Technology

2020/02/05 by Natalie

21st Century Learning with the Help of “Old School” Tools

Nurturing Tomorrow’s Achievers Since 1969

Our AHA! Moments take place in our classrooms, every day!

Rowntree Montessori Schools may be a high-tech school but that doesn’t mean that some “old school” tools are beneficial to our students’ learning. Check out a great video of our grade 4s learning about angles using and “old school” tool, the protractor.

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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2019/12/16 by Natalie

The Joy of Learning at Rowntree Montessori Schools

Nurturing Tomorrow’s Achievers Since 1969

Our AHA! Moments take place in our classrooms, every day!

In a technology-infused classroom, the lessons learned go far beyond coding or creating electronic media. At Rowntree, our balanced approach to technology use is designed to promote digital literacy and foster the “softer” 21st Century skills such as citizenship and collaboration. As an extension of our long-standing reading-buddies programme, students from older grades are partnered with their younger schoolmates in using technology as a learning tool. Our Grade 7s and 8s take great pride in leading the younger students in our annual Hour of Code activities; this year they will be coding holiday-themed Public Service Announcements using Scratch (scratch.mit.edu). Throughout the year, various grades are paired in order to explore various educational technologies. Often, students from a more senior grade will be paired with a Grade 1 class in order to share their expertise and refine their leadership skills, but sometimes (as pictured below), students from two neighbouring classrooms will work together in more of a collaborative activity. In all cases, the joy of learning is always evident on the faces of our students.

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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2019/10/25 by Natalie

21st Century Learning and Coding in Grade 1

Brought to you by Rowntree Montessori Schools…Nurturing Tomorrow’s Achievers Since 1969.

Our AHA! Moments take place in our classrooms, every day!

Our AHA! Moments are special learning and teachable moments that take place in our classrooms every single day. This past week, Storm, a Grade 1 student, surprised her teacher with a good morning message using coding skills she learned in the classroom. This moment demonstrated Storm’s engagement and interest in her Computer and Technology class, which allowed her to use these newly acquired tech skills outside of the learning space. Rowntree Montessori Schools supports 21^st century learning and ensuring that our students have strong tech skills that will help them prepare for their futures. 21^st century skills not only provide a framework for successful learning in the classroom, but also help to ensure students thrive in a world where change is constant and learning never stops. To learn more about the benefits of 21^st Century Learning, please click here.

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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2019/08/02 by Natalie

Problem Solving in Lego Works

At Rowntree Montessori Schools, we provide activities before and after school that allow students to explore additional extracurricular talents and interests in fun and engaging ways. One of the activities that our students enjoy is called Lego Works. This activity gives students an opportunity to collaborate on creating 3D structures in an imaginative way out of Lego. According to experts, playing with Lego has eight educational benefits. Firstly it promotes fine motor skills and encourages teamwork. It also helps improve creativity, develops problem-solving and mathematical thinking, and can help improve communication skills. Playing with Lego has also helped children develop skills to become persistent, improve self-esteem, and can help develop lateral thinking and planning skills (as noted by A. Akotva at the Scot College from Sydney, Australia in 2017).

Students during after school Lego Works activity.

The use of Lego during our activity time often helps students (especially younger students) learn and improve on many important skills. For example, we often see that the usage of Lego helps to improve fine motor skills with young students. As they learn to connect different sizes and shapes of these pieces using varying amounts of hand pressure, it seems to help the child control the pressure they assert when using a pencil to either write or draw. During our activity time with the Lego, we also see students learn about teamwork, especially as young students learn to share the pieces, while negotiating about their roles and responsibilities and the idea of how to extend the construction of their ideas. Our Lego Works activity also promotes creativity, as we allow the students to explore their imaginative side without limitations and fear of failure. Students also learn problem-solving skills related to mathematical concepts when using Lego, by understanding that certain smaller pieces can be fitted to larger ones to explain fractions.

Lego helps improve communication skills as students need to explain their ideas, their process, their work and the challenges they faced to create the structure or model. Plus we see that the use of Lego during our assigned time helps students develop persistence and grit, as they must keep on working even when the structure falls over. When students complete their final structure with the Lego during activity time, they often proudly show off their work, which helps to boost their self-esteem and confidence. Finally, time with 3D Lego constructions seems to help students develop lateral thinking and planning skills, as they face many challenges when constructing their ideas and often have to retrace their steps in the process and figure out a solution to any problem that arises. Overall, we see that allowing students to explore their creative ideas through Lego construction increases their ability to think critically, and helps students to improve their problem-solving skills, which is important for our 21st Century learners.

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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2018/11/28 by Natalie

Solving Problems with STEM!

At Rowntree Montessori Schools, we believe that as 21st century educators, it is our responsibility to equip our students with the knowledge and skill set that will prepare them for a fulfilling future and give them tools for solving problems when they arise. We do this by presenting students with a monthly STEM-Challenge box, that within it contains a real-life situation or problem that they need to solve. Students are instructed to complete a task, for example design a cleanup mechanism to solve the problem of water pollution, using basic materials such as duct tape, popsicle sticks, paper clips or other.

Each student is expected to collaborate with his or her peers to devise a creative solution to the problem, that will be judged each month by a panel of teachers. Our goal with these challenges, is to offer our students opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills, make decisions independently and collaborate with one another to find solutions to real-world problems. These challenges are a good first step to foster an interdisciplinary way of thinking about global issues. STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) as a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving, and as a component of what we teach, is taking our students’ level of learning and preparation for life, to the next level.

In October, students were asked to design a structure that could transport people from Downtown Toronto to the Toronto Islands. One of the criteria was that the structure needed to be strong and stable enough to support a class novel (with the novel representing one family of people). Each class found a different, and at least somewhat effective, solution, and all projects were displayed in the hallway at the end of the month. The image below shows students in the research and design stage of their challenge, as they engineer a structure for people to travel across Lake Ontario.

Students collaborating on solving a real-world problem using science, technology, engineering and math — Students collaborating on the October STEM-Challenge

Utilizing a STEM approach to learning develops much more than a student’s problem solving, decision making and critical thinking skills. It shapes our students into persevering, committed and patient people who will embrace tomorrow’s challenges with flexible and open minds. Our students are currently working on a very timely and important problem: create a mechanism that can be used to extinguish large forest fires without causing significant damage to the environment. We encourage all students to keep thinking creatively to solve this problem, and we look forward to seeing the solutions you present!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

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2017/09/25 by Natalie

Teaching in the Age of Technology

Teaching children who are born into a highly advanced age of technology can be a challenge. Students need to feel excited about their learning, and they need to be taught in ways that address their different learning styles. With technology rapidly changing our world, teachers are now faced with the task of preparing students for jobs that are yet to exist! Analysts claim that students of the future will be using technology that has yet to be invented, to solve problems that do not currently exist. It goes on to say that the amount of technical information has been doubling every two years. In addition, some of the jobs most in demand right now, did not even exist ten years ago, such as: app developer, web experience designer, social media manager, and chief listening officers. So, how can we help students prepare for their futures? The video below shows a young student using the interactive whiteboard to share her answer with the class.

Thus there is a very important need to incorporate technology into our curriculum, in a variety of ways. Enhancing lessons using different types of media such as video, websites, interactive activities, and even video games are a few of the ways this need can be achieved. Research shows us that surgeons who play video games make less mistakes, and perform surgeries more quickly (Dobnik 2004). In addition, students should also be taught how to use these media for their own purposes by creating their own videos and online media for assignments. Students should be comfortable navigating these types of technologies to suit their purposes.

Grade 7 students at Rowntree Montessori Schools in class on their computers — Grade 7 students using new computers to complete an exercise

Teaching our students Digital literacy and Citizenship is equally necessary in order for them to thrive and survive in the world of technology! Much like media literacy, digital literacy refers to understanding how these technologies are used, and how they may influence us. It also involves questioning what they are seeing online. Digital citizenship refers to how people relate and respond to online content. It is their own online presence. With more and more interactions taking place online, students need to learn things such as email etiquette. Students also need to learn about keeping themselves safe online. That means not mentioning in their Facebook status where they are going that night, or taking pictures where identifying information can be obtained. Students also need to learn that everything they post online becomes part of their digital footprint which will follow them. It needs to be made very clear that their online interactions will affect them in the ‘real’ world. In addition, it has now become common for potential employers to search their candidates on social media before hiring them. As a result, it is important students learn how to represent themselves appropriately.

Our advances in technology require that we as teachers, change our teaching styles and cater to the recent changing and developing needs of the generation. By doing this we are helping our students learn the skills they need to succeed so that they can successfully shape their futures.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

2017/08/04 by Natalie

Technology in the Classroom

Many years ago chalkboards were the primary teaching tools in a classroom. It was fascinating to watch our teachers as they chalked their lessons across the board. Using coloured chalk was the most exciting part! Since then, teaching tools have evolved remarkably, some beyond our wildest expectations. Thanks to the advancement of technology, teachers and students alike can now enjoy a whole new range of high-tech tools in the classroom.

Students working together with technology — Kindergarten students working together on Google Chromebooks

The introduction of Smart Boards in our classrooms was welcome with some reluctance. But the notion that these pieces of technology came with complications were soon swept away as we began to explore the many options they had to offer. Students enjoy their learning as teachers are able to enhance their lessons using a wide variety of tools available on these machines. Teachers are also able to monitor student learning and give instant feedback on their progress.

We also leverage Dash & Dot robots in the classroom as early as Pre-Kindergarten to teach programming and coding, as these skills are becoming increasingly more relevant for the future careers to our students. Also, through the use of Chrome Books and Google accounts, students have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers online to complete class projects and homework assignments. With this type of virtual communication, the need to visit a friend’s home to work on a project is also minimized and the goal is conveniently achieved!

Problem solving using technologyProblem solving using technology — Problem solving using technology

One of the biggest benefits of using technology to teach concepts in the classroom is that students can manipulate them with ease, thus ensuring increased focus and consistent engagement in the lesson. Teaching students to drive their learning through the use of technology and collaborative learning experiences is surely setting them up for a successful and rewarding future.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

2017/07/24 by Natalie

STEM Your Way to a Greener Earth

As educators of the 21st century, it is necessary that we equip our students with the knowledge and the skill set which will ensure a successful and fulfilling career path. Therefore it is important that we support a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) approach to learning. Presenting children with real life situations and offering them opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills, make decisions independently, and collaborate with one another to find solutions to problems, are the key goals of a STEM approach to learning.

With Global Warming being one of the high ranking problems in our world today, we recently posed a question to our Grade 3 students. The answer to the question required a STEM approach to problem solving. We asked them to identify and construct ways to integrate green spaces into a crowded urban cityscape. Applying their knowledge of Science in Plants, Stability and Structures, students designed a simple building within a limited space. They also devised methods to accommodate adequate greenery on the structure while also maintaining its stability.

Carefully Thought out and Creatively Engineered

Using their rapidly evolving technological skills, students compiled presentations illustrating the process of seed germination. The germinated seeds were the plants that they used on their structure. The Mathematical component of the project included measuring the sprouted seeds and graphing the results. Through trial and error students had to experiment with a variety of seeds that would sprout easily and also maintain a steady growth. They had to source out the most effective materials that could be used to build their structure and sustain the sprouting seeds. The end results of this STEM project were nothing short of masterpieces!

A house made with plants by students at RMS Private Schools — The Finished Product

Thriving in an economically driven, global environment requires more than just a multidisciplinary skill set. The STEM approach to learning develops much more than a student’s problem solving, decision making and critical thinking skills. It shapes our students into persevering, committed and patient people who will embrace tomorrow’s challenges with flexible and open minds.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:30am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

2017/02/17 by Natalie

Rowntree Welcomes DASH & DOT!

Our Kindergarten and Prep-ONE students recently had the wonderful opportunity of being introduced to Dash & Dot robots. Dash & Dot are educational toy robots that make learning to code fun for young children. Used together with tablets, these robots can be easily programmed to complete a variety of tasks, all while teaching children the basics of programming. Over the course of several mornings, workshops were held in our kindergarten and lower grade classes to introduce students these wonderful little robots, while giving them the opportunity to participate in many hands-on activities.

Students Teaching Dash to play the Xylophone — Our kindergarten students teaching Dash
to play the xylophone

Here at the Academy, I had the privilege of being present for two of these workshops and got to see firsthand just how engaging, fun, and versatile these little robots are. The student’s eyes gleamed with excitement as they worked together to make Dash & Dot light up with different colours, move in specific ways, play sounds, and even play songs that the students created! Using a simple drag-and-drop interface on the tablet, students created programs using coding basics like sequencing and loops to control the robots and had a great deal of fun while doing it.

As educators, we are constantly striving to prepare our students with 21^st century learning skills, and programming is just one of the many ways that we can do just that! By teaching students coding concepts from an early age, we are instilling in them a curiosity and ability to problem solve and innovate that will carry them through the rest of their lives. Many people may be skeptical about teaching Kindergarten students to code and program, but watching them work together and solve problems during these workshops only proves that with the right tools, not only is it possible for these students to do it, but it is very likely they will excel at it, all while learning and having fun!

Learning with Dot & Dash — Kindergarten student having fun
while coding his friend Dash

Our Dash & Dot experiences were such a success that we recently purchased many more robots to teach these important programming principles. They will also be frequently utilized within other subject areas and across multiple age groups, to ensure our kids have the best possible hands-on learning experience from a young age . We could not be more excited.

Welcome to Rowntree Dash & Dot!

To see more posts about Science related activities at Rowntree Montessori Schools, click here .

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:00am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:00am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

2017/01/20 by Natalie

Congratulations Mathletes!

Rowntree students are among the top Mathletics performers in the country! We wanted to take the time to recognize their engagement and achievements in math.

In the summer of 2014, RMS introduced Mathletics, an online learning resource, into our curriculum for Grades 5 to 8. We have found that Mathletics is a very valuable asset, both in the classroom and as a homework tool. It allows the students to consolidate their learning and further extend their Mathematical knowledge and skill. We were recently been recognized by the Mathletics Corporation as one of the top performing schools in Canada.

We are always so proud of our students’ hard work and dedication, and even more so when they are recognized for their accomplishments beyond our school.

We will be celebrating the students’ Mathletics achievement in several ways:

We will build a ‘Wall Of Fame’ in our classroom and post achievement certificates each week.

We will host an assembly and recognize the top Mathletes and most improved students.

We will feature students and a picture of their Mathletics Avatar in the school newsletter!

Congratulations to all the students in Grades 5 to 8

To see more posts about Math related activities at Rowntree Montessori Schools, click here .

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

To learn more about Rowntree Montessori Schools (RMS), continue browsing our website and ideally drop by any of our welcoming, friendly and family oriented campuses for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:00am-3:00pm. If you prefer, call to book an appointment for a personal tour anytime Monday-Friday 9:00am-3:00pm.

More details about Rowntree Montessori Schools‘ approach to education can be seen by clicking here .

Technology

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We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you the private school community of which we are so proud!

Please kindly SHARE this post with others by clicking onto one or more of the icons below. We would appreciate it and thank you in advance.

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