IMS Project Week (Monday-Thursday, March 23-26, 2026)
All the students from 1-6 grade at IMS were mixed into 5 groups for our yearly Project Week, and each day, from Monday-Thursday, the students went to a different classroom to learn about Maria Montessori’s First Great Story: The Formation of the Universe. Each classroom focused on a different part of the story. In the Amethyst classroom, the students focused on learning about the layers of the Earth and volcanoes. In the Ruby classroom, the students focused on learning about the planets in our solar system. In the Sodalite classroom, the students focused on learning about tectonic plates and how they have shifted over billions of years. In the Aquamarine classroom, the students learned about the different Greek gods and goddesses. Finally, in the Tourmaline classroom, the students learned about many different constellations throughout our Milky Way Galaxy.
Teachers involved: Mrs. Rhoads, Frau Blaha, Frau Häusler, Mrs. Ravalico, Ms. Berquist, Frau Spahn, Ms. Leverink, Mr. Brennan, Frau Enayssi, Frau Pakhuylu, and Frau Polzing.
We focused on diving deeper into Maria Montessori’s First Great Story: The Formation of the Univserse, of which precedes all the Cultural lessons in the Montessori curriculum. The goal was to familiarize the students with extension lessons for this story and to learn new mediums that they can then use in their everyday work to show their understanding of different topics (clay models, watercolors, stenciling, recipe making, carrying out experiments, and other various crafting techniques). The students took the time this week to learn about how the universe was formed, the laws of the universe, and the role the universe has in making life on Earth possible for all living things to exist and survive. We have an obligation as citizens of the world to learn about how our world has come to be in order to understand how we can protect it for many generations to come.