Encouraging Future Scientists

Little C, transfixed by the movement of the water and colorful rocks beneath it

How do you get more kids interested in math and science? This was the question posed to me in a conversation this weekend about education after I made my claim that standardization and high stakes testing are boring students out of pursuing math and science careers. Being an introvert, I froze up on the spot and my response was pretty long winded and ended up as more of a general introduction to the Reggio Approach and the difference between what I do and how science is traditionally taught in schools. But I didn't really say much about my actual science curriculum and what it looks like in practice and I have been thinking about how to better answer the question all week. So today I flipped through all of my documentation folders for some good examples of how I "teach" science in my preschool classrooms and what I do to keep kids interested in these important subjects.

I spent one morning with a group of toddlers smelling, naming, touching, and looking at a rosemary bush in the back garden patch during outside time at Bella Mente. This impromptu lesson on plants was the result of little L's curiosity about this big green thing beside her, inspiring each of her classmates to have a smell. Engaging all of the senses is a great way to figure out how each of my students learns most effectively.

Back in Hawaii, K and I learned about the local farm flora by exploring the pigeon pea bush. She preferred a more hands on approach, working her fine motor skills by plucking the peas from their pods. We got in a great vocabulary lesson along with our science as K inquired about the name of each part of the plant and practiced saying leaf, pea, pod, bush, branch, and more as she pinched the pods carefully to get her pea.

Learning distance and landscape was something my buddy little E was particularly drawn to, he loved to look at maps and took great pride in his ability to name the places he recognized. Each time we brought out the world map he always showed me where Africa was, followed by England and Seattle. Here he's trying to find our school on a map of our neighborhood, West Seattle, Washington. He had a blast showing me all his favorite places as we looked over the streets together, naming them and putting his memories on the map.

Here is another example of a day when maps were one of the provocations set up on the science table but little E was onto something else and little M barely noticed the maps, fascinated instead by the magnetic sand boxes, first examining them, then manipulating the magnetic sand with a magnet wand. I always set up multiple materials and ways to explore them so there are options speaking to a number of different interests.

When the kids in my 4s class seemed a bit bored with our typical outdoor options one day, I pulled out a sensory table and filled it with birdseed  and these two practiced scooping, dumping, and measuring, and learning the physics of a water wheel. Later we observed from the other side of the window as the crows came to feast. I try to seek out activities with multiple dimensions because they tend to draw in more students and allow for more chances to inspire learning. Not everyone wanted to play with the birdseed when we were outside but many who didn't were thrilled to watch the birds gather to feed on it later on. 

The school age kids couldn't seem to get enough of math when we introduced the woodworking table where they also learned valuable lessons about the concepts of balance, weight, adhesive strengths, texture, and so much more. But best of all, they had so much fun stretching their imaginations and bringing their ideas to life. These kinds of hands on activities that engage multiple senses are a fantastic way to reach kids who just don't learn their best seated at a desk. They're learning the same concepts but their senses are awakened and engaged in all new ways from the smell and feel of the wood in their hands and the sounds of hammering and working with tools. Through the application of math and science concepts they understand their relevance.

On this particular day at the block table a few boys were experimenting with height, testing the impact of using the different shape blocks, trying to figure out which blocks or combination of blocks would make the tallest tower. They worked hard, challenged their patience, and experienced the thrill of discovery in the end. I asked, as I often do, to share their hypothesis, which blocks they thought would win out, I don't remember their specific response but through narrating their process I taught them the language of the scientific method.

There are so many ways for kids to learn scientific and mathematical concepts but most importantly I want them to learn how to think like scientists so whatever they don't learn from me or other teachers they will have the motivation and capability to resolve their queries for themselves. I've found that when I observe my kids carefully and play alongside them frequently they will show me exactly what they are most motivated to learn, making my job of curriculum planning a whole lot easier if I pay attention to their cues. Joining my buddy little N in observation of the tadpoles, we told each other what we liked about frogs and shared our ideas on why some of the tadpoles seemed to be growing faster than the others. Our conversation inspired research on what frogs eat and the details of their natural ecosystems. And in retrospect now I would have shared that interest with the class by reading a story like Mo Willems's City Dog, Country Frog, and  reach across disciplines again to paint a frog using water colors just like Jon J. Muth does in the illustrations. The possibilities for scientific exploration and discovery and are endless in any environment and once I got in the habit of looking for them, I started to wonder why anyone ever bothered with the traditional methods of lecture and test when this is so much more effective and a million times more fun for both my students and myself. Now that I've discovered the benefits of an emergent curriculum, I am in love and I will never go back.

Crafting Small Worlds

Blue fabric, stones, and some felt sand will round out this ocean small world

Thursday marked three weeks until my partner, Dylan, and I leave the Big Island of Hawaii and head back to Vermont to spend the summer helping my mom work on her house. It’s hard to believe our time here is coming to a close so soon. We have both had such an amazing experience, Dylan with his farm work and me with the farm preschool cooperative and teaching little K. I have learned a lot from her and everyone here on the farm and have immensely appreciated the opportunity to further develop my educational philosophy and build up my curriculum development skills. I have especially enjoyed all the crafting I have been able to do. After the success of our felt finger puppet craft night, I couldn’t wait to see what we’d come up with at our second evening of felting together. I had chosen sea creatures for our theme in an attempt at developing my first “small world” play-set for K and her friends. I was inspired by a lily pad scene I found on Pinterest a while back, but wanted to make something a little more relevant to the kids lives here on the island.

Honu I saw with the kids at Keei down the road from the farm

I’ve seen K and her friends at the beach and all they want to do is search for and pick up any and every living creature they find, including the spikey sea urchins that could easily cause a great deal of pain if mishandled. At our last beach trip with the farm community, we were lucky enough to spot a few humpback whales frolicking in the waves just before sunset and the kids went wild with delight, just as I saw them do the last time we went and saw a beloved honu (sea turtle). I wanted to provide these kids with a way to play with and learn about the creatures of their community that have so deeply captured their interests. So for our last craft night, we once again gathered at sunset to sip wine, share a few appetizers, and wind down our week, chatting as we stitched together a beautiful ocean small world. By the end of the evening, we had collectively created an underwater story waiting to be acted out by tiny hands and voices.

River small world in sensory table (source)

Small worlds are such a fun and effective way for little ones to discover ecosystems, connect with their local environments, imagine life in faraway parts of the globe, and step into the worlds of their favorite creatures. Small worlds allow children to create stories, develop characters, and stretch their imaginations again and again. Unlike dramatic play, where part of the fun is creating stories in motion, and fully stepping into other roles, the focus in small worlds is on characters external from one’s self, even when kids are pretending that they are the critters they control. Small worlds can be both an independent, solitary activity with one child acting out all the parts, or it can be a group endeavor where characters come to life through collaboration. While dramatic play tends to work more large motor skills, small worlds typically utilize fine motor skills. Both kinds of creative play are equally important and beneficial to child development and both can be used as powerful teaching tools in the Reggio classroom (or any other following an emergent/play-based curriculum). 

Yellow Tang fish, the favorite of my felt creations so far

Being an introvert myself, I tended to prefer small world play to dramatic play as a kid, unless of course I was the director and could participate from behind the camera, as I often did being the oldest sibling and cousin in our family. I had a family of fuzzy little bear dolls and a few other critters and I loved to set up homes for them in an imaginary woods with their fellow woodland critters. Many stories were played out in my childhood this way. Small world play is a great way for introverted kids like I was to get involved with drama. The creation of both small world stories and dramatic play games promote literacy, expand vocabulary and communication, and help promote a love of learning, because it’s not just fun and games, a ton of learning happens during this kind of creative play, particularly when teachers engage in the stories. I love using small worlds as teaching tools, not only do the kids get a kick out of it when I join in their games, but I can help them build a better understanding of the world and it’s many systems in a way that is genuinely enjoyable for both of us.

K's friend C reaching for a crab with a particularly beautiful shell

So how exactly does one use small worlds to teach? Well, thanks to another successful craft night, we have put together a collection of ocean critters that the kids see and experience on a regular basis, so their interest in them is already piqued. Kids love to hold things, they want to interact with the other creatures in their world, but as toddlers they do not yet understand why the critters might not be too keen on this idea. K is always asking me, “see me hold it?” when she wants to pick up a gecko, a spider, a bird, you name it. After enough and consistent explanation and a little more experience, she will come to understand. However, having spent the better part of my childhood collecting frogs and salamanders in the pond next to my house, I completely understand the urge to get closer to the fascinating creatures found in nature. Small worlds allow children to get that closeness they crave, to hold their favorite little beings in their hands and interact with them in a safe and respectful way until they are experienced enough to interact with the real things.

Kealakekua Bay, Big Island of Hawaii

Our Kealakekua Bay small world consists of a honu, an octopus, a manta ray, a sea star, a vauna (sea urchin), a dolphin, some seaweed and ocean rocks and shells, a yellow tang fish, and other common critters found in the depths of our tiny pocket of the Pacific. This mini ecosystem, just like the real thing, is comprised of a few mammals, some fish and amphibians, surface creatures, deep sea creatures, and those who prefer the shore. They consist of plant and mineral life, and thus provide an invitation for children to learn about each of these things. Rather than direct instruction and being quizzed on which creatures breathe air vs. water, or how the food chain works, and instead of being lectured on how to care for this environment, small world play allows all of this information to be actively learned, in the context of play. When I join a small world with kids, I take my role as whale or fish seriously and show the kids what they need to know about these sea creatures by being true to my creature’s unique nature. I make sure my whale regularly comes up for air, since that is what he breathes, and I make sure my fish flops around gasping for breath when accidentally beached. Most importantly, I narrate the scene, using a wide vocabulary and detailed (yet concise) descriptions. My role is to pick up on what the kids need to know and help them learn it through our collaborative play.

Elf or Fairy fantasy forest small world in a bucket (source)

Children, particularly preschoolers, are like little sponges, they soak in everything they see and are constantly constructing and adapting their understanding of how the world works and how they fit into it. I remember playing ocean games with my three year olds back at Bella Mente and after only a week or two of small world play, many of the kids could tell you the difference between a mammal and a fish, what these creatures ate, how they interacted with one another, and so much more. They learned all this from diving into their ocean games with each other and with me, their stories becoming both more advanced and accurate as the days went on. I didn’t need to quiz or lecture these kids to get them to learn, I just needed to provoke their interest in the subject by providing them with interesting materials to construct the knowledge for themselves. And when I joined in their play, I didn’t force them to keep their fish underwater or their whales near the surface to breathe, I simply acted my parts and asked them questions about their play, such as, “how can your fish breathe when he is out of water? Fish have different lungs than we do and they need water to breathe.” Sometimes they would tell me their fish had special powers, and sometimes they didn’t have an answer and we kept on playing. Next time we played oceans, however, I noticed that the fish always went back in the water to breathe. 

there are so many ways to make a small world (source)

Small worlds offer so much more than an opportunity to understand habitats and ecosystems, though I would still be satisfied if that was all they did. Small worlds cover nearly every subject imaginable, both academic as well as socio-emotional. Because they do so through contextual and interdisciplinary study that is both fun and highly relevant, small worlds make a highly effective learning tool that can be used with students all the way through elementary school. Since knowledge is continually being constructed, each interaction with a small world means greater depth of understanding and the more complex ideas can come into play. New and more detailed stories evolve, ones that can be written down, drawn, video-recorded, and more characters can be added to aid in continual construction of knowledge. More detailed and accurate environments can be built, these ones by the students themselves, and the ecosystems can serve as the perfect place to begin exploring some of the problems they face, like pollution, clearing of land, and other ways man has negatively impacted specific environments. The more kids understand about how ecosystems work and the relationship between man and earth, the better they will be positioned to seek out harmonious and effective solutions for both.

"V is for vauna" (Shingle Sea Urchin)

At their first introduction, small worlds can serve as a vocabulary builder, allowing kids to practice saying the names of their creatures. K loves naming the creatures and takes it one step further by showing me one creature at a time and telling me what letter it starts with. Sometimes we count the creatures and sometimes we use them as a puzzle and search for the magnet letter that starts the creatures names saying “O for octopus” and “V for vauna.” K and I also like to count the creatures, count the legs on the octopus and turtle, and we even play basic addition and subtraction games. “I have two critters and you have two,” I point out to K adding, “and when I give you my two critters, you now how four.” We count the four critters in her hand see what else we can count together. Since we started doing this, I started to notice K counting things around her without any provocation from me.

ocean and land fabric can set the stage for many a felt small world

Small worlds offer children the chance to play an active role in their learning, explore their interests, learn about the world around them, and just play, which is how they really learn best anyway. As a teacher, I use my small world play as a chance to get to know my students better, to chat and bond and just have fun with them in an authentic way. This kind of play is a serious relationship builder and when it comes to children, especially preschoolers, developing a solid rapport is essential to being successful in this line of work. Now that I have found a beautiful piece of blue fabric to set the stage for ocean small world, it’s time to get to work creating a land-based small world. So far I have completed a mongoose and a cardinal with a gecko, a lizard, a butterfly, and a few others on deck. When I picked up the ocean fabric, I also snagged a yard of green fabric with a nice leaf print and with these two sheets I can create a whole handful of different small worlds. To continue use of the ocean seen, I also plan to put together an arctic wonderland. Since K and I have started watching bits of Blue Planet, one of my favorite nature documentary series, K has been fascinated with polar bears, seals, penguins, and all things arctic. This girl loves to learn and her ever-evolving interests are constantly inviting me to try out new crafts to help facilitate and collaborate with her in the process. For tons of small world ideas, check out my Creative Play board on Pinterest.

Cultivating Community...via Craft Night!

K "washes" the tomatoes we harvested in her new play kitchen

With less than one month left in Hawaii, I have the curriculum for the farm preschool cooperative pretty much nailed down. The basic design for the school is drawn up, and the materials needed to fill the school walls are mostly pinned and bookmarked. So what am I doing between now and May 30th, our departure date? Well, that’s a good question. I have been spending so much time working on the curriculum and so thoroughly enjoying myself that it has left me contemplating the possibility of a return to school yet again to further my own education in a doctoral program for curriculum design and instruction. I’ll save that story, however, for another time. Anyway, now that the farm preschool curriculum is in solid working order, I am using my remaining time here in two ways. When I am not hanging with little K, I am kicking my craftiness up a few notches and putting together as many resources for the school as I can. As for my work with K, I am planning on diving right into the curriculum with her so that we can both experience it in action and so all you lovely readers at home can get a better idea of how an emergent curriculum works within our three focus areas (Social & Personal Responsibility, Agriculture & Sustainability, and Creativity & the Arts). I have a feeling this is going to be a busy and exciting month!

Things are really coming together for the farm preschool cooperative project in a way that I could only have hoped for. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to organize a craft day where all the families who are planning to join the preschool cooperative could gather and work on projects ranging from erecting the physical structure of the school to sewing more felt food and painting rock people, among other things. Last Friday night, a mini-version of this idea materialized unexpectedly when Heather, K’s mom, and I decided to spend our evening drinking wine out on the balcony overlooking ocean and sewing felt finger puppets based on a cute project I found on Pinterest. Before we knew it, over half the members of our farm community had gathered with us and we ended up stitching ten adorable little puppets shaped like owls, lions, bears, cats, and one not so cute looking elephant, whose eyes I just couldn’t keep from looking villainous. Craft night was such a success that we’re going to do it again tonight!

our inspiration from this seller on Etsy

Although it would certainly be easier to place an order with amazon along with all the books I’ve bookmarked to fill the library, it is important both in the Reggio Approach and our Reggio-Inspired curriculum that we instead take the time to engage in these group resource development activities. There is a heavy emphasis on cultivating self-sufficiency skills and community connections in the farm preschool cooperative, the later being of particular importance in the Reggio Approach as well. What better way, I thought, to start this preschool than by living and breathing the program’s philosophy into its very creation. When K and her friends walk into the finished school for the very first time, they will be introduced to each material and feel an immediate connection because these toys and this place was built specifically for them by people they know and love deeply. Right from the outset this means a greater respect for their communal belongings, an understanding of what is possible with a little creativity and resourcefulness, and an immediate sense of appreciation, love, and support. In my opinion, there is no better way to start school.

Not only was our craft night important for the kiddos and their future school, but it was important for us too, the adult members of the farm community. While our hands were occupied with felt, needles, and thread, we had the chance to share in one another's company and wind down from the week with the cool evening breeze and the sun setting over the Pacific ocean in the background. We enjoyed our drinks, a mouth-watering snack of cheesy baked artichoke bread that Jodi brought, and chatted about anything and everything. Even the guys on the farm got in on the crafting, impressing the pants off the rest of us who doubted they could even be baited to join. So what does our gathering have to do with the school, other than making resources for it? It sets the norm for the kids. K eagerly joined in, working on her own beginner sewing skills, soaking in the positive and enjoyable community experience until she was too tired to keep her eyes open.

Our DIY version of the puppets I pinned from Etsy

From experiences like these, K will always know what is possible when friends come together to work toward a common goal, but most importantly, she had so much fun crafting and so did we. Activities like this help set the foundation for a lifetime of deep and meaningful community connections, hard but enjoyable work, and a some creative resourcefulness. By joining in on our craft night, K is able to see what she will be capable of when she get’s bigger, that her needs can be met by her own hand, not just by her wallet. It was Friday night and the school hasn’t even opened yet, but already K is beginning to feel the benefits of the curriculum we have designed for it. This is quite possibly one of my favorite aspects of Reggio-Inspired education, it is firmly understood that learning happens all the time, and that potential to build knowledge and skill is present in every single moment of every single day. Learning doesn’t stop when one leaves school walls, and it doesn’t start upon return in the morning. Learning happens all the time across a multitude of settings and the purpose of school is to cross these disciplines, these contexts, and support learning as it unfolds naturally, helping each student to make the most of his and her unique life experience.

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The Reggio Approach, I think more than most other educational approaches, understands the importance of cultivating a sense of community belonging for children and their parents. Parent involvement, as Louise Boyd Cadwell points out in the prologue (page 6) of her book Bringing Reggio Emilia Home, “is considered essential,” and that in this approach, “parents play an active part in their children’s learning experience and help ensure the welfare of all children in the school.” I love this idea of involving parents as partners in their children’s education, it just makes sense. Whether schools admit it or not, parents are doing at least as much educating (for better or worse) than teachers are and therefore when the two parties are on the same page, understanding, collaborating and supporting one another, the educational experience can be so much richer and more powerful for the kids. In addition, when parents work together, be it in the classroom like they will in the farm preschool cooperative or joining in on community socials and resource development days, kids internalize these values and they become the norm they reference their later experiences against.

our inspiration for this evening's craft night!

By showing kids how to be part of a community, we are helping them learn to cultivate and appreciate this when they inevitably grow up and develop new communities of their own. It’s easy to do this here on the farm, probably easier than in other places, because there are four families living on this land and the Big Island of Hawaii, particularly the South Kona area where we are, is a very community oriented place. I grew up in a similar community-oriented place in Southern Vermont and after having lived in other places, I am grateful for having the experience to reference because when I lacked that connection I knew exactly what it was that I was missing and how to go about finding and creating it for myself. If you ask me, rebuilding the community connections that somehow got lost and minimized over the past few decades is one of the most important ways we can help prepare this next generation of young people for the future. The barriers that separate us from one another are a major hindrance of progress and it’s high time we begin breaking them down and work together to make our communities, our states, our country, and our world a better place. Our children’s schools present the perfect opportunity to show kids the power of a supportive, inclusive, and caring community. 

Welcome to My Classroom: A Day with K

A bit of the main garden with the playground hidden behind the mango trees

I got to spend the day with a healthy K for the first time in a while. Last week she was sick and we mostly read stories together and napped. Now that she is going to preschool three days a week, the majority of my work on the farm has centered around developing the preschool cooperative. Today, however, K and I spent a solid chunk of time together and most of it was out and about on the farm doing various chores and exploring the landscape. It occurred to me how unfair it is that not all kids have the freedom to self-direct their play in the way that K and I do, since the Reggio Approach is still so new to American education. We are lucky that K’s mom is familiar with and supports the approach’s idea of an emergent curriculum, where knowledge is acquired through interest-led interactions with the environment. We are also lucky that K lives in such a rich and enticing natural environment. The farm has added volumes to our curriculum, making it easy for me weave all sorts of academics into our play because the environment is so naturally stimulating and engaging.

Many critics of the Reggio Approach argue that left to their own direction, kids would never choose to pursue academic endeavors. While this might be initially true for older students who have never had the opportunity to direct their own learning, I can confidently say from experience that this is not the case for students whose education has supported their intellectual curiosities from the very beginning. Because I trust K to show me what she needs and wants to learn, and I trust my own ability to build a flexible and quality curriculum around my observations of her, I know she is always interested and motivated to learn. It is a different kind of teaching in the Reggio Approach and it takes some getting used to for sure, especially considering most of us grew up with traditional education programs. The benefits, however, for both K and I are well-worth the effort it took to transform my approach. Through an emergent curriculum we collaborate on projects more-or-less as equals, though we play our respective roles as teacher and student. We both spend our days learning, having fun together, building our relationship, and challenging one another to grow and roll with the continual ebb and flow of life. 

K and I love to observe the chickens pecking for bugs beneath the mango trees in their pen. We often bring them kale from the garden, peek in on them as they snuggle in to lay, and collect their delicious, fresh eggs, one of K's and my foods.

When I met up with K this morning, she was finishing up her breakfast, quickly stuffing the last few bites of omelette into her mouth when she saw me so that we could get to work. I asked her to please slow down so she didn’t choke on her food and reminded her that we had to wash hands and wipe down the table before moving on to drawing, which is how she decided she wanted to start the day. After taking care of our responsibilities we started to draw with colored pencils. K is all about mastering her fine motor skills and is drawn to just about any task that allows her to work on them, so drawing is a particularly appealing activity. I love creating art with K because when she is so focused on a task that we are able to carry on very natural and genuine conversations as we work on our projects alongside one another, sometimes collaborating, sometimes working individually. I was drawing a pattern with triangles and K asked how to draw one. I paused to show her, hand over-hand. She was more interested in circles and asked to draw those, so we practiced that shape as well. I told her that when I want to do something well, I practice it over and over again so that I can get better and make my shapes look more how I want them to. Then I drew five small circles in a row as she watched intently.

We worked on our art for nearly 30 minutes, K making circles and various lines while I worked on my triangle pattern. She had a color that I wanted to use and so we got in some sharing practice. She didn’t want to give me the red pencil so I politely asked if I could use it when she was all done, explaining that I could keep using the orange and yellow pencils until she was finished using the red. She agreed and after a few minutes she said “here you go” and handed me the pencil. I thanked her and started drawing my triangles and after watching me for a few moments she asked for the pencil back. I told her I needed to draw and color in a few more triangles and then I would return it to her. She continued using the orange, patiently waiting until I was done with the red. Among her scribbles, K noticed a pattern and pointed to her page saying, “mountain” to show me what she had drawn. “You did draw a mountain,” I remarked pointing at her drawing, “I see it right there.” K smiled. I smiled back. Then she asked to listen to “Apples and Banono’s” her current favorite (K prefers the Keith Urban version of this classic Raffi song). We danced around and did some yoga for the rest of the hour, read a few stories and then headed out to the garden.

By 9:15am, we had already worked art, literacy, music, and creative movement into our daily curriculum. We worked on fine motor skills, practiced personal responsibility, patience, and sharing, we got in a little exercise, and we worked on conversational skills, yet we were relaxed, had a great time and allowed our natural motivation and interest tell us when it was time to move onto the next activity. Sure my studies in education and human development have helped me understand children’s attention span for activities at different ages, but more importantly my ability to tune into and participate in K’s educational experience and learning style is what I rely on when we work together. I make our activities as interesting and enjoyable as possible to get the maximum educational benefit from each, but when K loses motivation to continue I follow her lead and we move onto the next activity that draws her in. It is a waste of both our time and energy for me to stick to a prescribed schedule because when she isn’t engaged, she isn’t learning anything except that my agenda is more important than hers and I do not respect her enough to think her capable of playing a role in her own learning process. That is not a message I want K, or any of my students to internalize.

I want K to trust her own instincts, listen to her physical, emotional, social, and intellectual needs. I want her to see how satisfying and meaningful learning can be and much fun she can have practicing her favorite skills and seeking out the answers to her many questions. So when K asked to take our adventures outdoors, I grabbed my water bottle and invited her to pick out a pair of shoes and hat. We started by heading up to the cherry tree to pick ourselves a delicious and healthy snack. We worked on our colors, identifying the darkest red ones because those are the ripest and most delicious. I explained that the darkest ones are the ones that have soaked in the most sun and are therefore the sweetest. “I got one!” K said when she found a dark cherry, holding it up to show me. Instead of telling her “good job,” I said with enthusiasm, “that one is dark, I found a dark one too,” I showed her mine and we both popped the sweet fruit into our mouths. Since I am partial to a Reggio-Inspired teaching style, my objective is not to evaluate her activities or judge her success, but rather to share and participate in her learning process, expose her to new experiences, and invite her to explore alternative possibilities and multiple perspectives.

Once K and I had our fill of cherries, I suggested we check on the tomatoes, since I harvested pounds of them over the weekend and knew there were a ton more that had since ripened. K loves the garden because it means she gets to work her fine motor skills in relation to food, two of her most favorite things right now. K loves to taste the garden, asking first for the name of each plant and then asking for a taste. I love walking through the garden with her because all that naming builds her vocabulary and all that tasting helps enrich her culinary experiences while adding depth to her knowledge and understanding of plant biology and agricultural sciences. Both the naming and the eating help her develop a pleasurable association with healthy food, a deeper connection with the natural world and the possibilities associated with a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Again we had the chance to practice selecting the best fruit for harvest and while just a few weeks ago K was regularly pulling the green “baby” tomatoes and tossing them on the ground, today she identified the reddest ones, pointing and checking to make sure it was a quality selection with a “see me pick it?” This is huge for K, who until very recently, loved to test her boundaries in the garden. She has learned that not all the food is for picking and that there are specific windows for optimal harvesting. I shared with her how impressed I was by the respect and responsibility she showed for the plants in the garden. She smiled.

When I reminded her that it is wasteful to eat only the insides of the tomatoes, K took care to eat the whole thing, rather than tossing it to the ground after a few nibbles. I happily offered her another tomato when she was done, which she gratefully accepted. Today K had my full trust as she perused the garden freely. She proved to me with her care and thoughtfulness, her patience, and restraint that she is ready for the responsibility of being a participatory member of the farm. She earned a notch in her gardener’s belt as we harvested tomatoes, vine-dried lima beans, and a watermelon radish the side of a soft-ball which we promptly and enthusiastically took back to my kitchen to prep and eat. I showed K the nail brush that I use scrub the root vegetables and her whole face beamed with her quiet excitement when I pulled a chair up to the sink and let her scrub to her hearts content. I narrated my actions as I carefully got out the chef’s knife and sliced up the radish, reminding her to keep her fingers safe and away from where I was cutting. K watched as the deep pink of the inner radish became more exposed with each cut. It was an enormous radish though, so I was at it for a while and she quickly lost interest. She was, however, not yet satisfied with her scrubbing work so she began to wash the few forks, spoons, and coffee cups in the sink. I really need to get on that play kitchen for K, I thought to myself as I watched her fall happily into the zone of sensory play and fine motor development.

We listened to Sam Cooke croon as we worked quietly, side-by-side, each deeply focusing on our task. I was practicing my best and safest knife skills, cognizant of how I was modeling this responsibility to K, who is always observing me (later that day I saw her replicating the “safe grip” I demonstrated as she “cut” her velcro play food). Once in awhile she asked for a slice of radish, reveling in its spicy crunch, and together we arranged a plate of the pretty pink and green veggies to offer up to our friends on the farm. K and I spent over two hours soaking up the sunshine and priceless lessons in agriculture, botany, culinary sciences, and biology. We took in a rainbow of sensory experiences, more personal and social responsibility development, and worked our fine motor skills as we twisted, picked, plucked, grabbed, and gripped the various shapes and textures across the farm. We shelled and collected an entire jar full of dried lima beans to store for soup on a rainy day in the future, fed the chickens some dried kale and admired the new baby duckling, observing how the mama protects and cares for her vulnerable little one.

When our time together came to a close, K was exhausted from all the adventures. We packed a ton of lessons in today and far more than usual, spanning a wide variety of subjects, yet we had a great time together without any conflict whatsoever. We had an amazing day together and my faith in the power of an emergent curriculum grew even stronger. Nothing about our day together was planned, except that K’s mom suggested last night that the lima beans were ready for picking. I mentioned it to K when I first arrived during breakfast but although she was interested in the idea, K elected to start our day inside. I didn’t pressure or try to persuade her, trusting that she’d let me know when she was ready to head out and tackle the job. When we stumbled upon the lima beans after feeding the chickens I asked her again if she was interested and this seeing the big green and brown pods hanging above her head was more than enough to entice her. K thoroughly enjoyed opening the crispy, dried pods and collecting the big white beans in the jar.

K and I allowed our interests and motivation to guide our curriculum in true Reggio fashion. It was a beautiful, exciting, and intellectually stimulating day. We did meaningful and enjoyable work, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes independently side-by-side. I don’t believe for one second that it is a coincidence this was one of our best days together. We were fully engaged in the process of learning and we were enjoying ourselves so much that time seemed to fly by. It is days like this that remind me why I love what I do and why I believe so passionately in the Reggio Approach as the most effective way to transform our struggling public school system. Though this approach was designed for early education, the philosophy applies beautifully to learning at any age and paves the way for self-directed, project based, and interdisciplinary learning. This is the kind of education that is meaningful, relevant, gratifying, and leaves teachers and students alike excited to get out of bed every morning and get to work. Just imagine for a moment a world in which this is the norm and perhaps you will understand my enthusiasm for the Reggio Approach.

Literature: the Backbone of Learning

As I review my curriculum outline and begin to piece together the classroom materials needed to breathe life into the farm preschool cooperative, I find myself relying more and more on children’s books to address the various fields of knowledge we have selected as the focus of this program. I love children’s literature and as a teacher I have found that it is often the most powerful tool I have to connect with students of all different learning styles with every imaginable interest. But books do more so much more than simply provide bonding opportunities, though if that was all they did I wouldn’t think them any less powerful or important. Stories allow children to enter all different worlds, to vicariously experience challenges and pleasures through characters they come to love. Stories give life to the lessons being addressed in the classroom while at the same time inspiring new ideas for where to to go next in the process of discovery. But mostly I love stories for the depth of creativity, innovation, and thought that they provoke. Many of my most memorable conversations and activities with students have come from sharing and discussing a beloved story together.

While my research children’s books to complement each component of the three core areas of the farm preschool curriculum (Social & Personal Responsibility, Agriculture & Sustainability, Creativity & the Arts), I find myself drifting back to the stories I read over and over again with my 4s class kids at Bella Mente. For a while, we used books as the backbone of our school curricula, selecting a new book every week or so, using the images and ideas in the story to shape our daily activities. Sometimes we teachers picked a book and other times we picked a book that the students were showing particular interest in, but each time it was a huge success. Because of that experience, I am able to put together a diverse and powerful library for K and her friends to learn about themselves, the world, and their places within it. Currently, K and I are using her favorite stories to build vocabulary, she being a bit too young still for the kind of curriculum projects I did with the 4-year-olds previously. K’s favorite right now is a book of silly, fantastical poems by Calef Brown called Dutch Sneakers and Flea Keepers. Though she has just turned two years old and is still learning to string together complete sentences, little K has memorized, in full, at least one of the 10-line poems in the collection, reciting it with pride in her linguistic accomplishment.

We started this book-based curriculum idea at Bella Mente with Carin Berger’s story, Forever Friends, a mixed-media illustrated story of friendship and the changing seasons from which emerged a lesson on the cardinal directions. We hadn’t intended on teaching this but the kids were so interested in the bird character flying south for the winter that we would have been foolish to neglect their enthusiasm to learn what we would likely have ended up teaching them eventually anyway. Our class was ready and eager to learn navigational skills then and there, thanks to this story, and so this was where we began our curriculum. Together we made compasses at the art table, hung direction signs in the classroom and practiced pointing to the west, east, south, and north walls of the room. The kids became bird watchers in the dramatic play area, listening to Stokes’ Field Guide bird sounds recording we borrowed from the library, and we used graph paper as the backdrop for our artwork, just like the artwork in the story. There was a little something for everyone in this book and the message of friendship helped reinforce the ever-important values of kindness and building lasting relationships.

While us teachers selected the first book, our lessons on paleontology and open-mindedness came from our class’s mutual love of Mercer Meyer’s fantasy story called How the Trollusk Got His Hat. So many kids had been requesting this book that we took their lead and built a curriculum around it, inviting kids at the art table to create their own fantasy creatures and making a batch of “tango playdough” to match the trollusk’s famed “tango soup.” The main character, Reggie was a paleontologist, so we set up an archeological dig in dramatic play and set out dino-bingo and non-fiction dinosaur books at the science table, which were a huge hit. Many conversations about how easy it is to misjudge a person because they look different resulted from the trollusk character’s frightful appearance, despite his kind and gentle nature. Though at first glance this is but a fun and silly story, we went on with it for weeks finding more and more to learn about together that we’d never have expected. The more we read this beloved tale, the more questions and ideas it inspired in both our students and teachers and soon another class was requesting the story for their curriculum when we finished. By the time we passed it along, our walls were adorned with imaginary letters to the trollusk and Reggie with hand-drawn stamps (the trollusk is a collector), pictures of dinosaurs to add to Reggie’s work, hand-created monsters and their descriptions, and all the kids wore giant paper hats that they learned to fold using an origami pattern.

We had so much fun exploring story after story, while seeking out others to complement the various components of our focal piece. We acted out the adventures together, made art in the style of the illustrations, and learned about the habitats and habits of the various creatures featured in each book. But it so much more than just fun and games, serious and meaningful learning was taking place every day and the students loved that the questions and ideas that they had after each reading inspired the activities and projects we would engage in as a class. Each story spoke differently to each child, stirring up a variety of emotions, questions, and thoughts. Everyone found some way to connect both with one another through their mutual interests inspired by the story, and with their own intellectual curiosities. For me, however, it was the thoughtful discussions resulting from our reading and analysis that I loved most. We asked the kids many thought-provoking questions based on each story and time and again the depth, wisdom, and maturity in their responses blew us away.

After reading Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius, my co-teacher, Becca, and I asked our group, “how might you make the world a better place, like Miss Rumphius did when she planted lupine flowers all over town?” Responses varied from giving lots of hugs, to drawing pictures for friends and family, to planting more flowers, to sharing toys with friends. One particularly thoughtful little guy who shared my love of literature decided he wanted to “give a flower to everyone everyone I see,” but then later on as our class had moved on from circle time and sat down to lunch, he was still thinking about the story and our question. “Miss Jo, I have another idea to make the world a better place,” my little friend shared, “I want to go to all the places in the world where people don’t have enough food and share my food with them.” A few tears well up in my eyes even now as I share his beautiful idea with you. I told him, “Caid, I hope that one day you get to do exactly that,” the pride beaming in his smile matched the pride I felt for him, as his teacher. Thanks to Caid, I fell in love with this story and share it with every child I can. K and I have already read it together a handful of times and each time we find something new and fall in love with the story all over again. 

So much wisdom can be found within the pages of just about any children’s book, and as a teacher, it’s nice to take part in the lessons and allow the story to do the teaching. I love reading stories with my kiddo friends and asking their thoughts and opinions, what they love about the book, and what interests them. I love sharing my take on the story too and through our dialogue about the book we begin to know and understand one another a little better. Our conversations about stories makes us equals, co-learners, as teachers in the Reggio Approach are intended to be, and they allow us to share in the beauty and joy of the written word and the artful illustrations and photographs that accompany each story. When I read with my students and ask them to tell me how the story inspires them, to share the thoughts and feelings the story evokes, it is as though we are just two friends deep in an authentic conversation. I listen to them, they listen to me and together we develop a deeper understanding of life. All the while these kids are practicing their critical thinking skills, building their vocabulary and ability to express themselves, they are learning new things about themselves and making connections they might have otherwise missed. There is no limit to what can be learned from a story when the power of literature is harnessed in the classroom and home. Here are a few of my favorite stories, I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.