The Garden School Tattler

I was very excited today when so many children knew their play lines after only one day of practicing. It goes to show how auditory they are and how much they depend on what they hear.
It's a story play, and some of the lines are fairly long, so it's not easy, but they seem to like it. About ten kids won eggs today. I've been filling those pretty plastic eggs with candy. It's a real badge of good work. I don't think I've seen as many tries for excellence with anything as I have with this.

The play has ten acts. This year, we've told the story over and over so they understand what they are doing very well. Sometimes we expect children to have the same point of reference as we do. We expect them to understand what a play is even though they have never seen one. We expect children to understand how to stand, what to say and to whom without knowledge.

This year we are taking the play step by step, and the children are so proud of it. It is really more theirs than the teachers. We are only helping them to facilitate it. I hope they continue to like it.

In class, we are looking at the numbers between nine and twenty. These can be very confusing to kids. It's hard to explain ones and tens. Mrs. St. Louis has given me some great ideas which I will implement tomorrow to demonstrate the concept.

Speaking of Mrs. St. Louis. She had her class draw sheep today. They were hilarious. The coveted round form became quite abstract under the children's crayon talents. The faces were so cute. There is nothing better than black faced sheep except perhaps a polka dotted Rabbit named Cookie.

In reading we worked on lower case letters. They are real stumpers to some children. Abby did the best. She wrote 24. Adian was next with 22. Most of the children got about 12 right. Now we are talking about 4 and 5 year old children, and the font they are using is 20 - so be impressed!

Miss Kelly's class is working on J words. Ty spent a good deal of time writing jump, jar and another j word I don't remember.

On Friday, I'm supposed to talk at a local group about child development. It's an honor to be asked. I'm not much of a public speaker. I suppose one would say I am too casual. The best talks I've done over the years have been audience question and answer and discussion talks. I don't really like public speaking and about two or three times a year someone asks and I agree. When they say I have to talk for an hour, I always think "But I could say it in five minutes."

This time it's "How a child learns." My natural response is, "Very quickly, so watch what you say." But when you break it all down into ages - 0-1, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, etc. you realize that children learn from experience - from doing and sometimes just from being in the world.

The senses play an enormous part in learning. When you add mobility to the senses, you have a quicker learning. Then, when a child learns to listen, with the idea of production, they triple the intake and quadruple the outgo. When the they put what they have learned together they begin to form opinions. This is real thinking. Thinking stimulates the desire to know - to ask who, what, where, when, how and why. This is where you get a lot of grasshoppers and ants - the players and the workers.

What enhances thought? Communication. The exchange of ideas and formulas. "This is how we do that." "What do you think of this or that?" "What are you doing with that?"

Of course I can't help throwing in the experience of the eleven human passions. We experience the eleven passions, like anger, a little at a time - and with each developing year, we increase our knowledge concerning this very human right. The passions are neutral.

If development goes well, the child is an excellent being - a tribute to humanity. If his rearing is flawed, you can see it in his lack of character. Trust, safety, diet, health, discipline are all early compromises between parent and child. If one is missing, the child suffers. It's all very interesting. I hope I say the right things on Friday.