Coffeehouse Showcases Talents of all Students

 Our first Coffeehouse of the year was a great success!  Students performed a wide variety of music, and were joined by teachers, Farm School alumnae, and even a Mountain Laurel Montessori School Board member.

Coffeehouses are a creative collaboration resulting from the Creative Expression curriculum.  

Sisters

Student stage managers

Farm School alumnae

We All Pitch In To Make the Playground Safer

Mountain Laurel Montessori Farm School students joined in with parents and teachers this fall to make the playground safer for our youngest students. Together we moved and spread 9,000 pounds of rubber mulch to our playground at the Front Royal campus. Our Toddler (ages 16 months to 3 years) and Primary (ages 3-6) students use the playground every day and will be much happier now.

 It was wonderful to see the faces of our youngest students watching with fascination as the "big kids" worked, and to have an opportunity for our adolescent students to give back to the campus that nurtured them from the time they were toddlers and on through elementary.

One of the unique aspects of Mountain Laurel Montessori is the strong community that nurtures children through the whole continuum of childhood, from birth through 9th grade.

Students Bicycle from DC to Harper's Ferry

Bicycle Odyssey

Mountain Laurel Montessori Farm School students and guides cycled from Washington, DC to Harper's Ferry on a 3 day bicycle and camping trip.  

Here's part one of the travelogue:

Georgetown

We love simple machines

Experiencing the power of levers at the locks

The mighty Potomac River

Taking a break to admire the geology of Great Falls

The teepee tent

I love this tent!

A peaceful evening on the river

A Volunteer Park Ranger helps us with the maps

Eggs cooked on the Coleman stove for breakfast by the culinary crew

Carrying gear 0.5 mile to the second camp site

The only hill: from the trail to the camp

Ready to go on day two

Mountain Laurel Montessori MOVES

First Lady Michelle Obama is traveling the country encouraging people to move: to walk, run, play, just get out there.  

Mountain Laurel Montessori Farm School 
students MOVE every day!  

We work hard, play hard, and study hard outdoors - 

in all kinds of weather.

This photo was from a muddy spring day's soccer game.  As we hear about the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States, lament the occurence of "nature deficit disorder" among our country's youth, or worry that people don't connect farms with food, I like to look at this photo.  There is pure joy there.       

Farm School students take on New York City

"Above all it is the education of adolescents that is important, because adolescence is the time when the child enters on the state of manhood and becomes a member of society...the adolescent needs an understanding of the society which he is about to enter to play his part." - Maria Montessori

As part of their study of the Industrial Revolution, Farm School students spent a week in New York City. Their Odyssey included visits to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a tour guided by staff of the Tenement Museum, and a visit to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Montessori on self-confidence and adaptation

"For success in life depends in every case on self-confidence and the knowledge of one's own capacity and many-sided powers of adaptation"

- Maria Montessori