the thankful "tree"

Looking for a simple way to get into the spirit

 of Thanksgiving with your little one?

Make a thankful tree!

you'll need:

• a few branches with lots of good spots to hang "leaves"
• a flower pot or vase to hold the branches
• strips of construction paper with leaf outlines (I drew these)
• scissors and markers/colored pencils
• tiny clothespins for hanging the leaves (ours are in the cloth bag - fyi)

I prefaced the activity by asking Elise 

what she thought being thankful meant...

Her response?

It's when you REALLY like something!

This year, I'm especially thankful for

my two little daughters.

What are YOU feeling thankful for?

little smudge art

We have been loving the book Little Smudge by Lionel Le Neouanic.  Have you read it?

Little Smudge asks a group of colorful shapes if he can play, and they reject him.  

{WARNING:  Their rejection is brutal.  Depending on my audience, I change the wording to be less negative.} 

When Little Smudge goes home disappointed, his parents show him a few tricks that totally win the other shapes over.  

When I read this book, the children are always shocked by the rejection scene.  

They get all like, 

Are you kidding me?! 

Don't those other shapes know that EVERYONE is included? 

Duh!

{"Everyone's included" is one of our school rules, and most of the children believe it to be universal.  Wouldn't THAT be something if it was?} 

This book leads to meaningful conversations, and some pretty fun art, too!

  

First, we made our own little smudges on heavy paper with finger paint.

After the paint dried {this took an hour or two}, we turned our little smudges into other things... 

...people, dogs, insects, transportation systems, smiley faces, etc.

We experimented by drawing with markers AND ball point pens.  

The children were very proud of their creations, and they want to make more!

For more fingerprint art, check out 5 Orange Potatoes.  I think we're going to try their project next!

L-O-V-E

according to preschoolers...

Love is kisses.

Love is my family.

Love is giving a hug.

Love is the moon.

Love is living with my parents.

Love is my heart.

Love is petting your dog.

Love is my blankie.

Love is something that you give away.

 
Happy Valentine's Day!

How are YOU feeling today?

At the beginning of the school year
-hmmm... all year, actually-
I try to help the children identify their emotions.
Not only does this improve the way a child communicates
with us teachers AND with their friends,
it validates the way he or she is feeling.

A lesson I'm loving right now:

The cards are from The Kindness Curriculum,
and there are lots of different ways to use them.

-Of course, you could easily make them yourself!
If so, I would suggest writing the words below each picture...
that's the one thing that bugs me about these cards!-

I like sitting with a small group of children,
taking turns making faces into the mirror,
chatting about times when we felt surprised or angry.

How I feel today:

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies...
{it is} a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate." President Obama

President Obama is a man after my little ol' Montessori heart. That was my favorite part of his whole inaugural speech. Believe me, the entire thing brought tears to my eyes, but YES! Thank you! Finally, a leader who makes reference to the importance of nurturing little children. I turned to hubs and said, "Can you imagine what the world would be like if all children were treated with respect, dignity, and fairness by the adults in their lives?"

What if every little child learned how to be tolerant of those different from himself? Would we be in this mess at all?
Hmmm... NO!
If only they could all just go to Montessori school...
Maria Montessori's philosophy of education is so powerful to our culture because, academics aside, peace has and always will be at its heart.

to a new leaf...

I wanted to post this earlier in the week (as history was being made), but my computer was malfunctioning again... apparently, it's fixed for good now, so we'll see! My Montessori teacher read this during my training course, and I came across a copy of it the other day - it's almost too fitting!

Excerpts from a letter written by Maria Montessori in 1947 and sent to all governments:

My life has been spent in the research of truth. Through the study of children I have scrutinized human nature at its origin both in the East and the West and although it is forty years now since I began my work, childhood still seems to me an inexhaustible source of revelations and - let me say - of hope.

Childhood has shown me that all humanity is one. All children talk, no matter what their race or their circumstances or their family, more or less at the same age; they walk, change their teeth, etc. at certain fixed periods of their life. In other aspects, especially in that of the psyche, they are just as similar, just as susceptible.

Children are the constructors of men whom they build, taking from the environment language, religion, customs, and peculiarities not only of the race, not only of the nation, but even of a special district in which they develop. Childhood constructs what it finds. If the material is poor, the construction is also poor. As far as civilization is concerned the child is at the level of the food-gatherers. In order to build himself, he has to take by chance, whatever he finds in the environment.

The child is the forgotten citizen, and yet, if statesmen and educators once came to realize the terrific force that is childhood for good or for evil, I feel they would give it priority above everything else. All problems of humanity depend on man himself; if man is disregarded in his construction, the problems will never be solved. No child is a Bolshevist or a Fascist or a Democrat or a Republican; they all become what circumstances or the environment make them.

In our days when in spite of the terrible lessons of two world wars, the times ahead loom as dark as ever before, I feel strongly that another field has to be explored, besides those of economics and ideology. It is the study of MAN - not of adult man on whom every appeal is wasted. He, economically insecure, remains bewildered in the maelstrom of conflicting ideas and throws himself now on this side, now on that. Man must be cultivated from the beginning of life when the greatest powers of nature are at work. It is then that one can hope to plan for better international understanding.