Dirt is for Digging

"Of course we must adapt according to conditions, but ideally there is a light airy classroom that opens into a lovely yard, and the children have the freedom to be inside or outside as they wish.

The yard should contain both a cultivated and a wild part. It should consist of a lawn, a flower garden, and a place for the children to plant. There should be appropriate tools, real adult tools with short handles, and a shed to clean and store them."

-Maria Montessori

Upon their return from Spring Break, the children were delighted to find that the seeds they started had begun to germinate.

Today marked the children's first day in the newly constructed garden! Young children are sensorial explorers; as a result, all Montessori cultural units begin with a concrete experience which engages all of the child's senses.

As a group, the children received a detailed orientation to the new garden. To commence our gardening, and our unit on annelids (segmented worms), the children began by turning over a small plot of dirt to see what animals live in the soil. The children were very excited to find a large variety of earthworms, some millipedes, and some earthworm cocoons!

Children are consummate naturalists! The children collected some (57!) earthworms. They measured the worms and closely observed the parts of the worms, how they moved, and their reaction to light. Many of the children wanted to feel the worms wriggle in the palms of their hands, while others preferred to observe at a distance. After a bit, they released the worms back into the plot and watched them scrunch back into their burrows.

For the rest of the day, the vast majority of the children abandoned the swingset and sandbox in favor of working in the garden, digging for worms, or transporting loads of dirt to no place in particular in the wheelbarrow. This might be surprising to some people, but not to a trained Montessorian! One of Dr. Montessori's most astute observations of children was that they prefer actual work to pretend or unstructured play. Dr. Montessori created a large variety of Practical Life activities which invite the child to carry out activities that imitate the way that an adult uses familiar objects to carry out a real task. These activities are uniquely adapted to the child's interests and lure the child into mental and physical activity because they contain the promise of taking part in real adult work; however, there is one crucial difference- because the activity meets the child's needs, they are driven to repeat the work, even though it serves no external purpose.

Later, the children learned about composting and christened the new bin with it's first load of lunch scraps.

Gardening and composting are considered "Care of the Environment" activities. They permit children to contribute positively to the classroom community and to the social group (creating an authentic sense of self-esteem), and demonstrates our confidence in, and respect for, the child by permitting them to take part in "important work."

Partnership with The Family Table Farm

"we may be witnessing the first generation in history that has not been required to participate in that primal rite of socialization, the family meal...the family meal is not only the core curriculum in the school of civilizing discourse; it is also a set of protocols that curb our natural savagery and our animal greed and cultivate a capacity for sharing and thougtfulness... children today are not only physically starved by the junk food that they consume... far worse, they are deprived of the main course of civilized life- the practice of sitting down at the table and observing the attendant conversations."

-Francine du Plessix Grey

At Bloom! Montessori, we consider it important to create meaningful experiences between our students and sustainably grown food. We want our students to understand where their food comes from, who grows it, how to prepare it, and the importance of sharing it with family and friends.

Young children enjoy preparing food and sharing it with one another. This permits them to care and nurture each other and creates a familial atmosphere of inclusion and belonging. It also provides them with independence, an opportunity to develop fine motor skills, and exposes them to manners, social graces, and courtesies.

We provide children with filtered water and nutritious, whole grain foods. We use organic and Rghb-free ingredients whenever possible. We consciously limit children's intake of processed, unnecessarily sweet or salty, or pre-packaged foods to special occasions.

Daily, children at Bloom! safely prepare their own snacks (peeling eggs and clementines, peeling slicing bananas, cucumbers, and carrots, slicing tofu, baking muffins, juicing oranges, cracking nuts, spreading hummus, almond, or peanut butter), pour water from small pitchers into their own glasses, serve themselves from tiny serving dishes, and eat from real glass plates and cloth napkins. They arrange their communal tables, wait until everyone is served to begin eating, and conclude their meals by washing their own dishes and sweeping and crumbing the tables and floor.

We are very excited to announce that in June we will be including fresh, local produce in our cuisine through our partnership with The Family Table Farm (owned by Mike and Lisel Record)! We will be joining the national Farm to School Program which connects schools with local farms to teach students about the path from farm to fork and instill healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.

As part of the program, we will be sourcing our produce locally from The Family Table Farm, offering our families the option of purchasing their own community supported agriculture (CSA) shares from the farm, and the children will be maintaining an organic vegetable garden and vermicompost program at the school. More information will be coming soon!

In the meantime, we encourage you to check out The Family Table Farm website at: http://www.thefamilytablefarm.com/


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