Felted acorns
One of the most exciting and integral parts of the Adolescent Program (AP) at Hollis Montessori School (the mixed age class of students from 7th-9th grades), is Presentation Night. At the end of every trimester, the AP students invite their families to see what they’ve been working on and learning for the previous 3 months. It starts with the students preparing a group meal for around sixty people, often with multiple options for special diets. Then they set up stations to present their individual and group work as friends and families travel around to investigate. In the past, it has often included formal presentations, videos, skits, singing, and slideshows.
Setting up Presentation Day
This year needed to be different. There would be no indoor communal meal, and no parents and younger siblings mingling and then travelling throughout the building to see work and listen to presentations. But the AP was resourceful and came up with a solution. On Thursday, November 19th, the AP hosted the Fall Term Presentation Day. To follow COVID-19 safety guidelines, the event happened outside in the early afternoon, did not include a meal, only parents were invited, and everyone wore masks. Station locations were carefully planned to allow for physical distancing, including placing markers on the ground to indicate where parents should stand.
Presentation on Poison Ivy and Jewelweed
The AP students worked for several weeks planning and coordinating the whole event, creating the displays, practicing the presentations, and organizing the layout. Students proudly led their own parents on a guided tour, talking about work that had been done during the term. They used the outer walls of the AP building and the storage shed, portable tables, and whiteboards to house the displays. The students also displayed their work from their Creative Expression classes this fall, including photography, pottery, peace flags, earth art, and felted acorns. Instead of watching student-created Spanish videos as a large group, they learned how to create private YouTube videos and set up multiple individual viewing stations outside on laptops. The students brought their cider press outside to talk about the work they had done in their Micro-economy class, which included making and selling their own cider through their Sunny Orchard business. Community work highlighted the whiteboards and tents students built to create outdoor classroom space. They even built an outdoor sink to promote safe hand-washing. Rounding out the tour were displays of the students’ best writing pieces of the term, their literary essay thesis statements, Math Seminar work, and information about their Physical Expression classes.
Once they completed the tour, the students spread out into groups to present their Earth and Human Studies projects on local ecosystems. Their work this trimester was aimed at answering the following questions: What is here? What can we know more about? How can we be better stewards of our environment? They worked to answer those questions through seminars, outdoor activities, writing, and group research projects. The projects included work on edible plants, dragonflies, beavers, poison ivy, water chemistry, and macroinvertebrates. Groups created products about their work, such as a booklet or field guide, for each of the classes in the Lower School.
Presentation on water chemistry
This trimester also brought work around the question of What can we do to produce more food on the property? Following the local ecosystem presentations, students regrouped to share their work on garden and chicken projects. After researching building garden boxes, including investigating soil quality, irrigation, and extending the growing season, one group built three new garden boxes, including a hoop house. Another group researched raising chickens. Their work involved learning about chickens’ needs, egg laying habits, types of chickens, coop designs, and more. It culminated with the creation of a chicken manual, and the group started to build a chicken tractor for use in the spring. All presentations included rotations with a small number of people to promote physical distancing.
After all that had been accomplished, the students, guides, and parents were happy to find a way to enjoy the afternoon together, celebrating the work of the term.
