Hallo from Holland!

My first week at the Valkenbos Montessori school was wonderful! We have a great mentor who introduced us to the school and his classroom. The main classroom I'm assigned to is a bovenbouw group of levels 6-8. These students are 10-12 years old, or Grades 4, 5, and 6 in US schools. However, I have the opportunity to be in middenbouw and onderbouw classroom as well. The Motessori structure is very different from that of public schools in the US. The middenbouw classrooms include levels 3-5 and ages 6-9, and the onderbouw classrooms have levels 1-2 and ages 4-5 (Kindergarten).

This week has been very busy! I was able to visit all three levels and really got the opportunity to see how the children of various ages interacted within the classroom. I spent the majority of my time in the bovenbouw classroom this week, so I thought I would focus this post on how the bovenbouw classroom operates.

The students in the bovenbouw classroom are very autonomous, as the majority of the students in the school do well independently. School begins at 8:15, as the teacher welcomes the students into the classroom with a handshake. Students begin to map out the work they will do for the day and begin to work on their own while the teacher checks-in with every table group. The students can work on math or spelling/grammar in the morning, and have a whole-class social studies lessons in the afternoons. The bovenbouw students are learning about the Golden Age. During lunch students have recess and read quietly before their afternoon work begins.

This week, the entire Thursday was dedicated to science. Students were asked to construct two boats: one which replicated the VOC ships, and one that needed to float and hold 1 kilo of weight. Since this was a bigger project, students were able to work with a partner if they desired.

As for the Montessori method, it is very different than I'm used to in a Texas pubic school. The teachers allow the students to have a lot of freedom. Students drive their learning and are consistently self-correcting their own work. The classroom is much more unstructured, as students work in the halls and on the floor.

I've been learning a lot of Dutch! The students are excited to teach us their language and practice English with us. English is taught as a second (or third or fourth) language beginning in level 7. I was also surprised to see how many students were bilingual and even trilingual from a young age. I can tell that learning another language is emphasized in the classrooms.


Pictures from the week!

The school stairs are very colorful! There is a section dedicated to counting and percentiles.

This is the bovenbouw classroom. Each of the three floors is painted a different color. The other floors are yellow and blue. This adds a lot of color to the class, especially on a cloudy day!

 

Flat Stanley on the first day of school with a replica ship from the Golden Age! Also, I included a picture of the hallways where the students keep their backpacks and coats.

Gym class is very popular with the bovenbouw classes. Here, they are working on locomotor and non-locomotor movements and hand-eye coordination.

On the left is a picture of the Montessori materials. These are counting beads in units 1-20. The right is a picture of the library, which students can visit whenever they would like. 

Above is a picture of the English vocabulary words for the unit. The students are working on how to tell time.

The left is a poster which hangs in every classroom. This is the students respect contract and is synonymous throughout the school.

Every student in level 7 takes a traffic test at the end of the year. Since a lot of students ride their bikes to school, this is very important information to learn!

Another poster that hangs in the bovenbouw classrooms. This picture is describing how students must power through their studies even though they may get stuck on something challenging. 

A table in the hallway dedicated to Chinese New Yew! A parent of a student in my classroom came to the school and gave a presentation on what Chinese New Year is all about. 

Students' replicas of the VOC ships from the Golden Age. 

A panorama of a middenbouw classroom. The yellow floors make it very colorful! I really admire the way the classrooms are set up, as it's very open for the students to have plenty of room to work. Each group of desks include students from all levels in the class.