“ A greater curiosity arises; so it can never be satisfied; so will last through a lifetime.”
Maria Montesssori
Our days are so full! It always happens that we arrive at the end of January and it seems there are simply not enough hours in the day for all the things we want to do. Discussions we might have go deep and are more involved, explorations of new works materials or ideas grab and capture our focus. We have started taking Wednesday late-day makerspace very seriously and hosting visitors to do projects with us such as learning about bees. Our Kinders have developed their ability to focus on and have patience with bigger works such as adding four digit numbers or making science posters. As their language skills and overall content knowledge develops so does their ability to design and make more projects and dive into more advanced works. This can be anything from revisiting the metal insets with their advancing fine motor skills and understanding of shading and patterning, to making a outdoor mud kitchen and writing out the menu.
Right now our Kindergarteners are shifting to a new developmental plane one that Montessori believed gets more and more expansive the older they get. Montessori believed there were 4 planes of development, the first being birth- age 6 the second being ages 6-12 or elementary school. Without going to deep down the rabbit hole, this plane of development they are transitioning in to harbors a love for language both verbal and written such as; jokes, stories, puns ect. They are transitioning away from their definition of self in the singular and developing their place in community and who they are amongst others as well as alone. We see a lot of upper level thinking starting to take shape that takes away from their ability to remember all the steps for something, or forget what they were doing in general. In Kindergarten this manifests in-group lessons or they start giving each other lessons, big group conversations about things that interest them, A intense consumption of information, stories, experiences and of course food.
This year Ambra and Lisa worked together to talk to our kindergarteners about Martin Luther King Day from which deep and very honest discussions about fairness have been developing. We have moved on to talking about parts of the human body, but for some of us we have never stopped learning about dinosaurs, which has led to many interesting conversations about evolution. Some of us are still in love with sharks and have not stopped learning about the ocean and all of its secrets! We finished our Anasazi stories and have moved on to different folklore. We are currently reading from Maori (New Zealanders) myth and from Native American folklore and myth. I have found that I really enjoy crafting the voices for so many of these characters and look forward to reading to them.
