A Year in the Life - Toddler Week Two

We’re thrilled to share that all the children in the Young Children’s House are now on a normal schedule together! Both the returning and new toddlers are learning to be part of their new community. You can imagine the excitement and movement as the children’s curiosity leads them to explore new materials, experiences, and friendships. We are establishing routines and guiding the children as they learn how to BE in this new environment. There is so much happening, and the children's eagerness to explore and engage is wonderful to witness.

Though there are many exciting things occurring, I’d like to highlight one special routine that we are sharing together – our communal meal.  This week marks the first time all the children are partaking in our communal meal! This provides a great opportunity for them to connect with each other, have conversations, and enjoy some nourishment together. The children are eager to consume what’s on the table and it’s a delightful time for all. Food is a powerful motivator for many children, and sharing a meal together is a wonderful way for them to build relationships.

We are guiding the children on how to set the table and help prepare the food for the communal meal. So far with food preparations, they’ve helped by slicing apples, peeling the clementines, and separating the clementine segments.  They will continue to learn more each day as we vary the menu items.

The children are also learning to recognize our special song, “Come to the Feast,” which signals the start of our communal meal. When they hear the song, they gather around the table, stand behind their chairs, and sing our traditional grace. Our traditional grace that we sing was composed by Mr. Garvey, one of our toddler’s grandfather. Afterward, the children carefully pull their chairs out and take their seats. Each child serves themselves using tongs or a serving spoon from the serving dish, which they are mastering at their own pace. Some children quickly pick up the food, while others are focusing intently on this new skill. We gently guide them through the process, reminding them to place the food on their plate first instead of directly in their mouths.

In addition to the communal meal, the children are learning grace and courtesy while expanding their language – new and rich language and nomenclature.  We continue to guide them in setting up their spots with the appropriate table settings, and soon we will introduce more food preparation activities, including the beloved daily breadmaking! We can’t wait!

PARENT TIP: For those introducing new foods at home, remember that children aged 12 months to 3 years are in a prime period for trying new things. It may take up to 20-30 exposures to a new food for their taste buds to recognize it, so be persistent and keep offering new foods, even if you get a poor response at first.

Elementary Week Two - Good from the "Bad"

One of the most beloved verses in all of scripture appears in Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans: "We know all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."
 
This little snatch of counsel from the great Apostle has been on my mind as I have walked around in this corner of the vineyard we call Renaissance Montessori School and watched the students get settled into our very first full five day week of school.  Last week I wrote how all we experience is forming us; that everything is pedagogical.  In the classroom, there are things that are planned and things that are unplanned.  Some of these surprises are heartwarming and photogenic.  Many of the stories shared in this space certainly fit in that category.  There is even a monthly feature in Montessori Life magazine with charming anecdotes such as these.  Some of them, I think, might even be true.  There is another type of surprise, though, the unpleasant sort.  Sometimes it is something as morally neutral as the weather.  Sometimes a teacher or student makes a mistake requiring an apology.  As you can imagine, I have some interesting stories about this kind of situation in my memory.  One thing we pledge, however, is to be as discreet as possible when it comes to discipline and your child.  This could mean walking out of earshot of others or waiting for an opportune moment to speak.  It means not using your child's name while meeting with another student's parents.  We are not here to shame.  We are here to turn mistakes big and large into decisive events of personal growth. 
 
One surprise from this week was that our beloved bearded dragon, Lady, has a mouth infection that led to a small abscess on her scaly lower lip.  After some research at my house and some help from some friendly bearded dragon enthusiasts on the internet, I learned about the proper medicine.  My wife purchased some, diluted it to the proper concentration, and prepared a mason jar with some scary warning messages on it, lest anyone think it was water.  This year we have found it helpful to assign a single student to be the point person for each species of animal in our classroom.  A fourth year is in charge of our guinea pigs, though the hardest part of her job is to corral the 6 and 7 year olds who think Catherine and Joan are the two most adorable animals they have ever seen and are more than willing to give them more attention than any rodent needs or wants.  The care of our recovering lizard is entrusted to one of our fifth years, who was initiated into this role last spring, when she learned at the elbow of one of our 6th years.  She already knew the basics: drop one live worm into the calcium powder, and put it in the cage for Lady to catch it.  Give her a bath every now and then.  Wash her cage frequently.  She has a great love for this funny little lizard and was ready to pitch in when she learned what was going on.  Twice a day, she has been dipping a Q-tip into the medicine and spreading it on Lady's lips.  The lizard now also gets a cockroach to hunt.  It seems that the worms and dried food she has been eating have not given her teeth the right kind of workout.  The hard exoskeleton of these dubia cockroaches is just the thing for her.  (You will be interested to know that the rising popularity of this roach among reptile enthusiasts is incredibly well thought out.  They are unable to reproduce in a cool, dry place like Virginia, and so are not the escape risk of crickets or other roach species.)  Lady is already looking a lot better.  She also loves hunting the cockroaches we feed her.  I am happiest, though, about our 5th year.  She is doing important work in collaboration with supervising adults and seeing the results.  I wonder if she has thought of how similar this is to the work her mother does in the medical field.  Much will happen this year that will be foundational, and much she will forget.  I bet, though, that she will long remember a small crowd of young students gathered behind her and watching her intently dip her tool into a jar marked "DANGER" and with gentleness and care lightly touch the cotton tip onto the lips of a small animal.

 
My other example of good coming out of bad is a more everyday occurrence in the classroom.  On Monday, two first year students went into some work with the golden beads at a bit of a low ebb.  The golden beads are a math work which is used both in our primary classrooms and by our younger elementary students.  On this day, neither was excited by the work.  It was late in a long school day.  It was Monday.  It wasn't the students' choice, to do math, to use this material, or even work together!  (It is simply untrue that students do whatever they want in a Montessori classroom.  Sometimes for one reason or another, the guide in the classroom may know what a child needs before they know.)  It took them a little while to get started with the four addition problems I gave them.  They wanted help from a friend who they imagine is a math whiz.  I shooed him away with a smile and an encouraging remark and settled down about 15 feet away to see how they did.  What am I watching when I watch something like this?  I am watching how they cooperate.  I watch who does the work and who is content to let others do the work.  I watch their focus: where their eyes rest when they are thinking.  I listen to what they say.  Some students softly sing to themselves when they work on their math.  In the end, none of the four problems was exactly right.  So much went well, however.  Each problem was very close--often off by only one digit.  It was great data.  That 15 minutes of work gave me all I need to be a better guide to them as they continue practicing their addition.  I also saw that their morale rose as they worked.  This fact excites me even now as I type this.  Few of us relish the idea of settling down into hard work, but how many of us feel so much better while we concentrate on our task and can truly earn the satisfaction of a difficulty surmounted.  The children are like this too.  Just like us, they often want to stick with the familiar and the easy.  They sometimes need to be pushed into the struggle of deep work.  This is why it is so important for you to cultivate the virtue of obedience to valid authority in your children.  Like giving a lizard medicine, the effect is not instant when we practice math.  Our enthusiasm for the task waxes and wanes.  Obedience allows children to be more docile when we guide them into activities which are for their future good.  Next week I will focus on the vital but oft ignored role repetition plays in our pedagogy.  For now, though, let us rest in the knowledge that while mishaps and errors will occur, they are the grist that we at RMS can grind into pure bread.  In elementary, this is exactly what "following the child" often looks like.

A Year in the Life - Elementary Week One

The elementary has continued phasing in as the calendar has turned from August to September.  In this space this week, let's hear some of what has been going on in the elementary community, along with some general thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain since last winter.
 
1. The sixth years have been raising money for their culmination trip by selling bouquets on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Large bouquets are $15.  Small ones are $10.  All are gorgeous.  Bring the cash or a checkbook and get one of your very own!  Last year's culmination trip was a camping expedition into the Shenandoah Valley National Park.  This year's trip has not been planned yet, but the flowers are growing beautifully and so the children are taking advantage!
 
2. Last January, Jesse McCarthy came to our school and gave our community a wonderful presentation that included a very interesting clip that has remained in my memory.  It was a sped up video of an infant trying to reach a toy.  Even played at a higher speed, it is shocking how many people had a visceral interior reaction to help the child, even though the infant was not going through any distress or experiencing any frustration.  Rather, the child was focused and engaged.  It was 15 minutes of important muscle exercise and brain work.  How many of us would end the striving of the child by handing them the toy?  If we did so, would we be helping them, or helping ourselves?  In what way are we depriving our elementary aged children of those same struggles?
 
3. So far this week, the children have received many math presentations, along with the younger folks learning about the names of geographic landforms and geometry, and the older folks getting a parts of speech review and their first chemistry lesson.  In our first lesson on this subject, we discussed different particle sizes--the scientific explanation for how helium atoms can escape a tightly tied balloon, leaving it sadly hovering a few inches above the ground after a few days.  If you want to see this in action at home, combine equal parts water and rubbing alcohol in a very exact measuring tool.  You should end up with surprisingly less than you thought.  The alcohol molecules will "fill in" space between the water molecules, causing a 10% loss of volume.  For example, 50ml of water and 50ml of rubbing alcohol should result in 90ml of liquid, not the expected 100!
 
4. It seems that we as English speakers are always being sucked into the quicksand which is the debasing of our language.  I was reminded of this when in a conversation with my father recently, he reacted to sad news by calling it "incredible".  It took me a second to realize he was using the word in its original form, meaning unbelievable.  Society turns against the word "punishment", for instance, so it is replaced by "consequence", which not only robs us of the true meaning of that word, but also eventually causes "consequence" to take on a dark and ominous connotation.  

The more I think of discipline at our school, the more I think that one of the things that makes us unique is our commitment to helping children make a firm mental connection between actions and consequence, cause and effect.  That is why we make our consequences logical: recess actions result in recess consequences.  This is also why we encourage children to make work its own reward rather than encouraging an addiction to a certain kind of adult attention.  It is why you won't hear us saying "good job".  But we know that negative things will happen in a school year.  What about the child who needs to know that their actions are hurting themselves or others, in some way small or large?  We pledge that our justice will not be retributive.  All consequences, whether positive or negative, will be pedagogical.  They will be logical and individualized.  Keep in mind that for the justice oriented second plane child, "individualized consequences" can make their injustice radar go off!  There is a great desire in our class community for all to be treated equally, but also a great appreciation that they are treated as an individual and not an anonymous member of a mass of humanity.

5.  A contingent of children in the class were dedicated listeners to our read aloud of an abridged adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  The want Huckleberry Finn next, but Mrs. Mello is in favor of The Swiss Family Robinson.  Thank you to the people who helped us purchase some beautiful copies of the Great Illustrated Classics series.  Children love the masterful plots of classic literature, even if they are not ready for the vocabulary and themes of the primary sources.  This got me thinking: while I am always haranguing you to read out loud at your house, it would also be a great thing to tell stories.  Connect them to family and place.  Ham it up.  Your children love you.  They want to know the things you have seen and heard. 
 
6. Brain science makes it clearer with every discovery that every single thing we do is "educational".  Our every moment is forming us into what we will be in the future.  Our minds are always strengthening the connections we use.  The habits we practice become our personalities, our minds.  So, do not wait to encourage virtue in yourselves and in your children.  There is no time like the present.  Every day we wait to pray daily, read daily, or practice gratitude daily will be days in which we strengthen the connections that will make building those habits in the future all the more difficult.  Our daily life is the teacher that works seven days a week and takes no summers off.  The language we speak at home will be what we hear our children speak.  If we are verbally cruel or violent with our children, we are teaching them the wrong lesson, one it is hard to unlearn. 

7. We have made two loaves with our bread machine so far this year.  As always, it was a learning experience.  First off, we used fresh rosemary rather than dried rosemary for the first time.  What makes dried herbs so potent compared to their fresh cousins?  It all has to do with water's propensity to dilute flavor.  So, the second time we tripled the rosemary content and got a better result.  We also made our second loaf with some gluten free flour--generously donated by a family in the class for just such experimenting.  All steps were the same, all ingredients but one were the same.  Why was the gluten free loaf smaller?  This has everything to do with gluten's strength and ability to trap gas bubbles as the yeast does its yeasty work.  Gluten free flour loses more gas produced by the yeast, resulting in a smaller loaf.  Now, what does the strength of this gluten have to do with our difficulty digesting it?  Asking questions and searching for connections is a daily habit in our classroom.  Make it so in your home.  Model curiosity for your children.  You are exactly the sort of people they want to be when they grow up.