A thank you from our RAM Staff at Garden City:

Hello all,

First, let me say thank you on behalf of all attending teachers, today was truly a gift. The financial support from RAM was the keystone in making this happen – without the funds to cover our classrooms and free us to meet this planning and team building would not have been possible.

We opened our day with a talking circle that encouraged each teacher to share their thoughts about their history in the Montessori program, their current Montessori practice, and their hopes for the future of their practice.

For the next 4 hours we created flow charts in the areas of:
​Cultural Arts (Science, Social Studies, History, Geography, Botany, and Zoology)
Language Arts (Reading, writing, listening, speaking)
Mathematics
Social Responsibility and Citizenship

It was equally energizing and exhausting! We accomplished much in a short, intense period of time.

Ending the day we discussed the dream of a long-range inquiry-based project which is an exciting project we’d like to undertake. We plan to start a long-range journal that would begin in kindergarten and follow kids up through grade seven. A handful of questions (that remain the same) asked and answered each year… demonstrating change over time….emotional and social growth…as an amazing snapshot of the children at each stage of their growth while they were in our classrooms. The questions can be spread throughout the school year – except the finale question will be the conclusion of each school year.
At the start of each new year the journals would follow the children to their new classrooms and be ready for a fresh entry.

Proposed questions —
Easily accessible questions (i.e. lower level thinking)
How would you describe yourself?
What are you really good at?
What are your favourite things to do? (or a break down: your favourite songs, books, movies)
What makes you smile/happy?
What scares you?

Deeply thoughtful (i.e. higher level of thought, analysis)
What is your place in the world?
What do you think you will be doing ten years from now?
What are you doing now that makes you happy?
What advice would you like to give to your older self – your younger self?

Finale question:
What was your proudest moment this year? (or for younger kids What did you feel good about this year?)

Thank you again for this opportunity. Our Montessori practice is stronger for it,

K. Johnson
C. Sakai
T. Serrano
A. Samra
M. Gold