Being a Montessori school employee, in order to teach, you must attend a Montessori training program for 1-2 years. During this time there are many assignments; many of them include designing and making original Montessori lessons using the classroom material. Just in the last month I have had to come up with two new geometry lessons to present to the class. My most recent lesson included information on angles. I had to search through many lesson binders and geometry books to find a suitable lesson for the third graders in my class.

I ended up coming up with a fun and exciting lesson about angles after looking through many books and Montessori lesson binders. I wanted something original that the students hadn’t done before, but would also keep their attention. I needed to find something that would be hands on and something they would be able to understand, I didn’t want it to be too advanced for them. I finally decided on an angles lesson dealing with snowflakes made out of popsicle sticks. I made an example snowflake for my students to see and I bought enough popsicle sticks for them to create their own. After they had finished, they were set free with three colored markers of their choice. One color would color all of the right angles, another color would color all of the obtuse angles, and the last color would color all of the acute angles that they could find within the snowflake that they created.

I could have used addition data to strengthen the lesson and to find something for a follow up for the students to complete. I could have used the internet to search for ideas on this, but there are not as many Montessori lesson ideas and useful information online as I would like. Also, it needed to be an original idea, so it couldn’t be something that had already been thought of. During the presentation of this lesson, it would have been very helpful to have a smart board to help give the presentation to my students. Although I have never used one in a lesson, I have seen what they are capable of, and this would have been extremely useful in this lesson, and many others I have given. It would assist me in being able to show all students what I am doing in the lesson and how I am doing it, instead of having a circle of students sit around me on the floor trying to see as I am showing them how to put these snowflakes together.