Planning the work cycle
Set up the day's lessons, assign work to individual children, and organize the work period.
Planning lessons for the day
The work cycle is the heart of the Montessori classroom. FutureNerds helps you plan which lessons to present and which children to work with during each period.
The Today tab
Open your classroom from the Classrooms tab on the dashboard. You land on the Today tab, which shows:
- Lessons planned for today.
- Which children are assigned to each lesson.
- The time block for each work period (morning, afternoon).
Creating a lesson plan
- Open your classroom and click Plan Lessons from the toolbar.
- Select the date (defaults to today).
- Browse or search the curriculum library.
- Select competencies to work on.
- For each competency, assign the children who will receive the presentation.
- You can also add custom activities (free-form entries that are not in the curriculum) for anything unique to your classroom.
- Save the plan.
The curriculum library
FutureNerds seeds your school's curriculum from either the AMS or AMI framework when the school is created. Competencies are organized by curriculum area (Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Mathematics, Cultural Studies, and more) and scoped by classroom level: infant/toddler, primary, lower elementary, upper elementary, and adolescent.
When you open the curriculum library from the planner, you see only the competencies that match your classroom's level. Each competency has a name and description.
Your administrator can customize the curriculum by adding new areas and competencies from the school settings. Custom competencies appear alongside the seeded ones.
Inline mastery recording
You can record mastery levels directly from the child pills in the planner. Click a child's name to set their mastery level for that competency. This saves you from switching to the progress grid during the work cycle.
Tips
- Plan lessons a week in advance so you can prepare materials.
- Use the progress grid to see which children need new presentations.
- Keep the plan flexible. Montessori work cycles follow the child's interest.