Work Samples
First Metal Inset
Age 4
This is an early Metal Inset done by a 4-year-old child. Notice the careful tracing of the triangle and the precise lines inside of it.
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Designing with Metal Insets
Age 5
Here is a later Metal Inset drawing from a 5 1/2 -year-old. Students use Metal Insets as a creative outlet, exploring with the various shapes to create beautiful designs and further developing their control of a pencil.
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A 5 1/2-year-old used a Montessori material called the Addition Strip Board to help her figure out the different combinations for 11. This exploratory work is excellent preparation for memorizing math facts later on.
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Subtraction with the Stamp Game
Age 4
A 4 1/2-year-old used a Montessori material called the Stamp Game to figure out these subtraction problems. Notice that they involve “borrowing” from the next category. Work of this kind presupposes a strong grasp of place value, which our Montessori students gain through extensive practice with hands-on bead materials.
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Dot Game Addition
Age 4
An almost 5-year-old calculated this huge addition problem using special “Dot Game” paper and color-coded place value categories. Many Montessori materials use colors to aid children in ordering and retaining new concepts.
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Multiplication with Bead Bars
Age 5
A 5-year-old boy explored with Montessori bead bars in order to come up with these multiplication problems and answers.
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Division with the Stamp Game
Age 6
A 6-year-old used the Stamp Game to solve these division problems. In doing so he learned that division means to share equally among a given number. Green, blue, and red stand for the place value categories of units, tens, and hundreds; these colors are used consistently throughout Montessori math materials to aid children in retaining the order of the categories.
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Cursive Practice
Age 5
A 5-year-old practiced his cursive letters after he traced them with the Sandpaper Letters.
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Phonogram Work
Age 5
Students learn phonograms such as
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Exploration of Silent Letters
Age 5
Here, a 5-year-old boy made a poster of the silent letters g, t, and k. He demonstrated his comprehension of the words by drawing a picture beside each one.
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A First Story
Age 5
Montessori students are encouraged to express themselves through writing from a very early age. Here, a 5 1/2-year-old wrote and illustrated one of his first “stories.”
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Creative Writing
Age 4
A prolific 4 1/2-year-old wrote and illustrated this touching story. Montessori Primary students are not corrected for punctuation or spelling; we believe it is more important to foster their written expression than to strive for complete correctness at this stage. Gradually, in the Lower Elementary years, students learn–and are expected to use–standard punctuation and spelling.
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Beginning Sewing
Age 5
A 5-year-old Montessori Primary student might do an activity such as this as “resting” work between other challenging materials. Even as resting work, notice how it integrates several areas of the Montessori classroom: Practical Life (learning the real-life skill of sewing in a straight line), geometry, and handwriting.
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Parts of a Tree
Age 5
Learning about the parts of animals and plants is a popular activity in a Montessori Primary classroom. Here, a 5-year-old extended the knowledge she gained by using puzzles and nomenclature cards to create a beautiful watercolor painting with each part of her tree clearly labeled.
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Geometry Extension Activity
Age 5
This work is an excellent example of a Montessori extension activity. It brings together a child’s sensorial exploration of geometric shapes with the vocabulary she’s learned for those shapes, her burgeoning cursive writing skills, as well as tracing and gluing skills. This is the first page of a 6-page booklet of similar work, created by an almost 5 1/2-year-old girl.
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Geometric Proofs
Age 8
How do we know that a circle has 360 degrees? By proving it, of course!
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A 7-year-old student applies rounding and estimating skills to the real-life problem of sticking to a grocery budget.
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Preparation for Memorizing Multiplication Tables
Age 7
With this work, a 7-year-old student made her own set of 5x tables using both pictures and symbols. Notice how she recorded which ones create a rectangle versus a square — excellent indirect preparation for squaring later on.
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Introduction to Fractions
Age 7
A 7-year-old created this page of fractions by carefully tracing, coloring, and labeling each piece.
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Using a Protractor
Age 7
Here, a 7-year-old practiced using a protractor by drawing, shading, and measuring angles.
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Writing Activity 1
Age 6
We use writing activities to help students draw connections between subjects. In this sample, a 6-year-old student described the constellation Canis Major in her own words, connecting it to her knowledge of Greek Myths.
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Writing Activity 2
Age 6
Writing activities can be prompted by holidays or special events. In this Thanksgiving piece, an expressive 6-year-old listed everything she is thankful for, from her family to the solar system. Notice that not all spelling errors are corrected.
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Grammar Box Writing Extension
Age 8
In Lower Elementary, students work regularly with the Montessori Grammar Boxes for learning about parts of speech. Sometimes, such as in this piece by an 8-year-old, students copy out the work they do with the cards and symbols of the Grammar Boxes. This sample shows the colorful symbols that are used for each part of speech.
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An Introduction to Spelling
Age 6
We tie spelling rules to phonograms with activities such as this one. Here, a 6-year-old student made his own version of sentences and pictures from a spelling booklet focused on
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Learning to Construct a Paragraph
Age 8
We have found story prompts to be a useful tool for bringing early elementary students to the level of writing coherent paragraphs. Here is an example of a creative paragraph written by an 8-year-old student.
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Lower Elementary children sometimes repeat science experiments on their own and then record their observations and thoughts, as in this sample by an 8-year-old student.
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Animals of the Continents
Age 6
A first year Lower Elementary student applied her knowledge of animals to her knowledge of geography in this activity.
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History Exam – Ancient Rome
Grade 5
In LePort history classes, students gain a wealth of knowledge about the past while also learning to think clearly and thoughtfully about everything under study.
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Math Test – Whole Numbers
Grade 5
In LePort math classes, students learn not only mathematical problem-solving skills and procedures, but why those procedures are important and why they work.
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Creating Their Own Test
Grade 5
Standardized tests are the bane of student existence. Not at LePort: we don’t teach to the test. But when we did have our 5th grade students practice test-taking skills in math class briefly in preparation for the one standardized test we partake in, they got creative and created a test, instead of just taking it. See it for yourself!
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Geology Test
Grade 6
This is a sample from a student in 6th grade. This test was a cumulative test over the entire unit on rocks and how they form, from lessons spanning late March through May.
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Vocabulary Test
Grade 6
Vocabulary classes at LePort are anything but rote memorization of definitions. Students in our vocabulary classes decipher the meanings of increasingly challenging words from their Latin and Greek roots, a skill they can use anytime they encounter unfamiliar words in the future.
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Geography Test
Grade 7
This is a sample from a 7th grade student, AY 2010-2011, in which the student was given one class period (50 minutes) to complete it. This test evaluates “Basic World Geography” facts, which are introduced in 4th grade (the entry-level to our UEJH) and then briefly reviewed at the beginning of every school year thereafter.
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Grammar Test
Grade 7
If you are not a grammarphile, there is a good chance that this seventh grade grammar test makes about as much sense as a foreign language. All those direct objects and indirect objects, compound subjects and prepositional phrases likely mash together into a meaningless garble.
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Math Assignment
Grade 7
Typically in math education, students are only taught integer multiplication through a set of rules. They are told to memorize the following in order to solve integer multiplication problems:
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Science – Sensory Assignment
Grade 7
This is a sample from a student in 7th grade. This assignment was given after the students ha spent several lessons learning about the various sense organs and how they work, with special emphasis on the structure and functioning of the eye.
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Writing – Expository Essay
Grade 8
Throughout their education at LePort, students are asked to think critically about both the world around them and their own ideas. For example, just as we spend time analyzing a poem in literature class, our students are encouraged to thoughtfully consider the movies they watch, the music the listen to, even the gossip magazines they read.
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Writing – Mystery Story
Grade 8
Imagine sitting down to take a piano lesson for the first time. Your instructor tells you to play whatever comes to mind. “Just make it really expressive,” he says. In all likelihood the frustration and purposelessness of the experience will drive you away from the piano forever.
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