Uncovering and Discovering

Secrets of the Garden



That's the aptly named title of one of Kathy Zoehfeld's most recent books--a beautiful book about food chains and food webs.











Digging our hands into the soil is an adventure. 














Every time we work in the garden, we uncover and discover secrets. 

 

Interesting invertebrates, both helpful and harmful

New fruits growing

 

Something to harvest and taste

What's hiding in your garden?

A stitch in time

Let's just say that I don't think the hole was this large when the pants arrived at school this morning.  I suspect it may have had a little help. 







When our lovely assistant alerted me to the pants problem, she wondered if we might send the child to the office for a replacement pair of pants.  But I had other ideas. 

Don't pass up a learning opportunity when it is a big gaping, threadbare maw, staring you in the face.  ;) 

I must confess, I was waiting for this to happen.  Instead of sending the child away, I sent him to the Practical Life shelf for our sewing basket.  "Anything a child can do, a teacher shouldn't."  Words for Montessorians everywhere to live by.


He now knows how to thread a needle and do a quick and dirty whip stitch.  I think he also learned about responsibility and sticking with a task--even a challenging one (such as mending your pants while they are still on your body!)--until it is finished.









Most amusingly (and yet, just what Maria Montessori writes about), when he finished repairing his pants, another child with a small hole in his pants wandered over hoping to get a sewing lesson from the first child. 

For the Birds

 

“The act of studying things is, in a way, a meditation on detail.  . . . The qualities of a fragment of nature are deeply impressed upon an individual.” —Maria  Montessori

 

 

The children and I have been discussing acting as field naturalists when we walk in the woods next week.  In preparation, we had a wonderful lesson on ornithology. We began by reviewing nature awareness skills including using a sneaky, quiet Fox Walk, taking in the big picture with Owl Eyes, focusing in on details with Eagle Eyes, and listening with perked Deer Ears. 

 

We then began to train our Deer Ears by listening to bird calls on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's website.  Search a specific bird or choose from the list of "Most Popular Birds" on the main page.   For each bird, there are photographs, descriptions, behavior, videos, sounds, and more.  The children brainstormed birds we were likely to see here.  Beginning with cardinal and blue jay, we viewed the photos, noted identifying features and marks, and listened to the calls.   Then I disconnected the projector from my laptop and just played the call.  The children guessed which bird it was and then I re-connected the projector to reveal whether they were correct.  We then added two more birds (crow and the tricky mockingbird) to our repertoire.   Again, playing the same guessing game.  The children loved it!  

 

We were generously gifted enough child-size binoculars to add a pair to the field pack each group will carry.  After a lesson on how to use them, we went outside in cooperative groups to practice.  We closed the lesson with For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson.

Practical life?

Our classroom was gifted a small IKEA table, and one of my students, upon seeing the large flat box, offered to take it home over the holiday and assemble it.  "My dad's an engineer.  We can do it," he assured me. 

So when a similar assembly-required desk organizer arrived, it occurred to me that the children could put it together, that they should put it together.

They read the directions, sorted the pieces, and followed each step in order.

That's the often-overlooked power of the collection of activities Maria Montessori called Practical Life.  In our Children's House classrooms, this takes the form of pouring, polishing, folding, scooping, sweeping, sewing, table-washing.  Not only do the children learn useful skills, they also learn to organize materials, sequence the steps of a task, pay attention to detail, stick with a process, and concentrate.  Practical Life activities help children experience the pride that comes with completing a task, by yourself, from start to finish--a feeling intimately intertwined with sense of purpose, the internal motivation and drive we hope to foster in our students.  They get the clear message that they are responsible for their work, for making things happen in their world.  Yet, too often in Elementary, we disregard the important role Practical Life plays in preparing children for academic work.  We focus on the beautiful equipment we spent so many of our training hours learning how to use.  We focus on serious academics.  We see Practical Life as a strand that ends when children move up from Children's House, a strand that is a nicety more than necessary.  Fluff. 

A couple of years ago, I attended a workshop in which the presenter (a teacher trainer) argued exactly the opposite.  She contended that she could walk into an Elementary classroom and know--by the tone of the room, the concentration of the children, the interactions between them--whether Practical Life activities were being implemented on a regular basis.  I ordered the recording of the workshop and listened to it more than once.  I think she's right.  Practical Life can and must look a little different in our Elementary classrooms, but if we set it aside, we withhold from children more than just the opportunity to clean a desk or assemble a piece of furniture. 

So I ask you, Could assembling flat-box furniture be a Practical Life skill?  Is there value in allowing (encouraging) children to spend time on such things?