VALENTINE'S DAY, WITH A METACOGNITIVE TWIST

Valentine’s Day is a very low-key affair at our school. Some years the children are oblivious to Valentine’s Day, but then after the event there is a flurry of activity making love notes.  Other years we are so engrossed in projects and investigations that this holiday is irrelevant in the classroom.  Every year is different depending on the children’s interests. 

This year an interest in hearts started in January when one of the two year olds came to our classroom with the gift of a paper heart for a friend.  

   

This friend was so pleased she immediately wanted to reciprocate the gift.  She didn’t have much experience making hearts, so a teacher helped her figure out how to draw hearts. 

Before long she was making lots of hearts and teaching other children how to draw hearts.

 We started to notice more children making hearts.

A heart made with bicycle chain

And then when a child was missing his mother he decided he wanted to make a heart for her.  He fashioned a heart out of a blue pipe cleaner (because “blue is her favorite color”).  He also showed other children his technique by making pipe cleaner hearts for them. 

 

He had such a clear idea of how to go about making these hearts that I asked him if someone had shown him how to make hearts – how did he come up with this idea?  He replied that, “I figured it out in my brain”. 

 

I then asked him if he could tell me more about how he came up with the idea – I drew a circle and said, “if this is your brain, can you show me how you figured it out?”

He started by drawing his idea for the pipe cleaner heart inside his brain.  Next he drew his mother because he was thinking about her when he had the idea.  Then he drew the process of his brain working on the idea.   

Finally he drew a picture of his mother receiving his gift – she has a big smile.

This drawing of how an idea takes shape is a compelling example of metacognition – thinking about thinking.  

It is always thrilling to observe moments of metacognition because we know that children who are aware of how their brains work are actively engaged in learning, which is a critical part of being an independent thinker.

Happy Valentine's Day!

BEING WELCOMED

If you had to choose a personal symbol, what would it be?

This is one of the first questions we ask children when they start our preschool.  

While we use these symbols as a provocative bridge to literacy, they also serve the practical purpose of helping children find their hooks, mailboxes and belongings. We have come to see that these little symbols have a much deeper significance for the children.

From the first day of school symbols are placed around the preschool, conveying the message that each child is welcome and is a part of our school.  The symbols help to establish a strong sense of community.

The children take great delight in looking at each other’s symbols and it doesn’t take them long to learn the symbols of their classmates.   Symbols quickly become an important pathway to connection between the children. 

Every year the children come up with new and inventive ways to use their symbols.  This year,  the three and four year olds in the Garden Room created a beautiful “symbol tree”.  They enjoy connecting their magnetic symbols together with those of their friends -- a delightful way to depict developing friendships.

 

Children have also taken to attaching collections of symbols to their bodies, again, a charming way to represent their connection to their friends.  

 

  Symbols have even found a way into our curriculum this year as the children work together trying to figure out how to project symbols using an overhead projector, tying into our exploration of light and its properties. 

 

We have come to understand that the children’s symbols represent to them 

a strong sense of belonging.  This became very apparent last spring when a 

substitute teacher joined us for the very first time.   

Sarah was new to the school and so we invited the children to help her feel 

welcome.  When she worked with a group of children they explained that 

they each have a symbol and that they attach symbols to their completed work.   

The children then asked Sarah what her symbol was and when she replied 

that she didn’t have one, the children insisted that she needed one.   

Since Sarah had recently moved from Florida she drew a palm tree and 

colored it green.  Several children then took it upon themselves to carefully 

copy Sarah’s symbol so that she would have some extras.  Children also 

attached Sarah’s symbol to work that she helped them with.  

 

Children create copies of Sarah's symbol (original on right)

Later that day, long after the children had gone home, we discovered that 

the children had carefully arranged Sarah’s extra symbols in an empty 

compartment of the symbol storage box beside all of theirs.  The children 

had found their own way to make a place in our classroom for our new 

substitute.

 
 

It seemed very fitting that the children welcomed this newcomer in the way 

that they themselves had been welcomed into our community – with a symbol.

Picture Day

When we told the children that our photographer friend Meghan was coming to school to everyone's picture, one of the children asked, "Well, can we take her picture?"

We checked with Meghan and she thought that was a great idea.

So, here's a behind the scenes look at Picture Day through the children's eyes.

Stepping Back: Watching Children Solve a Problem

Uh oh. A ball got stuck in a bamboo pipe. How could we reach it? Of course the children's first idea was to come to a teacher, but I put on my best innocent, quizzical face and said, "Oh dear. It's stuck. Does anyone have any ideas for getting it out?"

Many children assured me they could help, but their hands were too big to fit in the pipe. They also tried to push it out with another ball, but that didn't work either. They could think of no other way to solve the problem. Since they were stumped, I suggested we write a note to another classroom of older children to ask for help. They wrote a note to the Garden Room.

Another ball did not push the stuck ball out.

It's really far down in there.

The Garden Room children were eating snack, but one child had an idea right away. "I know how to get it out! You need something smaller to stick in it. We could try my sword."

A Garden Room child pushes the ball out with his sword, while a Forest Room child watches.

After watching the Garden Room child carefully, this Forest Room child promptly came back to our classroom and stuck the ball back in the bamboo pipe. I watched as he started to put his hand in, then stopped. I could see him thinking. Was he remembering that his hand didn't work? He looked around the classroom and found a magnetic wand, which he used to push the ball out. He was so pleased with himself that he repeated the process many times.

Magnetic wand in hand, ready to pop the ball out.

How capable young children are! By not interfering, but only supporting, I was privileged to watch an older child help a younger one solve a problem, and watch the younger one apply this new knowledge in his classroom. We love these cross-age learning opportunities, and the constant ways children show us their thinking, if we only step back and allow them the time and space to do their work.

DARKNESS + LIGHT

The dark part of the year invites hibernation.  It is a time when we instinctively seek out warmth and light.  Cold winter days are the time to head down to the basement, where we have set up a Light Studio.

This large, very utilitarian space is transformed by darkness and light into a place of magic. 

Here, children investigate light in various forms. 

Most recently the light source they have been exploring has been a long strand of LED lights.

The children delighted in the discovery of this rope lighting.  They were immediately comfortable manipulating this long strand of light, which quickly became a plaything, full of possibilities.

They wrapped themselves in light, carried the light around, created stories with the light and invented props such as nests and thrones for their narratives.

Illuminated Nest

Drawing around their bodies with light

It was striking to observe how totally at ease the children are with this form of light and how their imaginations soar with the simplest of materials.

"Light tomorrow with today" ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

CONNECTIONS

 Here in the Garden Room we are observing that the children are intrigued with the idea of connecting things together.  We first started noticing this in the early days of the children's paper exploration.

 


 
Children immediately started figuring out ways to join pieces of paper together.

  

 As they found new ways to put things together, they saw new possibilities

 

Connecting animals with beads

Connecting tables together with tape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting rulers together

Connecting your house to my house

Looking more deeply at the work of the children, we see another form of connection taking place:

Our shared experiences are connecting us together.

 

 

 

 

“Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.” ~ John Muir