Staff Challenge—Accepted

January 7, 2022

McGuffey High School students challenged the school staff to collect 120 “drops in the bucket” during the month of January. The students produced a short video explaining how filling or depleting buckets affects our relationships and outlining their challenge to us.

Each drop is a compliment or gratitude for someone else on staff. As part of their Leadership Academy, the students have been working on the book How Full is Your Bucket from Gallup. 

And the students have offered us prizes—so, of course, the staff is IN.

Posted in community, gratitude, High School, McGuffey, Montessori method, Staff, Uncategorized

McGuffey Lanes & Shuffleboard Emporium

December 16, 2021

McGuffey Lanes & Shuffleboard Emporium showed up in PE recently as our basketball court was transformed into a bowling alley and we set up two shuffleboard lanes in the pavilion. The students enjoyed working on their bowling skills and shuffleboard was a new experience for many of the students. A good time was had by all!

Posted in intermediate unit, Lower Elementary, McGuffey, Middle School, Montessori method, outside, physical education, sensorial, Uncategorized, Upper Elementary, upper unit

High School P.E.

December 14, 2021

Our high school students have enjoyed a variety of activities for Physical Education this fall. We’ve been outside for most of it- barring a few rainy days. We’ve had fun while practicing the skills for numerous lifetime sports, including bocce, badminton, corn hole, disc golf, and now that we are inside, ping pong!  One of our students who is interested in data science is keeping stats and has organized a tournament bracket for our current ping pong games! 

We have taken two outings off campus. One was a vigorous walk on our local trails through the Ruder Preserve and ending at Peffer Park along the Oxford Area Trail. A second excursion was to throw some discs on Miami University’s disc golf course. A McGuffey alum who is now a student at Miami even met us and accompanied us while giving us pointers to improve our game.  

Posted in field trip, High School, McGuffey, Montessori method, outside, physical education, sensorial, Uncategorized

Music in the Fall

December 13, 2021

Recently in music, first graders completed their study of both “Carnival of the Animals” and percussion instruments. We learned about the composer Camille Saint-Saëns (he loved a good joke!) and what makes an instrument a percussion instrument (they make a sound with a hit, shake, or rub). Lower Elementary students have been busy composing rhythms and then performing them for each other. Third and fourth grade rounded out the fall season by learning about the Rondo form. Using a funny Thanksgiving song, plates of “Thanksgiving food” turned into a rhyme chant, and a self-composed song on instruments, they created a Rondo using the form A (the funny song) B (food rhythms) A C (instruments) A. 

Posted in intermediate unit, Lower Elementary, McGuffey, Montessori method, music, Uncategorized, Upper Elementary

Giving Thanks

December 10, 2021

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to celebrate with family and friends, but the history of the holiday is complicated and often misunderstood. Based on the book “1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving”, Lower Elementary had a chance to discuss what actually took place during the time that would come to be known as Thanksgiving. We acknowledged that the modern holiday can be a time of coming together, it can also be a painful reminder of a messy time in our country’s history.

We like to use Thanksgiving as a time to express our gratitude and give thanks. We created a thankful tree in our classroom where students could post things they are thankful for. In addition, we created and posted signs for the amazing cleaning crew that takes care of our classroom after school hours. 

Posted in community, gratitude, language arts, Lower Elementary, McGuffey, Montessori method, social studies, Uncategorized

France

November 22, 2021

We studied France in the Primary classroom for the past two weeks and ended this unit with an Art History lesson about ballet. We discussed how ballet was brought to France from Italy, where it developed into the performance art that we know today.

On Friday, we were thrilled to have a ballerina from the Upper Unit visit our classroom. She talked about studying to be a ballerina for the last eight years and shared all of the different roles in the ballets that she has performed. So far, she has been on stage in The Nutcracker seven times in various parts and has danced in other classic ballets like Coppélia and The Sleeping Beauty. We ended the visit by learning the arms and feet positions used in ballet and how to jeté. The children all loved learning the movements, dancing around, and donning tutu and ballet shoes.

Posted in art, community, guest speakers, language arts, McGuffey, pre-primary, preschool, Primary, primary unit, sensorial, social studies, Uncategorized, upper unit

Gratitude

November 19, 2021

Each November at the high school, we talk about gratitude. Last year, we read about and listened to speakers explain the importance of practicing gratitude to cultivate a happy life. We engaged the topic through our Seminar discussions. This year, we are exercising our gratitude in Spanish classes. Students (and teacher!) are writing brief, daily journal entries in Spanish in response to various prompts. Here are some of our recent entries from Veterans Day, and living in Ohio.

Posted in foreign language, High School, language arts, McGuffey, Montessori method, Uncategorized

Election Day

November 15, 2021

Costume Day at McGuffey is always the day after Halloween, which happened to coincide with the day before Election Day. In Lower Elementary, we combined the two subjects and held an election about candy!

Based on personal preference, the class was split into Team Reese’s and Team Skittles. Each group spent the morning developing a platform and creating posters to support their choice. We then invited the Primary unit to browse our signs and listen to each side lobby for their candy.

Then both Lower Elementary and Primary had the opportunity to vote. When they weren’t voting, they could watch the results come in on the computer. In a nail-biter, Skittles was declared the winner with 53% of the vote!

Posted in community, democratic process, language arts, Lower Elementary, McGuffey, Montessori method, pre-primary, preschool, Primary, primary unit, social studies, Uncategorized

Boris the Mantis

November 3, 2021

Our students discovered a visitor living on a plant that recently came into our classroom.  Watching and learning about this beautiful mantis became a daily practice. The students even put democracy into action to choose a name. 

Posted in community, democratic process, High School, insects, language arts, McGuffey, Montessori method, science, social studies, Uncategorized

1800s Day

October 28, 2021

1800s Day is a McGuffey tradition where the Primary and Lower Elementary classrooms go back in time. All modern materials are put away, leaving only items they would have in the 1800s. Other than toilets, they do not have access to electricity or running water. Students are given the choice to dress up, wearing the clothes Americans would wear in the 1800s or the clothes their ancestors would have worn in their native country at that time.

It was busy day, filled with lessons, school work, gathering firewood, meal preparation, singing, sewing, laundry, and play. By the end of the day, we had many discussions about the similarities and differences of school now and in the past.

Posted in language arts, Lower Elementary, McGuffey, Montessori method, outside, practical life, pre-primary, preschool, Primary, primary unit, social studies, Uncategorized