Universe Story Artwork

Now that we have a blank wall long enough to display all of them, I finally got these beauties framed and onto the wall!  Aren't they lovely?

Each poster is batik on handmade mulberry paper. 

This gorgeous artwork features the Universe Story, the Montessori Great Lesson with which we begin every year.  The story marks the beginnings of our studies of science, geography, and history.  “An integrated curriculum of history, geography, biology, and physical science is the heart and soul of an authentic Montessori elementary classroom” (Children of the Universe).  To place these subjects in context and give children “the big picture,” we begin every year with the story of how scientists believe the universe was created.  Maria Montessori felt that an understanding of the universe was the basis for all knowledge.  She writes, “let us give [the child] a vision of the whole universe” (To Educate the Human Potential).  The “Universe Story” is told in a dramatic way, with demonstrations such as an erupting volcano model (which went a little higher this year than intended!), to strike the child’s imagination and inspire a sense of wonder. 

Thank you to the Hartye/Morgan family for gifting these to our classroom, and thank you to my mother for sponsoring the framing.

Beginning Again

After a series of very long days, the classroom is once again ready to welcome young learners! 
Floors are shiny, flowers are tucked in vases, each shelf has been tended to, pencils are sharpened, notebooks are empty and waiting.
It's going to be an exciting school year!  See you Monday!

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. 

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?

Ravel & repeat

Today's post about our latest take-home folder art project comes to you from guest author and first grader A.A.

Yesterday we made art with yarn. 


















First, draw a simple design (like a heart or a swirl or a spiral square) on a piece of paper.  Then get some cardboard and re-draw your design. 









Get some glue and trace it over your design and then put the yarn over it. 

Paint whatever color you choose (as long as it is a primary color) on the yarn.
















Do a pattern and this is how the pattern will go tint, shade, tint, shade. 

Stamp it on your envelope. 

Stamp it some more and you are done!

Flower Arranging

In our classroom, every child chooses a job the first week of school.  We discuss what each job entails and the talents and skills required to do the job well.  Then I ask the children who among them thinks that sounds like a good match for their strengths.  We keep our jobs all year because we all need each child to learn to do his/her job well.  We rely on these jobs for the smooth functioning of our classroom, and each child's job is a genuine and important contribution to our community.  If the job is not done, our community suffers.

At the beginning of the year, it is a sometimes exhausting challenge to introduce each child to his/her job and train him/her properly so that it is done well.  However, that initial investment in time pays off.  Like most of the academic work in the classroom, I provide support--with appropriate tools, initial lesson(s), and a routine--and the child takes care of the rest.



As I looked around just before turning off the lights last Friday, I realized how much had been done without any reminders or active involvement on my part.  Tables were scrubbed and dried.  Chairs were put up.  Pencils were sharpened and restored to cubbies and the colored pencil supply box.  Fresh work plans were in folders.  Journals and pencils were on desks, ready for Monday.  Plants (both inside and outside) had been watered.  The birdbath was cleaned and filled.  Cleaning rags and placemats had been gathered and taken home in a bag by the week's laundry volunteer (a schedule is posted inside the cabinet where dust rags--and the laundry bag--are kept so that the children can check to see whose turn it is to do laundry).  Flowers were cut and arranged in vases.

One of our community jobs is Beautiful Classroom Manager.  This child's role is to review the classroom at the end of work time, notice what needs to be straightened, picked up, restored, or organized, and recruit volunteers to do it.  She often straightens our stack of work rugs or neatens the picture story books on the shelf.  She is also charged with flower arranging.

Several families volunteered (on their Parent Surveys) to send a small bouquet of cut flowers.  At the start of the school year, I organized a schedule, assigning each family a date to bring the flowers.  We receive fresh flowers every month or so, and each family only has to send them once.  Again, once a schedule is established, this requires very little effort or involvement on my part.  Mostly, the bouquet arrives in our classroom, and our Beautiful Classroom Manager gets to work. 

One of my Montessori mantras is "Anything a child can do, a teacher shouldn't."  Over this Thanksgiving Break, remember to enlist your child's help in tasks that need to be done around the house and in preparation for dinner.  The children are capable of so much more than we sometimes realize, and now is the time to recruit their help in your family. 

"If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence.  . . . Everyone knows that it requires much more time and patience to teach a child how to eat, wash, and clothe himself than it does to feed, bathe, and clothe him by oneself.  The one who does the former is an educator, the latter performs the lower office of a servant.  But such service is dangerous as well as easy.  One who has too many servants becomes increasingly dependent upon them and eventually their slave." --Dr. Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Pencil Amnesty!

Happy Pencil Amnesty Day!









Pencil Amnesty Day is the day when your pencil slate is wiped clean.  Out go all the grungy pencils, and you are free to start anew.

Did you put your pencil in your pocket and take it home?  Have you employed two desks as a vice into which you wedged your pencil in order to pry off the eraser?  Have you broken more than one pencil in half?  Did you sit on it?  Did you step on it?  Did you place it in the to-be-sharpened cup every day until it was a tiny stub, requiring a Captain Hook hook-hand grip?  Have you erased your eraser down to a non-existent nub?

Today, every child, regardless of any past pencil transgressions, is presented with a small but promising bouquet of new personalized pencils.  A pencil do-over day!

Motion Magicians

And now, . . . for our first trick: Cooperative Investigation!




Ta-da! 










For many years, I've been organizing students into Cooperative Investigation Teams for their hands-on science work.  As a rite of passage, third graders are invited to act as Facilitator for their groups, reading directions, making sure everyone participates, and generally keeping everyone on task.  First- and second-year students act as Materials Manager (with a green job tag to represent "Go," Materials Manager is the only team member permitted to leave the lab area to ask questions or get materials), Scribe (with a special pouch shown above, the Scribe records the teams' thoughts and observations), Illustrator (charged with creating graphs and scientific illustrations of the team's materials set-up), and Clean-Up Coordinator (responsible for organizing the group's clean-up efforts). 

After some research (and consultation with a friend who works in the Education department at our science museum), I concluded that Nasco offered the cheapest sets of child-size goggles.  However, the set came in a rainbow of colors and I anticipated some arguments along the lines of, "I want to wear the pink ones!"  "No, you wore them last time.  It's my turn to wear them!"  To prevent such time-wasting unpleasantness, I color-coded the job tags to match the goggles.  If you're the Materials Manager, you wear the green goggles.  Facilitators wear the orange goggles, and if you're the Illustrator, the pink goggles are all yours.  When we're not using them, the tags and goggles store neatly in a shoebox-sized plastic tub.  (To get the plastic job tag holders, I stalked tables at the end of conferences and recruited friends who dutifully passed along their badge holders after attending conferences--gotta love free supply procurement!) 

As we worked up to beginning the hands-on work of science this year, I asked the children, "What do scientists do?"
* They "observe" and "measure things" and "draw pictures."
* They "ask questions" and "think about the question and try to find an answer."
* They "research other scientists' work."
* They "experiment" and "investigate."
* They "think about safety" and "consider hazards."
* They "collect things."
* They "look for clues or evidence."
* They "write reports to share information with other scientists."

We then discussed the tools of science:
* collection containers
* measuring tools such as beakers, graduated cylinders, balances, spring scales, measuring tapes, meter sticks, rulers, thermometers, and timers
* observation tools including hand lenses, microscopes, telescopes, and binoculars
* a compass (or GPS) for field work
* notebook
* and from my students who vividly remembered our paleontology work: super glue, digging tools, brushes, straws, forceps, (and one child recalled having seen in some of my photographs of field work the measuring 'rod' used to measure the level at which fossils are found)

Meanwhile, every day, the children were asking eagerly, "When are we going to do science with our Science Groups?"  Soon, my small scientists, . . . soon!

For our first investigation, I challenged the children to a Coin Trick: How can you get the coin into the cup without touching the coin or applying a force to the coin?

The answer lies in science, not magic.  Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object will remain still unless a force causes it to move and a moving object will keep moving unless a force causes it to stop.  (This is also called inertia.)

So, if we use a force (a pull or a quick flick) to move the card, the coin should remain where it is, floating just above the opening of the cup--right?

Nope.

The trick of this demonstration (technically, it's not an experiment without variables) is to use gravity to your advantage.  You don't have to use a force to move the coin.  Earth takes care of that for you.  When you remove the index card barrier between the coin and the bottom of the cup, inertia causes the coin to remain in place and gravity (Earth's pulling force) pulls the coin into the cup. 







Magicians use the same science strategy for the tablecloth trick when they pull a tablecloth from under plates and glasses and silverware.  Get permission, watch the how-to video, and then try this at home.  Remember to consider mess potential and safety!  What could happen?  (Perhaps it's best to try this first with the cheap plates.)

Do you believe in magic?  I believe in the magic of science to capture the hearts and minds of children!


More fun with inertia and gravity!

'Twas the Night Before School Started

The pencils were tucked in the cubbies with care

With hopes that the children soon would be there.

Happy Back-to-School!

  

Find your home!

After teaching for nine years in the same classroom at the same school, I am (very anxiously) preparing to open a new Montessori classroom at another public school.  Due to an outstanding group of generous parents, I have boxes and boxes of brand new materials.  (No furniture yet, but lovely, lovely shiny new materials.)  Already, I (along with kind family members and friends coerced into joining the crazy) am up 'til the wee hours, sorting through cards, finding containers, and herding tiny bits into the appropriate tiny boxes.

In the best of worlds, children would attend to our modeling and always carefully restore all of the little bits to their proper places, never leaving loose parts behind when the work is finished.  In the best of worlds, children would always carefully carry boxes of tiny bits and never drop them and their contents.  In the best of worlds, custodians moving furniture for summer floor-cleaning would never tip a puzzle map cabinet sideways in such a way that all of the countries all over the world fall into a single jumbled pile (a very serious international incident!).  In the best of worlds, I would never return to my room one summer morning very close to the start of school to discover that a mystery foe has sprinkled bead chain tags from a variety of boxes into a mixed mess on the floor.

I've been teaching long enough to know that we live in the real world, and these things sometimes happen.  As I contemplate the inevitable spills and wayward little bits, I am reminded of a post by P.S. Montessori, describing a hilarious insect situation in which children shouted "Find your home!"  Many materials (and bless these suppliers!) have codes on the back for just this purpose.  Some do not.  How will we help them find their home?  If someone discovers a wayward clock label, how will we determine in which of the many sets it belongs? How will we easily reunite numerous seemingly identical small countries with their respective continent puzzle maps?  If we find a lost chain tag (or a pile of them) on the floor, how will we help it find its home?  Certain dark blue tags might belong in any one of four boxes loaded with tiny tags!

My materials are new.  Nothing is lost.  No pieces are missing--yet.  Now is the time to be kind to my future self and prepare for these potential problems.  Feeling supremely sacrilegious, I turned over every tag for the square chains and used a Sharpie to (oh so carefully!) draw a thin black line across one end of the back of each.  This will help us distinguish a found square chain tag from its identical cube chain mate.  Next, I drew a thin green line on the back of the tags for the long ten chain.  I am even considering a small dot of paint carefully applied to the back of each of the tiny country puzzle pieces, color-coded to match its continent color.

I know, I know.  Montessori teachers everywhere are cringing at the thought.  If you've been teaching for a while, though, you just might be getting out your markers and your paint . . .