Unit Study

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We had a fabulous time making elevation maps of our islands today! Most of the families in our group had one sick person, so we decided to do this lesson over zoom, and it worked really well. Ahead of time the kids/parents had prepared an outline of their island resizedContinue Reading

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Painting Day!! It feels like so much preparation has gone into this day – the kids are finally paining their first map of their islands. They are using the sketches they prepared last week. We started out by looking at the Pin-It Map land/waterform control maps again. They’ve been soContinue Reading

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Week 9 saw the kids looking at map scale – and practicing scaling up their islands from their initial half page to full page sketches. Last week the kids had some time to brainstorm and sketch their island outlines, and they are working towards their first painted landform map ofContinue Reading

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This week the kids presented their island research posters. So far in our island work we’ve covered land/water forms, latitude/longitude, and different ways islands form, so these are the topics the kids were asked to research for a specific island. After the presentations we talked a little bit about whatContinue Reading

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At the point, the kids have a lot of information under their belts. Before they start to plan their own island, I wanted them to see some of the variety around the world. I chose a variety of geographically diverse islands around the world, put the name of each islandContinue Reading

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Ok, so my plan for this week was genius, but I almost completely failed to get any good photos. You’ll have to hope that my powers of description are good enough… Before the kids get to designing their islands, I want them to think a little bit about where theContinue Reading

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Continuing along with latitude and longitude work, this week we looked a positions of different points – capital cities and mountains – on a flat world map. I found a great latitude/longitude bundle for $4 on TpT with more presentations and differentiated level worksheets than I could even use. It’sContinue Reading

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I have a couple of main resources I’m using to plan my path through the kids’ Imaginary Island study. First and foremost, I’m using Modern Montessori Guide’s Imaginary Island Bundle. The bundle contains a sequence of lesson introductions, and a sequence of research/work for the kids. I’m also using anContinue Reading

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We continued to look at land/water forms this week. Beginning with a review of the 10 basic forms covered last week, we then looked at about 12 more. Once again I blew up the picture cards from The Modern Montessori Guide to 150% so that everyone could see and weContinue Reading

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What is Imaginary Island? It’s often a year-long “capstone” type project for 6th year Montessori elementary students. Over the course of a year they design an island with realistic land/water forms, place the island on the globe and determine realistic weather, biomes, plant & animal life, and natural resources forContinue Reading