Articles relating to the elementary years of youth. These may have to do with elementary children at home or in elementary school.

World Peace Game Reflections

2023-06-10T16:15:45-05:00February 19th, 2023|Categories: Adolescent, Elementary, Raintree|Tags: , , |

What affects one of us affects all of us. "My first impression was that my role was not important and I wouldn't be able to do much. After a while I realized that I could change the game and solve crises and at the end I was proud of myself." - Elise "Before, I believed peace was nearly impossible. Now, I have a achieved it, it could happen in the real world" - Ella "I feel that violence is something connected with humans. It will [...]

What Is It Like to Be a Raintree Substitute (and also a Raintree Parent)?

2023-06-10T16:41:20-05:00December 18th, 2022|Categories: Early Childhood, Elementary, Montessori, Raintree|Tags: , , , |

Some names in the story have been changed. After making my way down to the Lower Far East toddler community, I find the children gathered around the tables joined by a few parents and/or guardians, having a cookie exchange. It’s the penultimate day before winter break and although the children may not have a full grasp of how much their routines are about to alter for the foreseeable future, they can certainly grasp the growing buzz around campus as the holiday spirit begins to take [...]

The Black Strip: A Glimpse into the Lower Elementary South East Loft

2022-05-15T20:01:53-05:00November 12th, 2021|Categories: Elementary, Montessori|Tags: |

By Laura Sinkler, Lower Elementary Guide The Long Black Strip is a lesson in humility. It is 100 feet of black fabric representing the 4.6 billion years of Earth's history. The Black Strip is an impressionistic lesson given to demonstrate the length of time it took to form the Earth's crust, fill the hollows with water, and the oceans with salts, before the first living creatures came on Earth told in the last 10 feet or so of the strip, with the last half inch [...]

Montessori: A Leap of Faith

2016-11-01T15:28:37-05:00June 30th, 2015|Categories: Elementary, Raintree|Tags: |

Being the parent of a Montessori child takes a leap of faith. Most of us, and this includes Montessori teachers, were educated in traditional classrooms. When we started our elementary program, we thought, “We have to test these kids. We can’t be having this much fun, and the kids are learning, too,” so we invested in a norm-referenced assessment, the Kaufman, testing the students at the end of third grade, and then again at sixth. But the tests didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already [...]

A Letter to Elementary and Soon-To-Be Elementary Parents

2016-11-01T15:28:37-05:00May 2nd, 2015|Categories: Elementary|Tags: , |

Dear Parents, Welcome to our elementary community and to your new role as the parent of an elementary-age child. You did it! You successfully nurtured your child through the crucial first six years of life, giving them a solid Montessori foundation on which they will now begin to build a healthy childhood as the foundation for a healthy adolescence. It wasn’t easy at times, and there was so much to learn about your child and yourself as a parent, so many surprises, so much to [...]

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