Learning that is immersive, interactive, and engaging leaves a lasting impression. That’s the premise behind Hudson Montessori School’s 13th annual Social Studies Fair, based on the theme “Power of Nature.” The school is undergoing its annual transformation into a museum of wonders debuting on May 7, 2022. Each of its 13 classrooms will be a gallery of expertise related to the Power of Nature.
“The Social Studies Fair has always been an essential piece of Hudson Montessori School’s curriculum,” says Gracy Jolly, Founding Director. “The experiential exhibits extend the students’ learning environment, demonstrating the application of their knowledge. We encourage the students to learn from each other by visiting all the galleries.”
The school has developed a Museum Gallery Quest to incentivize children to visit all the galleries and learn about the other classroom topics. For each student who visits 10 galleries (classrooms), the school will sponsor planting a sapling in a national forest devastated by wildfires. Student participation in the Quest directly helps our planet.
Topics being covered in the galleries span the gamut from human invention inspired by air, land, water, and biomimicry to the powerful things that occur in nature. The school’s upper elementary students will theorize, prototype, and propose innovations that solve a problem using nature as inspiration. The younger students will be making artwork, dioramas, and 3D models.
In past years, the Social Studies Fair was open to the public, featuring an outdoor street carnival, with an outdoor stage, food trucks, bouncy houses, and many activity tables. The grand-scale outdoor portion of events remains on hiatus through the pandemic, allowing the school and students to focus their attention on developing this full-scale museum of wonders and visiting all the galleries. In the spirit of years past, we will have one activity table outside each of the school’s three buildings for our students.