Projects, Pigeon Peas, and a Sensory Table

I have acquired an old coffee table and large discarded frying pan, bringing me one step closer to constructing my outdoor play kitchen for K. I am still working on collecting the rest of the parts, I need a bowl for the sink, something to signify burners (perhaps I will just paint them, or use old cds), and shelving to hold the kitchen items that I also need to get my hands on. So although there is progress since my last writing, I’m still working on it and will report back when I have something finished. In the meantime, I have been working on a few other projects.

I'll probably start with a very simple, stove-less design like this one and build it up from there as I find more furniture

My hosts presented me two tables to choose between for K’s play kitchen and the smaller one I decided to turn into an art table, specifically a chalkboard table. Now, I have seen similar projects all overPinterest and have been dying to try one out so you can imagine my excitement when I learned that there was a can of chalkboard paint waiting for me in the garage. It was super easy, required only two coats of paint, and the whole thing was finished in no time at all (5 minutes of sanding, 10 minutes to paint each coat and about 2-3 hours between coats for the paint to dry). Piece of cake. It looks great too, I think, and I cannot wait to get some chalk, fasten a basket to the corner to hold it in along with a towel for wiping the slate clean, so to speak. 

K's new chalkboard table!

In addition to these two table projects, I really want to get a sensory table built for K. When I was at Bella Mente, each of our classrooms came equipped with a sensory table and they were always a huge hit. K, being not-quite-two, is really interested in touching, feeling, ripping, squeezing, grasping, and pinching anything and everything she can get her little hands on, so I figured a sensory table would be just the thing. But then yesterday, after we gathered some greens to feed the chickens, did a little yoga together, and read a few stories, we headed out to the upper terrace garden to harvest some Pigeon Peas from the bush that is scheduled to be taken down in the next week or so.

On Monday, I harvested a big bowl full of fresh green pigeon peas which Dylan and I spent a good hour carefully shelling. It was time consuming and tedious, requiring concentration and a lot of fine motor skills. The peas tasted great cooked in a coconut curry sauce and the bush was overflowing with both fresh green pods and rattling, yellowed dry ones. The dry ones just needed to be shelled and tossed into a Mason jar and could be stored like any other dried bean. Knowing that the plant would be coming down, and never wanting to see anything wasted, I decided that I would harvest them myself and slowly, over the course of the next few weeks, shell and jar them as part of my weekly farm work so that our hosts and future WWOOFers could enjoy them without the work.

Anyway, when K and I were hanging out yesterday, it occurred to me that harvesting the Pigeon Peas would be a perfect task for the two of us to do together. She has been really interested in helping out in the garden lately, particularly when it comes to picking and shelling the tomatillos, though at her age she needs a lot of guidance and gets very frustrated when I won’t let her pick all the “babies,” as she refers to the unripe fruit. The Pigeon Peas offered the perfect opportunity to practice; because there are so many of them and the bush is being torn down anyway it didn’t matter how many or which ones she picked.

This is a pigeon pea bush, they produce so many peas it will take K and I days just to make a dent!

So after stomping around the porch like giants, I asked her if she wanted to help me pick some peas. I told her that I had wanted to pick them later but if she was interested, we could pick them together. She eagerly agreed and off we went in search of buckets to fill. K wanted her own bucket, as mine was too cumbersome, being about half her size, so we found a cup for her to fill. When we got to the pea bush, I demonstrated how to grip and pull the pods off the branches and explained that I was collecting the yellowy dried out ones that sounded like baby rattles. She yanked a few of them and threw them on the ground, a few making it into my bucket, and then started grabbing at the green pods, looking to me to see if I would say anything, the way I had when she grabbed the “baby” tomatillos.

This time, I said “I notice you’re picking the green ones, those are ripe and tasty to eat, I ate them for dinner last night.” She looked up at me, down at the pod, then back up at me, lifting it up and saying, “help please.” I explained as I showed her that I twist the center of the pod until it snapped and then use my fingertips to pry open the shell, grab the little green peas, and pop them into my mouth. K grabbed a few more pods and tried her hand at getting them open. She struggled and pinched and twisted and eventually gave in, asking once again for my help. I could tell she was trying hard and this task would take some practice, so for our first day of harvesting, I started the process for her, pod after pod. I left it closed just enough so that she would still have some work to do on her own, strengthening her fine motor skills and allowing her the sensation and experience of opening the shells and plucking the peas from the pod all on her own.

It occurred to me, as I harvested handful after handful of the dried peas and K struggled with the pods and munched away on the little green rewards that perhaps a designated sensory table was not a high priority after all. Living on a farm presents tons of unique sensory experiences every day for a little one like K. If we wanted some sensory activity, all we had to do was step out of the house and rip up some more “salads” out of leaves like last week, or remove the shells from a bowl full of fresh tomatillos or pigeon peas. We could even grab some garden tools and do some digging in the dirt, feeling it squish between our fingers and plant some seeds, letting the dirt sift through our fingers as we gently covered the future veggies, like K watched us adults do together last Sunday.

Sensory table with empty tub waiting to be filled

Back at Bella Mente, an urban preschool in the city of Seattle, there were far fewer opportunities for organic sensory experiences like there are here on the farm, so we teachers created them in our sensory tables. The kiddos loved this and it really helped them develop those fine motor skills, use multiple senses to take in information about the materials presented each week, and manipulate the various tools with which we provided them. We needed to do this because otherwise those urban kids would have missed out on an important learning experience. Here, K and I have endless opportunities for emergent sensory experiences within the context of her life on the farm.

It’s not that K has it better being out here on the farm, or that the kiddos at Bella Mente are missing out, because that is not at all the case. Yes, K has more organic and directly relevant sensory experiences all the time, but she doesn’t get to ride the bus to the library for story hour, or learn from and collaborate with a classroom of her peers, it’s just her and all the adults here on the farm, and baby A who is only 5 weeks old and still many months away from being able to play with us. Each environment has it’s strengths and its challenges and we, as teachers and parents, work with what we have and find other ways to make up for what we lack. K has weekly beach meet-ups with a handful of other mother’s and their toddlers, and the kiddos at Bella Mente have sensory tables. Different environments present different, yet equally beneficial and enjoyable, organic experiences and I love having the chance to experience both ends of the spectrum.

Hello from Hawaii! The start of the Nature series

Have I mentioned yet that I am currently stationed in Hawaii?? I guess I probably should. At the end of 2012, I left Seattle, and my beloved preschool, Bella Mente, with my partner Dylan in search of a home. Ever since I left for college and my mom moved into a new house, I have been leading this transient, “move-every year” lifestyle. Although Dylan and I set out for Seattle with the possibility of it becoming our new home, we quickly realized that it was too far from family and lacked that clichéd home-sweet-home feeling. His family always rented and they moved around all the time so both of us decided that it was high time we find ourselves a place to settle into more permanently.

As we pulled up to the farm for the first time I thought to myself, Hawaii is going to be good for us

It’s kind of a long story and I’m not going to get into the details, but we ended up in Hawaii for four months, which is even further from home than Seattle was since we are both from New England, but in the long run this is bringing us closer to what we are ultimately seeking. The Central Coast of Maine is where we plan to make our home once we are ready. So then why Hawaii, one might ask. Well the idea of home, is about more than just a location and a house for us, it is about a lifestyle and the lifestyle we are after is one of self-sufficiency. We want to become farmers, and so we are in Hawaii through the WWOOF program, learning to live off the land and test out the farming life. At the same time, we are giving ourselves the chance to have one last big and crazy adventure, refresh ourselves and develop some healthier habits, and get some much needed Vitamin D.  

www.thegardenofenchantment.com

Since I am going to be surrounded by nature for the next few months, I have decided to start my first series of themed blog posts on the subject. This topic is a big one and will definitely require being broken down into multiple posts to avoid overwhelming you, my wonderful readers. It made sense to me to do this now since I was going to get to it at some point anyway. If you have been to my Pinterest page, you’ll notice I devote quite a bit of energy to showcasing various ways of incorporating the natural world into the lives of children, in the classroom and the home.

Following the Reggio Approach, I believe that by surrounding children with natural accents and materials, and exposing them to real live nature, we as educators and parents can help foster a relationship between the two. Children who grow up connected with their environment and the natural world grow up with a deeper respect for it and that makes a huge difference. We need more children who will grow into adults who care about and want to live in harmony with our planet rather than continuing to deplete it until it is all dried up. We need creative thinkers who will work with rather than against their environments to create a more sustainable and successful future for everyone.

Great example of a nature-infused classroom from http://earlylife.com.au/info/

Nature is on my mind and is deeply entrenched in my everyday experience and my current work with children, or with little K anyway. K is the going-on-two year old daughter of our host family whom I spend a good chunk of my time with each weekday (about 3-4 hours each morning), hanging out on the farm and learning together. You are bound to hear more about my adventures with K throughout the next few months while we are in Hawaii since I get to give her my everything as a teacher. It has been a while since I’ve done one-on-one work with kids but I am super excited. My biggest frustration working at a big preschool was that I never had enough time, energy or attention to give to each child in my class. Now K has my undivided every day and I get to experience the opposite end of the spectrum for a while.

The roaming chicken coop in the mango orchard at K's house

We just finished our first week of work here at the farm so K and I are still getting to know one another and I am still getting to know the farm, the island, and the people who I am sharing this beautiful space with. It is amazing having come from working with urban children in Seattle to be here working with a little one who spends her days among the food in the garden, the geckos all around us, and the hot, hot sun. In the mornings we feed the chickens together and walk around the farm checking on the progress of the various crops until the hot sun sends us inside to read in the cool of K’s tile-covered bedroom floor.

Since Dylan and I have arrived on the farm, K has taken a serious interest in food and cooking. A few weeks ago she began weaning off of nursing and eating more and more solid foods. At first, her mother told me, she was quite resistant but suddenly she has become an adventurous little eater, more so than most adults I know. At her age, she is soaking everything in like a sponge so being around the garden and so many people who work with and love good food means that she is beginning to develop quite the sophisticated palate.

One of K's salads ready to eat!

We spend at least an hour each morning in food-related creative play games and actual preparation of meals for her. The first night we arrived, we had a family dinner that featured a big salad that K watched her mother prepare. Since then, she and I have been making “salads” for Dylan as he works nearby. K’s salads consist of shredded leaves that were trimmed and discarded off the hedges by her house and we put them in a wooden salad bowl. I ask her how she wants to dress them and sometimes she wants salad dressing, other times she prefers just olive oil and salt, and sometimes she wants pepper, mangoes, and avocado too. She tosses it with her hands and gets a stick that she calls a fork and we deliver it to Dylan, who kindly pretends to eat her carefully prepared meal.

Her interest in food has got me thinking about fashioning an outdoor play kitchen for little K so we can take her creative play to another level, introducing new dishes, new kitchen tools, and new preparations methods. This way K can continue to pursue her newfound interest in cooking and eating while at the same time developing those essential fine motor skills as she rips and grasps and handles the materials. Over time I have collected a handful of great examples of play kitchens on Pinterest and will continue to add a ton more as I delve deeper into my research on the topic so check out and follow my education boards for more inspiration for your own classrooms and homes.

I love this outdoor play kitchen set up from pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com

Though most kids at some point take an interest in kitchen play, K is not yet two and her knowledge of food and her adventurous palate are likely connected to her upbringing here on the farm. She spends a lot of time around food in every stage of its production and so almost nothing on her plate is unfamiliar to her. Growing up as an active participant in her own nourishment will likely be a valuable asset to her in the future and I know it makes life a lot easier for her parents who never have to worry about what to feed her. K takes part in deciding what she eats and her preferences right now are eggs, fish, mangoes, raspberries, purple potatoes, broccoli, kefir, olives, and she’s always up for trying something new.

The main garden of the farm where K helps harvest her dinners, she loves to nibble on the broccoli florets as we go.

I have already salvaged an old frying pan that a neighbor was throwing away and so hopefully by the end of the week I will have a good start on K’s play kitchen to show you and more stories to report about K’s continued interest in food. If there’s anything I have learned so far in my week with K it is that continued exposure to a wide variety of foods certainly impacts what a child will and won’t eat. K also happens to be a pretty strong-willed little girl so I’m willing to bet that getting a say as to what goes into her meals makes a big difference too. Her only options are healthy ones so it really doesn’t matter what she picks because anything she chooses is going to be good for her. Being a food person myself, she’s my kind of eater and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

This simple model from natureforkids.net is similar to what I'll try to fashion for K

You Don't Have to Sit Still to Learn How to Read

While some kids love to park themselves on a couch with a book or write and rewrite their ABCs, many kids that I have worked with would never freely choose to sit down and practice their letters or look through a book because they are too busy running around. I’m sure you all know a few of these active, busy little ones; maybe you were one yourself. It’s not that these kiddos are not interested in literacy activities; it’s just that they learn differently and are more interested in things that don’t involve sitting still. Perhaps though, they are less comfortable with their fine motor skills or get their energy from being around others and so the solitary literacy activities leave them restless or bored.

This doesn’t mean they are destined to struggle with reading, or that they are even disinterested in it, as is too often assumed. It simply means that in order to set all kids up for success, we as teachers (or parents at home), need to set out activities that speak to a variety of learning styles so that at some point during the day, each kid has the chance to get involved in literacy work one way or another. The more we get to know each individual child’s preferred way of learning, the kinds of activities that they are most naturally inclined to participate in with enthusiasm, the better chance each child has at reaching his and her true potential. Too many kids get left behind in school when it comes to literacy because the status quo in education is to have all children conform to a single or a small range of activities that cater to the dominant learning style. This isn’t fair and it is not the only way.

A great way to encourage literacy development for all students is by including bits and pieces of it throughout the classroom as a whole, rather than simply creating an isolated literacy station. A designated station can work too, so long as it includes a variety of activities that speak to a variety of learning styles, this just takes a lot more space and often more work than is necessary. Integration not only increases exposure to these types of activities, it also ensures that no matter what station kids naturally lean toward, they will get in some literary work within the context of their preferred activities. I like the integration approach to literacy development especially because it encourages learning within the context of what the kids are doing so it is far more relevant and therefore allows kids to both want to read to add to their experience as well as better understand why it is important to do so.

A variation on my puzzle activity

At Bella Mente, the preschool I left behind in Seattle when I moved, I worked with a little boy who had no interest whatsoever in learning to read or write, until one day I created a stack of boards that had our new classroom name printed on them with empty squares below for letter tiles so the kids could learn their new name since we were no longer calling them the “4s class.” This little friend loved puzzles and the act of searching for the letters and finding and placing the ones that matched the letter printed above each box was something he was deeply interested in. To him this was just another puzzle, but as he filled in the letters and “built” words, he said them out loud and smiled the biggest, sweetest, proud smile when I pointed out that he was spelling real words.

Another student in that same class was the most perfect example of a kinetic learner I have ever seen. This boy loved to move. All he wanted to do was run around and climb on things. Quiet, stationary activities were just not something he was interested in. So how do you get a kid like him to focus on pre-reading and writing? Well, you find a way for him to move while he learns. Three activities immediately come to my mind for kiddos like my incredibly active little buddy but there are so many more once you start researching (Pinterest is a great resource for this), brainstorming, and trying things out in your space with your kiddos and see what they respond to.

One idea is an alphabet scavenger hunt. I love this one because it can be done individually, which is great for those introverted kiddos who get their energy from retreating into their inner dialogue, but it can also be a social group activity. A few of my students did this and had so much fun searching all over the classroom for each letter of the alphabet. This way, kids are working on letter recognition while at the same time moving around the classroom to satisfy their bodies desire to be in motion. To also make this a writing activity, the kids can carry a detective’s notebook and scribble down each letter as they find them.  

Another great activity for more active learners involves a little yoga-like movement where the kids attempt to shape their bodies to match the different letters of the alphabet. They can also do this one individually or with friends by turning it into a game as one friend watches and tries to guess the letter the other one bends into. You can also model the shapes and have the kids try to guess what letter you are making. Not only is this a lot of fun, whenever I’ve done it has left all the kids tumbling over in glorious fits of laughter and glee, but it also promotes large motor development and is a nice way to incorporate some principles of yoga into their daily worlds.

The last activity that immediately came to mind is one I recently discovered on Pinterest and I am super excited to try it out next time I get the chance to work with a super active learner. For this activity the teacher lays colorful tape down on the floor in the shape of very large letters, in upper and/or lower case for the children to practice walking along heel to toe as they would on a balance beam or tightrope. This is a fantastic challenge for the little movers who struggle to concentrate while sitting still, their bodies too antsy to remain seated for too long. If you try this one out, let me know how it goes!  

I love that these activities do not require a literacy station of their own and can easily be incorporated into the other core classroom stations. The word tiles puzzle is a great one to add to a quiet area paired with books and pillows, a work-table, and a run to sprawl out on. The scavenger hunt is perfect for creative play (aka dramatic play or imaginary play). When the kids in my class did this they called themselves the “alphabet detectives,” but they could have just as easily been pirates on an alphabet treasure hunt. The other two activities are great in any indoor and outdoor active play station, something every classroom ought to have where kids can move around and put their crazy energy to good use.

The yoga alphabet poses make for a really effective and participatory group meeting for when the kiddos seem too restless for or disinterested in a more traditional circle time meeting. Really though, the possibilities are endless and they will make all the difference in the world for those students who might otherwise struggle when it comes to learning to read. Constant exposure, even if it’s just adding rocks with letters and/or words painted on them to a sensory tub, can help set certain kids up for success later on just by increasing their exposure to language in such seemingly random and subtle ways. The learning happens whether they realize it or not and helps prevent later stress for children, teachers, and parents alike. 

Alphabet Bean Bag Toss

Check out my Playingwith Language board and other Ed-related ones on Pinterest for more ideas on incorporating literacy development in unexpected ways in the classroom and at home. There are so many more ways to reach kids than just reading books and singing the ABC song and every kid prefers and responds to different ones. When it comes to getting kids interested in reading and writing my motto is always, the more variety the better. This might take a little more effort on my end, but the results are so worth it. There is nothing like seeing a child take those first steps toward learning to read and the more fun we as teachers and parents can make this process the more likely the kids will be to stick with it and fall in love with reading, and thus learning as a whole.