WFM Parent Coffee: Upper School Presentations
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The WFM Coffee on Tuesday, November 28th focused on showcasing a few presentations by Upper School students. Ms. Karen kicked off the coffee by stating that Waterfront Montessori is working on sharing some of the interesting things that kids are working on in school that parents may not be aware are ongoing. Often, kids do not consider their school work as "work". They just want to do it as they are excited by the work and find it interesting.
The first presentation was by two Lower Elementary students who discovered a pattern while working on equivalent factions. They created these patterns and found that it took 3 holes to make a design. The students were self motivated in this spontaneous activity of learning more.
The remainder of the three presentations were by Middle School students. Middle Schoolers have "Fedex Days" where they are tasked with selecting a topic, researching it, creating a presentation with slides and finally presenting it to their class all within a 24 hour period. The students use a modified PechaKucha presentation style with only 15 slides instead of the normal 20.
PechaKucha is a Japanese presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds in total). The format, which keeps presentations concise and fast-paced, powers multiple-speaker events.
The presentations focused on topics that interested the students and motivated them to learn more about a subject or try to find an answer to a question. All students spoke very well with great poise and confidence.
One student's presentation focused on finding the answer to the question whether or not a picture is worth a thousand words. She discussed how pictures are easier to memorize than words and tend to be more interesting. Words however tend to be more influential and are easier to remember in bunches.
Driven by his admiration of Elon Musk, a student focused his presentation on learning about Mars, He learnt about the planet, the current efforts to get to Mars and discussed some next steps in space exploration.
A student's love of cooking and her passion for food drove her to research into comfort foods. She discussed her favorite comfort foods from the various regions of the world. Additionally, she even conducted research in her classroom to see what her classmates comfort foods were.