For students at Hudson Montessori School in Jersey City, a trip to the summer Olympics may not be possible this year. So they did the next best thing. As part of their annual social studies fair, they created their own Olympic Village and recreated some of the ancient Greek icons to better understand the culture, art, technology, and other aspects of what has become a modern day athletic ritual.
“We wanted to show them how countries around the world came together for a peaceful event every four years,” said Grace Jolly, Hudson Montessori director and founder.
This is not to say the school-wide study ignored controversies that surrounded nearly all of the modern day Olympics. Drawing a timeline of the modern Olympics, the students outlined all the essentials, including controversies, prominent athletes, and other aspects from the start of modern Olympics in 1896 to the most recent.
With the international summer Olympics scheduled to take place in Brazil this year, students celebrated their knowledge of culture, science, mathematics, and arts in their annual social studies festival on April 30.
The celebration included classroom exhibits as well as cultural and entertainment displays out on the street and in nearby Zeppelin Hall. It brought parents, teachers, students, and the general public together in anticipation of the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to study the modern and ancient Olympics as well as how the Olympics have changed over time.
“We wanted to show them how countries around the world came together for a peaceful event every four years.” – Grace Jolly
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This was the culmination of a year-long study of ancient and modern Olympics for the upper grade students, while the lower grade students explored the countries that have been current, past, or bidding host nations such as Brazil, Japan, USA, Russia, Greece, Finland, and Morocco.
This is the seventh year the school has put on a social studies fair. In the past it has included studies of America, north, central and south, the Silk Road, people who changed the world, and other topics.
In studying The Olympics, however, students looked beyond this as merely a sporting event, and studied aspects of its history, present and future. What does it take to become an Olympic athlete? How does a country become a host nation?
Several classrooms featured elements of ancient Greek culture, including scale models of the Acropolis.
A different way of educating
Hudson Montessori has been at its current location near Grand Street for seven years.
Jolly founded the school in 2009. It had nine children then. It currently has 215 students, all from Jersey City. Currently the school has grades from pre-K to third, and will expand to fourth grade next year, with the goal of reaching the sixth grades. A primary classroom may have kids ages three, four, and five.
It was created as a private independent school following the Montessori educational model, focused on an individual child’s needs rather than based on a curriculum as traditional schools usually do. The school is not funded by the local school district, but by private funding.
The school tends have an identity of its own, focusing on STEAM: science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics.
Teachers are Montessori-certified, although the school does meet state CORE curriculum standards.
Gina Reeves, assistant director, has about three decades of educational experience with the Montessori model
Jolly said she founded the school because she saw a need in the community.
“At the time there were not many pre-schools and independent, especially Montessori,” she said.
“Each child is evaluated and lessons progress at a rate suitable to the child,” Reeves said.
Also, some students who have progressed faster than others might serve as mentors for other students.
Making connections
The annual social studies project festival each year is designed to teach children about the large world beyond Jersey City, New Jersey, and America, said Jolly.
“This is a global celebration,” Reeves said.
Jolly said with the Olympic study they were trying to get the children to make the connection between ancient times and modern, and allow students to fully explore the cultures that they are studying.
The exhibits were in 11 classrooms through several buildings. One featured the story of a small volcanic island which eventually became a bigger island with distinct countries.
Students teamed up to develop their vision for the future of the island. Emy and Gia, two students, said they teamed up to create two nations on the island, Wolfia and Delfia.
Others students came up with their own concepts of what civilization might look like.
Making artifacts for this island helped them embrace science, and art, since they designed pendants and other things by drawing them, then used a 3D printer to create them out of plastic.
“This is a study of geometric shapes as well,” said Grace Sanvictores, the STEAM teacher.
Perhaps one of the more interesting creations was another island complete with surface and subterranean volcanoes. With the use of baking soda and vinegar, some of the smaller volcanoes could actually erupt.
But the lower grade students who were involved in this part of the project apparently believed their volcano would be lonely. So they wrote and performed a lava love song for their volcano,
one of the highlights of the festival.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.