that moment).

Think BABY STEPS. Develop those habits in tiny steps at a very young age, and the work will just flow when they are older without having to unlearn old habits or develop new ones.



Use resources, aim for as many real experiences as possible, within research and without. This second one can't be overstated - you may not be able to take your child to an active volcano, so you may need to bring in videos or visit exhibits of as real-life as possible, but you can certainly get your children out into the community, talking to "experts", visiting those exhibits, sharing your stories of being at various places, touching the rocks that come from various types of volcanos, finding out what those rocks can DO for us, planning a real or pretend long-distance trip somewhere (and all the skills needed for that!), and definitely helping to plan real trips (errands, etc.). These skills are just part of real life and are not specific to Montessori ;) These things all help to develop planning skills, organizational skills, survival skills (even as basic as what to do if you are lost in a public place), and other life skills that we all want our children to have.

Real experiences :)

Language - An Early Book

Going through some of our previous work and found this booklet in its earliest stages - on the city of Ancient Rome:

"Hello, I am (Legoboy),
I will a(ccompany) you t(hrough) Rome."
Note the lack of spelling, thus abbreviation ;)
I did edit out his name which he had beautifully
written in all lower-case cursive ;) 

Some tracings - some free drawing

He is hiding on every page in addition to his spoken blurb. 

on the left is a helmet - he says "scary!"

This was entirely free work - not directly related to any particular school work at the time. It could have been connected and if he went to school, and did it there, it would be "school" but at home we have re-define what is school and what is home ;)   So this one was personal interest work, thus I did not critique spelling, etc - instead mentally noting what needed work during our regular school time and presenting the appropriate album pages (lesson plans) for those skills in our usual fun Montessori way :) 

Last Year in Lower Elementary - Singing the Blues

I am so happy - and so sad... My little boy is growing up!

He is entering into this last year of "lower elementary". While we use AMI albums and consider elementary a continuum from 6-12, there is a certain sense of moving forward in this next year that is the typical parental bittersweet moment ;)

For the first two years of lower elementary we have almost entirely just followed the Montessori albums, throwing in our own interests and my own requirements here and there. For the sake of our personal situation, I also have "traditional school" lesson plans on which we mark off accomplished skills and record attendance (our state only requires 180 days per school year of attendance). According to those plans, he finished 3rd grade back in January (of his normally 2nd grade year). Montessori just does that ;) And we have plenty of time to explore all his own interests! A year and a half of Ancient Egypt has been a bit much for me personally, but it has been GREAT for him!

For this third year, we'll have a bit more planning to do. I have pulled all the state standards for 3rd grade in our state. He is responsible, over the course of the next year, to ensure that he has all listed skills, knowledge and experience.

Occasionally items from this list might make it onto his weekly work plan, but mostly it will just be up to him every so often to check the list and decide how to proceed. If he knows something intuitively, he can just let it go, but knowing my son, he'll likely make a little booklet that demonstrates each skill listed on the standards. I will actually be surprised if this doesn't happen.

We're doing mathematics, language arts, science, social studies, art, and physical education (the last two only because he "wants" to - ok, fine ;) ).

Looking things over, the only areas he might be "missing" are contained within social studies, particularly local history. He will develop his own plan for going about the requirements, with my assistance. We'll head to the library for books and videos, then expand from there - he might make dioramas, art projects, timelines, charts, posters, lists, diagrams or who knows what. There are SO many ways to fulfill those requirements - and there is no one right way!

And for the record, it's not that local history is left out of the Montessori elementary albums - it is that local history MUST be developed by the local teacher and the students in conjunction with one another. Montessori history covers the framework within which to study history; and the details are left to personal research. Culture and all other aspects of social studies are covered in-depth.

As homeschoolers in our state, we do not HAVE to follow those standards; but I choose to follow the Montessori elementary albums in this regard; there is a focus on the local public school requirements in the 3rd year of lower and of upper elementary. I believe it will help to instill a sense of responsibility to and respect for local authorities, strengthen his work ethic, provide practice in a safe environment for the future when he has to do things he'd rather not do (without overwhelming him now), and set a sound pattern for a mature adulthood.


So here we are at a benchmark. Leaving behind the total freedom of primary; and the relative freedom of lower elementary; to embrace a year of outside requirements. Then we'll have two more years entirely to ourselves before we repeat at age 12 years.


Ok. Reality is that the public school requirements take an average of 5 minutes per week, if that! So this is just a mommy making a mountain of a molehill ;) Hehe.

Long Division - Final Results

I did the writing, because he insisted on doing it with colored
pencils, which would have been too faint for our camera.
And I wanted him to focus on the step at hand: multiplication.
He has not yet embellished this page because he wants
to do more long division problems on it first. 

My son is just at the final stages of long division - writing without the beads. It is a work we started quite a while ago; he has flown through it relatively speaking, however he will continue to utilize the beads and boards for quite a while to come. (this material starts in year 1 of the elementary Montessori mathematics album - and claims to be done by age 8 - well, that's the presentations being done at age 8 - the work will continue into upper elementary --- this expensive piece of material (approximately $100 after shipping with IFit) is worth EVERY PENNY).

This is sort of bitter-sweet! My just-turned-8-year old is doing long division on paper!

Tomorrow, we will go over the basic steps of estimating the answer, then multiplying AND checking with the beads to be sure we get each step correct.

After that, the last step is using trickier numbers and estimating.

This material is beyond amazing! Once the process is mastered, the understanding just FLOWS. I recall a woman in my primary training crying when she finally understood division - and that was the same material just doing SHORT division - as an adult she was able to comprehend how the long division would work; but as a child she had been terrorized by what is now a joyful experience for her.


I strongly encourage the use of graph paper in doing mathematics. The children can embellish their work in so many ways with graph paper, plus it keeps their numbers lined up and organized. The more complicated the operation at hand for that particular child, the more you want graph paper (ie stamp game for a 5 year old is complicated; stamp game for a 8 year old maybe not so much; long division - get the graph paper!).

Toys in a Montessori Home - Lower Elementary

Our toys requirements for the elementary Montessori age - 6-12 years:

• constructive
• imagination development
• develop real-life skills
• aesthetics: something I can stand to look at

So what do we have? A lot that has carried over from primary actually - just expanded and deepened, with a few things removed: 

• Legos - yep, plastic - constructive, imaginative, aesthetics (good and bad), patterning - we do NOT utilize many specialized pieces; a friend has described his engineering college degree as "legos on steroids"
• Lincoln Logs - cultural significance to North America, natural, limitations of styles encourages creative solutions to build various structures, those same limitations demonstrate what is possible or not possible with this particular material
• Easel with chalkboard and magnetic/dry-erase board
• Art and Writing supplies: non-drying clay, real water-colors, a few kid water-colors, easel paper, various high quality paint brushes, a couple of junk drawers for random supplies to use for imaginative purposes, high-quality paper scissors, fabric scissors, tracing paper, some construction paper, glue, double-sided tape, Prismacolor colored pencils, white erasers, KUM pencil sharpeners, cheap sets of cards and envelopes, notepads
• Craft supplies: yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks, cross-stitch and embroidery materials, felt, fabric and thread, use of the sewing machine
• Schleich and Toob animals and scenery
• Wood barn
• Supply of cardboard for making own creations
• Gardening supplies
• Stuffed animals - nothing gaudy or entirely unrealistic
• Wood train track with magnetic-wooden trains
• Music: various percussion instruments from various cultures; recorder with instruction book; CDs; CD player; 
• Books - lots and lots of excellent literature selections
• Wood pattern blocks for tessellations and patterns: my Montessori albums do not include presentations for these, so we count them as "toys"
• Board games, card games, strategy and logic games: this is a whole post by itself! See this post for a few of our games
• Building blocks
• Wood yo-yo
• 2-wheel bicycle
  
• jump ropes, kites, sleds
• Keyboard: newest acquisition - yes, it's for learning to play, but it's also for fun!
• Kept the balance beam! 

This has actually been a difficult list to create because so much of our school and home/play overlaps, flowing from one to the other. Because of this overlap, this list actually looks longer than it feels. A lot of these items were primarily "school" at primary and are now toys; or are still partially used for school. 

And I want to include our science supplies as toys, because they are so much fun! But I'll hold back on that one! ;) 

Discovery of Montessori

For years I've wanted to be a teacher, and spent most of my high school time at the local elementary school as a teacher's aide, assistant, leading special topics, volunteering in other capacities, observing, interviewing, etc. Something wasn't right, but I'd determined to be a special ed teacher, working with children who have emotional and social handicaps.

I started college before finishing high school, beginning an associate's in child development so I could transfer into elementary ed at a 4-year school and have my ZA endorsement. Yep. I had it all planned out!

But a student in one of my child development classes asked about Montessori. The professor said that she didn't know much, but she'd observed one day. She described the following incident and asked us, "What is missing?"

A child went to a shelf and chose a tray with items on it. He brought it back to a table and sat down. He removed all the items from the tray, did something with them, and after a little while, he put everything back on the tray, carried it back to the shelf and replaced it. He then walked away to wander the room for a little while before choosing another tray. 

Of course we all responded, "Socialization!" But still it didn't sit right with me. Why would all these people go to an elite school (I really didn't know much about Montessori at the time except it was a unique program and anyone earning their associate's degree while working at this type of school had to have modifications made to their requirements), spend all that money, for their children to work with items on a tray?????

I didn't have time to research it, but I did sign myself up to be a substitute at all local area schools, daycares and the like.

One day I was called to sub at a Montessori school. I thought, "This will be great to see what is going on with all this hoolaballoo!"

Oh my! I had NO IDEA what I was in for! At first, I only subbed in the childcare room at this particular school - designed for the 3 and 4 year olds in the afternoon who did not nap but whose parents were working (the nappers joined when they woke up); then the elementary children came in after school until everyone was picked up. Not all of the materials were pure Montessori materials, but the methodology was there, the attitude, the respect ---- the entire atmosphere, environment and the prepared adults. I was told to just sit and observe - quietly notify the main teacher of any issues she didn't see right away, and to please do intervene for anything dangerous. Ok - that makes sense - it's a new environment for me, so I appreciated the expectation that it would be all new and overwhelming for me.

The children - get this - they *socialized!* They worked together, they played games, they watered plants, read stories to each other (whether made up or actually reading, I don't know!), they had a loft that was set up for housekeeping play (this was the childcare room after all), they had some of the typical Montessori materials, and they had some additional building materials. They even had work on trays. Everything was very well laid-out, organized, inviting... The children were cooperative with one another, respectful.... I can't say enough!

I was HOOKED.

The following week or so, I was asked to cover in a lower elementary room. The main teacher would be out, and the assistant would take her place, so I was the fill-in assistant for the hours I was available. She was very gentle in guiding me in my expectations and how to interact with the children - verifying their work, rather than "checking". These children were so peaceful, so joyful, and working so hard!

The grammar materials, what I now know as the Logical Analysis material, were what hooked me at this level. These children were writing or copying these beautiful literature phrases and studying the function of words and analyzing their meanings... and of their own free will, writing them out again with the symbols above their words - and even further illustrating their work!

Another group of children were working on a BIG project that was nearing completion. I was not fortunate enough to be there for their final presentation - but if it was as good as the portions I saw - WONDERFUL!

These were "normal" children - without the typical attitude and lack of respect you find in so many other schools. They were cooperating, responsible, following work contracts and journaling their progress - and these were only 6, 7, and 8 year olds!


After that, I subbed in several of the other classrooms as well as the first two again. The infant/toddler room just threw me off. I couldn't grasp it at first or even for a quite a while, but I had a deep appreciation for it. Now I get it, but that is another story!