Gardens and Dragons in Children's Artwork

A few of the jewels that tumble out of creative minds and artistic hands in class 1

Of String Games and Gardens of Potatoes

A string of wool arrived at school the other morning and before you could say 'cat's cradle' it seemed that every child was busy weaving patterns with a coloured loop of wool. 

And so we have 'bunch of bananas', 'keys', 'Jazz's heater', 'trap', 'bridge' and various others.

Even the teacher remembered way back in the dim recesses of past recesses and 'parachute' appeared on her hand, much to the joy of several on-lookers....

Knitting continues, some children have caught the knitting bug, warm, woollen and slightly loopy and have to be reminded to eat recess and lunch food. One child managed to mysteriously increase the number of stitches on his needle to more than double the original 22...

Back up on the farm, Farmer George has been planting potatoes, in rows, with exactly the same number in each row. The children used their counters to make up their own potato gardens, making sure that each row had the same number of potatoes. They then recorded the number of potatoes in a row, the number of rows and the total number of potatoes.

One talented mathematician looked up at me with shining eyes as I stopped to see his potato gardens and said 'This is times! We're doing times tables aren't we Lynne?'

At lunch time, out in the sandpit, several children had begun to loosen up the old wooden posts around the edge of the sandpit after I told them that Ken, the gardener, wanted to pull them all out as most of them had started rotting at the base. Using hand trowels and small rakes, the activity around the posts was enough to move mountains. 

One child commented that the posts were kind of like loose teeth...a very relevant topic in the class at the moment. And so the posts became the giant's wobbly teeth with a huge cheer every time one was loosened and rolled out of it's hole.

The school Principal, Alan, happened to walk past just as one of the giant's teeth wobbled out, accompanied by an excited cheering from several small excavators. 

When I explained to him what was going on in the sandpit he said 'You know Lynne, when these children are grown up and they remember back to class 1 this is probably what they will remember most!'

This week we all brought our bikes and helmets to school in anticipation of two full days of Bike Skills activities with Chris a PDHPE teacher from our High School. Unfortunately Chris was away on sick leave and the children were amazingly accepting of the change of plans.

In lieu of bike-riding we made two 2,4,6,8,10 apple cakes (2 eggs, 4 tblspns oil, 6 tblspns sugar, 8 tblspns milk, 10 tblspns s.r flour covered with sliced apples, sprinkled with cinnamon, sugar, and bits of butter & baked) and continued sorting seeds (counters) and recording the results in our main lesson books.

Several boys began a 'grinding factory' by placing two bikes upside down on the grass and placing the front wheels touching each other. By turning the two wheels quickly they managed to grind small pieces of soft timber from the giant's teeth posts.

Our meal blessing was sung accompanied by a most delicious smell of cooking apple cake....

In leaf and stem, water, fire in the fruit, air in the blossom, earth in the root, 

Fairies of the water, earth, air and fire, ceaselessly work for a plant to have birth'.

Spring is definitely on it's way...cubbies made from old sheets and garlands made from jasmine vine created quite a festive feeling in the garden at lunchtime. While in the classroom several children put in some quality time constructing marble races from interestingly shaped pieces of wood......

Images speaking louder than words

Sorting Seeds

Knitting is not just about plains and pearls....it is also about intense focus and drive to DO, recovering from your mistakes, holes and tangles, co-ordinating fingers, eyes and feelings, making choices (which colour would look good next to this blue Lynne?), patience (some children would knit from 9-3), communication and self-esteem. Who would ever believe it?

So before we moved to the classroom this morning 'the knitters' were busy around the lunch table. One lucky mother even joined in as well.....

I had noticed that the floor was looking like it could do with a good vacuum, so 27 busy children started their day with counting...the number of pieces of wool, grass, beeswax, thread, twigs etc they could find on the carpet. I asked for a minimum of 20 pieces, more if they could find them. After the floor had been finger-vacuumed until it was spotless I then asked the children to tell me how many pieces they had found. These numbers were recorded on the blackboard, then added up with great concentration and delight by the whole class/individuals. We used a process of 'counting on' ie 17 count on 5 more =. The grand total was 1, 237. One child was chosen to read this impressively (for a class 1 child) large number. Which he did.

An impressive amount of 'fluff' indeed!

A half hour Music lesson with Noni and Peter followed: recorder playing, song singing.

Recess

Show and Tell

In our Maths activities lesson we revisited the story so far this week......

Farmer George has made a new garden up at his farm in the Misty Mountains.

 Pippin the pixie and the banana flower fairies have also been doing some gardening. 

Today, much to his surprise, Farmer George discovered that lots of seeds had fallen out of their packets and were all mixed up. 

Pippin offered to get the banana flower fairies to help sort out the seeds into their different groups. The children experienced this at first hand when they were given a large sheet of paper and a handful of clear, coloured counters. The counters were sorted into colour groups, the number recorded next to each group and then the total for ALL groups added together recorded in a box on the page. The amount of mathematical language and mathematical skills that accompanied this activity as the children began sorting and recording was probably as much as the amount of fluff on the carpet!

Lunch

Rest and story from the Isabel Wyatt book 'King Beetletamer'.

Knitting and a fallen tooth!

Angel wings folded. Home Time song.

Dragon on the Hill

It has been a fairytale day. 

A young prince with shining eyes brought me a precious gift as I arrived this morning.

'It gets beautiful yellow flowers Lynne!' he said as he handed me a carefully wrapped parcel with green leaves sprouting out of the top.

In the twinkling of a magical eye the climbing frame rungs were transformed into a palm frond covered castle. Rows of coloured knitting began to fall from busy bamboo needles in a cascade of warm woollen loops. Tiny animals played in lilypilli trees down by the creek.

Then it was skip-counting at the entry to the classroom castle. 

'Skip-counting?' I asked. 

Buzz answered my riddle.

 

'It's when you skip numbers Lynne!'

And off we went, skip-counting by 2's, 5's, 10's....and then it got REALLY interesting...as some of us were able to skip count by 100's and then.....would you believe it from 6/7 year olds...1,000's!!!

At the desks a colour was carefully chosen from the rainbow array in the box and lightly 'layer-shaded' over the large piece of shiny paper placed on the desk.

Then it was time for the class 1 royal musicians.....

And so we began with clapping stick counting...to warm up the musician's nimble fingers. Easy at first..always remembering that every day we have AT LEAST 3 skill levels operating in the classroom castle. Stamping their feet in time with clapsticks and counting (no mean feat in itself) the musician's voices spoke out confidently, counting 

'30 up to 55 and back to 30', '0 - 20 and back to 0', '27 - 37 and back to 27, 

and for those musicians who DELIGHT in a mathematical challenge....'skip-counting by 5's starting at 25 and going to 75 then back to 25'.

The Queen then asked the musicians if they had any favourite ways of counting.

The musicians, talented and creative as they are already, came up with some wonder-filled ways of counting.....never before heard in the halls of the classroom castle.

One young knight, mathematically very inspired, came out the front and with a face filled with wonder said' If I count by 10's to 100 it's sort of the same as if I count by 100's to 1,000, isn't it Lynne?' 

I knew EXACTLY what he meant and asked him to take a piece of chalk and write firstly on the big blackboard, in a long column going down, 10-100, then next to that, in a column going down, 100-1,000. Which he did, as we continued with our counting.

Then out came the recorders. 

Echo playing, followed by '1,2,3 Who can it be?','Lucy Locket' and ''It's Raining it's Pouring'. 

Then a request from the queen....who would like to play with their group? with a friend?

And so, we imagined that we were the audience at the Opera House in Sydney enjoying a duet played by Aiyana and Angelina on recorder. An excellent performance for this first-time duet. Unfortunately some-what marred by several 'boos' from the audience.

The queen then spoke about 'good audience manners' and the performers recieved their due apologies from those children who ...well.....probably had never been to a concert at the Opera House before......

Then came the dragons..... falling off their chairs, giggling uncontrollably at things the queen found 'definitely NOT amusing', playing their recorders when the queen had asked for recorders on chins (a good tactic for ensuring quiet which some baby dragons seem unaware of), walking from their desks to the door trailing yards of crimson wool while surrepticiously hiding behind their back a pair of bamboo knitting needles and several rows of knitting (???).

And so the queen, in an amazing feat of shape-shifting, became HERSELF a dragon, until the baby dragons remembered............

Back on the lightly shaded page the queen asked the children to remember the flowers, leaves and tiny insects they had seen in the palace gardens the day before....and to scrub, flick or layer shade them onto the piece of paper. 

Which they did...even the baby dragons...having shape-shifted themselves back into children again.

And so the fairytale continued.....magical butterflies, beautiful leaves, amazingly petalled flowers, tiny black ants, waving windy grasses, smiling suns, magenta and purple layered birds, brown hovering eagles, pea plants waving up trellises, buzzing, happy bumble bees, subtle-hued rainbows, tiny dancing fairies, all came to life on the shining pages.

The queen then demonstrated how to find the symmetrical fold on a large piece of silver-flecked magenta light cardboard. Rules for using a glue stick were spoken of (despite this, several minutes later, one adventurous child tasted the glue and pronounced it 'alright' much to the queen's concern) and the children then stuck their magic gardens onto the cardboard and wrote their names on the inside of the magenta folder.

Recess

Art continued.......

Lunch

A stern talk by the queen on correct usage of hoops, following some knightly battles in the playgound with a hoop and several children, that ended in tears.

A choice: knitting, beeswax crayon drawing or resting under wraps, as the queen recounted the rest of the 'Lavender Slipper' story from yesterday, with lavender flowers from Farmer George's garden passed around for a press and a sniff. 

Four happy helpers from Dymphna's Class 6 and Harry (still in lieu of Georgia)  passed helpfully among the knitters as the story unfolded and the Little White Hen stitched lavender slippers for the baby foxes and told them stories which ensured that they would ALWAYS come back for more.

Which they did.

Maths Matters & Morning Tea in the Flower Garden

My school day began this morning at 6.45.

Out in the garden at home with the birds singing and the grass wet with dew, I cut down several large fan palm leaves, numerous long branches of native ginger, a swag of native grass and several beautifully scented stalks of cardamon. These were pushed into the back seat of the car along with a small piece of banana trunk. 

When I arrived at school two of the children helped me to unload the car and soon there was a big pile of interesting leaves, palms, grasses and stems lying next to the sandpit. Within minutes it was whisked away by the 'builder boys' who began making a new cubby under the bushes along the fence.

Several children went inside and got their craft bags and began knitting around the lunch table and a group of children began a ball game throwing, catching and shooting goals in the grassy area between the classroom and the fence.

After a few notes were played on the recorder the children lined up and so began our new main lesson which has a focus on many things mathematical interwoven with stories of gardening, seeds, flowers, herbs, vegetables and well-known pixies!

Questions at the door: tell me the number before 37?, after 25?, 1 more than 16?, 2 more than 27?, between 38 and 40?

As it is a new main lesson so the children moved to a new group in the classroom. First they were asked to place their piece of paper in a 'portrait' position. Then the paper was folded in half so that both edges matched perfectly. We looked at the 'line of symmetry' that was created by the fold on the paper. I asked if the children could imagine where we could put a line of symmetry in our classroom, which has 6 sides so, that the part of the classroom on each side of the line would be the same symmetrically. Two of the boys were able to give us a different solution to this (for class 1) quite complex problem. It meant that they were able to visualise within a 3D space!

Then the children in each group were asked to colour in a small piece of paper with the same colour. 

More maths questions followed in simple story form....'Pippin found 3 marigold seeds on one plant and 3 on another. How many did he have altogether?' to 'Pippin counted 101 seeds then he gave 50 to the water sprite. How many were left?'

As the question was answered correctly so that the children in that group could choose a piece of the coloured paper that had been placed in a basket. This would tell them where they would be sitting in the classroom.

Once all the children had chosen their coloured paper it was time to move all the desks to a new group. General chaos reigned for about 4 minutes as desks and chairs were moved. 

It is amazing how these class 1 children can do this activity so efficiently! Soon everyone was sitting more-or-less happily in their new group chatting with friends or helping latecomers to place their desk within the group. Such a fantastic activity for co-operation and social skills.

Next, we talked again about 'still hunting', an activity we had practised last week down at the Crystal Creek at the back of the school. I told the class that we were going to go and sit in the herb and flower garden at the front of the school. Their task was to observe the flowers, leaves and insects in the garden while sitting still and quiet for about 5 minutes.

Which we did. Morning tea was eaten in the garden...beautiful.

Recess: eating and lots of knitting!

After recess we played a game of 'Secret Number' in the classroom using the numbers between 1 and 20. Then it was time for the class to have a games lesson with Harry (in lieu of Georgia who is away on a class camp this week). 'Red Goblins', 'Crocodile crocodile' and 'Octopus' saw the children running here there and everywhere in the class 1 play area. When I returned for lunch duty several children were playing in the sandpit. They told me that the games were boring and they didn't want to play.

I will talk about this with the whole class tomorrow.......

Lunch: eating and lots of knitting!

After lunch it was rest time. 

So cute: a class full of children mostly lying under 4 large quilts....sometimes seven children all fitting around under one quilt!

Several children chose to knit at their desks during rest time while I read the story from the book by Isabel Wyatt 'King Beetle-Tamer'. Thankfully Harry was on hand to help the knitters who ended up in a tangle or needed to change the colour of the wool they were using.

After we had all listened to the story of 'The Four Leaved Clover', Tula, from under his Balinese quilt, put in a request for a short 'Tim Rabbit' story, if I could find one in the book. Which I did and we heard the beginning of 'Tim Rabbit and the Lavender Scent' which fitted in well with our visit to the herb garden this morning.

3.55 and time to put all the desks back into their groups of four, tidy crayon boxes, stand behind chairs with white cockatoo wings folded and finish our day with 

'Thankyou for the sun' 

then 'Good afternoon and thank you Harry' and 'Good afternoon and thankyou Class 1'.

Friday 13th August 2010

Great day...auspicious...to begin a blog about one of my life's passions: teaching children.

28 to be precise. At Shearwater the Mullumbimby Steiner School. 

Today began with my arrival at the classroom, draped with laptop, computer, wool coat, scarf, chook bucket and handbag. Our 16 year old, Year 10 Italian exchange, work experience student Anna arrived for her last day after a week in our classroom. We greeted each other with a smiling 'Bon giorno!' and then from me a 'Ca Va?' Anna also speaks French.

Friday is sticker trading day so the first arrivals sat at the lunch table and began seriously trading. 

Arrival time begins in earnest around 8.55. I have initiated an extra 15 minutes arrival time for my students. We all need time to really 'arrive'.  The boys especially, love to use this time to MOVE. They run, chase, be chased, climb the mulberry tree, laugh and talk together. The girls talk together on the balcony or outside in the playground. They play on the monkey bars, join the boys for a quick game of 'stuck in the mud' or sit at the lunch table for some dedicated sticker trading. One of the girls has brought along to school some beautiful images to colour in and soon a group of children have gathered at the lunch table and are busy colouring in and talking together.

A few boys ask me if they can have a 'little nibble'. They sit together around the lunch table, talking happily, eating half the contents of their lunch boxes. And it is only 9 a.m!

We have a wooden boat on the balcony, a prop from a previous class 1's play. I ask one of the girls to put the two quilts from the classroom inside the boat. Soon sticker trading or just good conversation is taking place between two children sitting snuggled up under the quilts in the boat.

I play the recorder...it is a pentatonic recorder, so it always sounds good whatever notes you play and the children start moving to the front double doors of the classroom, encouraging others who are in their class groups to remember their slippers! 

We sing 'Selamat pagi pagi pagi means good morning' and count up to 10 in Indonesian at the door to settle all these beautiful petals and then I give them their first task. 

'Take out your red book, turn to a new page and use however many colours you like today to lightly and slowly 'layer shade' your page. Start by moving your crayon from left to right across the page then with your next colour go up and down across the page'. 

You may feel confused dear reader, these children are brilliant and most know exactly what to do!

After the shading and a single colour border around the page the children take out their sandbags and we move and sing to wake up their bodies and get them ready for recorder. Today everyone had a sandbag. Most days we have to do a general search in all the desks because someone's sandbag has mysteriously disappeared overnight from their desk.

Some of the boys love sandbags so much they forget to watch the teacher or listen to the singing going on around them. Sandbags almost hit the ceiling and one boy takes great delight skidding gleefully (somehow.... it can't be that easy) across the centre carpet space, with his sandbag travelling at 50km an hour and landing on the opposite side of the room. One sandbag still sits up on a VERY high shelf, the result of an over-enthusiastic throw a few weeks ago.

Next we take out the wooden clapping sticks. Stepping our feet in time to the clap of the sticks we move around the room singing

 'Mother I feel you under my feet, mother I feel your heart beat....'.

 It feels to me like they love this song very much.

 Some of the boys are having so much fun with their clapping sticks I am surprised that they are still in one piece. The sticks that is.... 

We move on to sing 'The earth, the air, the fire, the water return, return, return, return' using the sticks more softly, then 'The river is flowing, flowing and growing...'

Then it's clapping sticks away and out come the recorders. They are all now very good at controlling the urge to blow, just a little bit, at the wrong time, or put the recorder so far in their mouths it must be tickling their tonsils. One boy still prefers putting his finger in one end of the recorder and twirling it around his hand as the rest of us go through our repertoire.

These children are NATURALS with their recorders. They have taken to playing this musical instrument like shearwaters to the sea. They can also play very SOFTLY when reminded. It sounds SO BEAUTIFUL and I know that they all enjoy playing as a group together...you can see it in their faces when the songs are finished.

Today, and every Friday, we have a visit from 'Ibu Emily' who comes to teach us Indonesian through songs and anecdotes. The chairs are placed around in a circle and away we go. Emily says she is really impressed with their ability to make the correct SOUNDS of the Indonesian words. Indonesian is quite a hard, guttural language and they repeat the words after Emily sounding like little children of the rice padis and street warungs! We sing a song about saying hello at different times of the day, a song about a round hat, another about the family and a new song about driving up to the very top of the mountain. Then it's a game with the ball, saying the number as you catch the ball and soon it is time for Ibu Emily to go back to her kindergarten, leaving us all a little bit richer for a moment in time spent travelling to another not-that-far-away country.

Back at their desks the children finish their crayon shading as they hear the final adventure for our characters in this  4 week main lesson which has had as it's theme 'Earth, Air, Fire and Water'. The story characters, Lily and Jake, go to see the Wise Woman, old but ageless, who lives up in the Misty Mountains. Jake wants to know what has happened to the pond he has seen at the school that is next to the Crystal Creek (visited in a previous day's story). The water in the pond is not flowing. It looks dirty and sad. 

The wise woman invites the children to travel once more down the mother-of-pearl spiral in the seashell to the pond at the school. There they are to ask the water what it needs to be healthy again. 

As I reach this point in the story I ask all the children to close their eyes and imagine they are going down the spiral shell with Lily and Jake. Then I ask them to see themselves standing by the pond and to ask what the pond needs to be healthy and happy again. Afterwards, I ask the children if they have heard or seen anything which may help the pond.

I find their answers moving and astounding. 'The water needs to be taken out and fresh water put in.' 'The mud and the water need to be scooped out with a special bucket and sand put down first then fresh water.' 'A special filter needs to be used to clean the dirty water.' 'Love and attention need to be given to the pond.'

We all go out of the classroom to look at the actual pond featured in the story. Standing on the balcony looking down at the water the children notice how dirty the water looks, how there is a layer of greasy-looking 'something' on top of the water, how the plants along the edge look droopy and sad. We return to the classroom and on the page they have shaded that morning they begin to draw a pond that is happy and healthy, with birds, frogs, fish and green plants growing along it's edges. I invite any children who want to, to label parts of their drawing and on the board appear their chosen words 'THE WATERLILY' and 'FROG'.

A good morning.

It is such a beautiful sunny day that the children are allowed to go and find a warm spot in the garden around the classroom to eat their food rather than sit at the lunch table on the balcony which can become a very cold wind tunnel. Some boys set up a cubby high up in the mulberry tree. Jazz comes to tell me that he has made a really good room up there with a special spot for his container of growing silkworms right next to his bed.

After recess, our assistant teacher, Georgia, comes in for the weekly drawing lesson with the children. This is one of my non-contact lessons. Georgia, after talking with me, continues with the 'pond' theme leading the children through a lesson using various crayon techniques to draw the grasses around the pond, the water hens and the palm trees.

I go over to the Office to find out what is happening to the order I have put in for gardening tools and watering cans for our class gardening activities. YAY the order has gone in, been approved, and the store faxed the order. Things are moving at last. Luckily, as we have been given four small garden areas in the front section of the section of the school and a small area near the classroom to grow flowers, vegetables and herbs.

Next, I visit Dr Lakshmi, our school Director of Education. We talk for an hour as we eat our lunches. About Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, Steiner education, deafness and sinus conditions and College meetings.  Interestingly, she says that all of the 12 senses that Rudolf Steiner described can be placed either in a group connected to sight or in a group connected to hearing. What a wonderful lunchtime discussion. I feel so grateful to have such an amazing colleague on the staff at Shearwater.

It is early lunch today. Canteen day! 

I return to take up lunch duty half way through lunch time and several children are sitting knitting out in the playground with Anna and Georgia. We began knitting in earnest earlier this week, teaching several children at a time in our afternoon activities time.

The knitting heat is on! Children have taken to moving the new bamboo knitting needles and colourful wool with intense looks of concentration on their faces. I love watching them, especially the boys. Such focus!!

Georgia is teaching us a very easy way of casting on, learnt from her daughter, that is very quick for the children to learn. 

 Some of the children have taken blankets and sheets into the garden and are sitting under cubbies knitting or chatting. Several boys have taken the lunch benches and created a double decker boat. They ask me if they can use the dressups and I bring out a box of colourful velvet and cheesecloth pieces of fabric. Soon they are sitting in their boat, or lying underneath on the 'below deck', wearing brightly coloured bandanas and planning to visit another island to search for treasure. Suddenly the game has become a pirate fiasco with one group of children taking the treasure, the headscarves, and the wooden walking stick belonging to one poor limping pirate. Soon the hard-done-by pirates are tearing around the playground determined to retrieve their belongings. After a few warnings about rough play and torn headcloths from the teacher the game settles down again and the captain of the pirates and his crew sail off for new adventures on another island.

I take a small group of children to our newly dug over, composted and manured small garden near the classroom. They use trowels and hand spades to dig holes for the basil, parsley and chive plants bought for us by Rosemary, one of the parents who works in the school gardens at the front of the school. The baby plants are given a good drink of water then Jade and I plant some cuttings of a beautiful red-flowering succulent plant that I got when visiting her house last Thursday for the weekly class 'home visit' . The other girls place more stepping stones along the edge of the garden bed.

It is now time to gather all the children back into the classroom, tidy desks and sing our goodbye song:

 'Thankyou for the sun, thankyou for the moon, thankyou for the earth, thankyou for the air, thankyou for the fire, thankyou for the water, thankyou for the spirit in me!'