One of my favorite blogs is Teacher Tom:
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/He teaches at a progressive multi-age parent participation pre-school in Seattle. I get a lot of inspiration from his take on "the early years" of guiding young ones. Visiting the school, most parent's would probably take one look at the outside play area and shoo their children away immediately. At first glance it looks like an absolute junk yard:
But it's overflowing with room for a child's imagination...for a child to move & learn at the same time, shaping those neuron's in that growing brain. Even once we grew up, we adults still seem to say that we learn best when we can just do it ourselves - learning through doing.
Teacher Tom had a breakthrough once where he realized that when he put things out in the yard with a specific goal in mind for the kids to do with it - he would always end up frustrated because it seemed like they weren't going along with what he envisioned. Sound familiar moms?
He said: "...the more vested I am in my own agenda, the more likely it is that I'll find myself frustrated. And that's, of course, because it's not my agenda, but the children's, that must stand at the heart of a play-based curriculum. In a play-based curriculum, the only failures are those that come when adults cling too possessively to their own agendas, either driving children toward their predetermined goal, or pulling out their own hair in frustration when the children, as they always will, seek to make it (whatever it is) their own. It's something I need to remind myself of every day, this setting aside of my own agenda. We all should, I think. There is great power in standing before children and saying, I don't know what to do. When we do that as teachers, we put learning in the children's hands, and in doing that we cannot fail."
The concept of giving Ellia and Claira something and NOT telling them "THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WITH THIS." was actually refreshing. And, seriously, they're gonna end up doing what they want with it anyway! May as well sit back and watch the show instead of getting flustered. It's hard to slow down to their pace, isn't it? It's sad we don't really remember what it was like when time went by so much slower.
Parents might look at the yard in an expansive view & write it off as messy, haphazard and dangerous. But they would miss the tiny spaces children make, inside their own minds...
...their own worlds.
Above is Teacher Toms "Mud Pit". It inspired me, even though crowded-cookie-cutter California can't really compete with other areas of the country with more room, more greenery, more originality. I bet the same moms who would say "I would never let my kids go to that messy school!" are the same moms complaining that they're kids never play outside. "Why don't you want to play in the back yard?" Maybe cuz a lot of planned-community California towns are stuck-up & landscaped to the point of sheer boredom.
Above is the girls Mud Pit and I hope to add a pulley and some gulleys (rain gutters used to pour water, sand, cars etc down.)
Ellia was thrilled and shocked that I entrusted her with REAL nails (I hadn't bought her a real mini hammer yet so she was using that baby one)
Both girls seem to be occupied for long periods of time when they're 'cooking'. So I set up their outside kitchen area with lots of stuff to grab, saved coffee grounds & bought spices at the 99Cent store.
In the blazing heat good 'ol Grandpa built a sand box, a veggie garden box & a play house!
While I was cutting back my arch nemisis: the night blooming jasmine tree shrub (ugh, if my hair only grew as fast as that damn shedding shrub). All 3 of us, actually, were in our own world in the yard that day, not saying much, just working with our hands and letting our minds wander. So I love that Ellia eventually thought to use my clippings to make a jungle for all her dinosaurs.
And, well, Claira just got naked. Love it.
Love love love this photo & the adorable 4th of July dresses - THANK YOU AUNTIE BARBARA!
We celebrated Grandpa's birthday at Magic Mountain. This is Ellia's first theme park roller coaster. If I had the 1979 photo of me on this same roller coaster (my first as well) I would post it. I have a look of pure terror mixed with trying not to look terrified. I love how my sweet, careful Ellia is the only child on the ride with her hands down.
She eventually threw her hands up and when the ride was over she was confident enough (and tall enough) to go on an even bigger coaster. Here she is proudly standing in front of the "big person roller coaster"
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!
4TH OF JULY 2011
