Susie, the Science teacher for our Upper Unit, paid the students in Lower Elementary a lunchtime visit on Friday in order to share the First Great Lesson with them! The Great Lessons are a Montessori tradition in Lower Elementary classrooms; these five lessons answer lots of the big questions that children between ages 6 and 9 find themselves asking about our world, our universe, and life itself.
The Great Lessons start on the largest scale possible: with our universe and its origins. These lessons also lay the foundation for further units that we teach in our classroom, including as astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, geology, and geography. At McGuffey, we always try to collaborate on the teaching of the Great Lessons so that our students can learn from teachers who aren’t usually in their classroom.
Susie read a book to the Lower Elementary students about the Big Bang and how modern scientists believe our universe was formed (Big Bang!: The Tongue-Tickling Tale of a Speck That Became Spectacular, by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano) and then she taught them about the twelve different epochs our universe has passed through, using plush toys from the Particle Zoo to illustrate each time period. Susie was kind enough to leave these plush toys as well as the book in our classroom for a few days so our students can take a closer look!
