Today was our annual pumpkin auction. The kindergarten students came into the elementary class early this morning so they could participate. We first went through the pumpkin choosing process. In order for this to be as fair as possible, we draw the students’ names and they then go to the table of pumpkins to choose the one they want. I always buy a few extras so even the last student will have choices.

Whatever order the pumpkins are chosen becomes the order they are auctioned off. In the meantime, students have been drawing their designs. Once all the pumpkins are chosen, the real fun begins. Today there were 22 children carving pumpkins. I give them a demonstration of how to cut the top so it will not fall into the pumpkin. Most (but not all) of the children “get” this. And the knives and carving tools go into action.

In all these years we have only had one cut finger. Elizabeth had come today to help. All of the adults were thrilled and pleased at how the students focused on their tasks. The morning of caring and painting passed quickly. those who finished before others helped with composting the “guts” of the pumpkins, sweeping seeds up off the floor and general cleaning.

What a delightful time we had.

The auction in the afternoon is just plain fun. Even though parents have placed their “bids” on their child’s pumpkin prior to the auction, they get into the swing of bidding quickly.

At the end, we did actually auction off the pumpkin that I carved. It was a funky green-mottled winking thing. During that part of the auction real competition between parents erupted. but the pumpkin found its way home with only one family.

I continue to marvel at the way our children act. And I am truly appreciative of the generosity of the families in participating and bidding on the small masterpieces of the children. Our patch of pumpkins were perfect.

In Montessori we don’t do drill and practice the way most people think of it, but this afternoon in the elementary there was definitely some drill practice going on!

The older students took off where the kindergarteners had ended making picnic tables from the kits we bought at IKEA. So they had plenty of drill practice!

Now that all the tables have been put together we will have to paint them. We bought a gallon of paint at Lowe’s yesterday to that end. Some of the kindergarteners have gone home and announced that they need to wear their old clothes. They are certainly eager to finish this project.

Once we add the new tables to another picnic table donated by a family we will be able to seat all the early childhood class at once. That will be so handy for outdoor picnics. The elementary students enjoy finding a place to sit around the playground, but the EC children benefit from having a seat and table. What a good result from drill and practice!

Some things stand from this week in regards to geography education at school. Earlier this week Britton was telling me about test he had at UT. He said that the countries of Europe came up and it was a cinch for him because of helping children in the early childhood class learn with the puzzle maps. We definitely learn things like that along with the children. Whenever I’m feeling a bit rusty on the countries of Africa, a couple of sessions helping a child learn them polishes that right up. Puzzle maps have always been fascinating to the children. It seems that once they learn all the parts of one, they move on to another.

The second bit of geography that made an impact on me this week was the land and water forms mat from Waseca. I bought this material over the summer as a supplement to all the other land and water forms materials. Rebecca gave a group lesson with it to many of the elementary students. It was a hot item. Even the emergent readers worked their way through some of the command cards that go with the lesson. They were having a great time.

Then yesterday a student was working on pin maps. This material has separate boards that allow students to label the countries, capitals and flags of the countries of different continents. Imagine doing Europe! All those little pins were crowded on the board. But then, the student got out South America. And then North America.

And here’s the thing. All this geography, all this learning, has nothing to do with teachers telling children what they have to do. This is kid-powered learning. The very best kind. Done with joy and even passion. What a way to learn. What a way to live!

During group in the early childhood class this morning, we sang the song “Autumn Leaves are Falling.” The children really seemed to enjoy the whirling part of the song. But after that, I gave a lesson on the chemicals in the leaves that make the different colors. That really held their attention. There was high participation in practicing saying those wonderful words like xanthophyll and chlorophyll and anthocyanin.

In the afternoon, while I was outside with the kindergarten and elementary children there was lots of leaf gathering. And the children were trying to remember the words that went with the colors. Autumn leaves are falling and vocabulary is growing.

It seems like it took forever to get all my little office jobs completed so I could go into the elementary class today. And since I had to get the pizza money counted I took that in with me to work on while helping to supervise the children. Two boys were working on creating sentences with the parts of speech labels that go with the Backyard Biomes mat from Waseca. They were having a lovely time trying to come up with appropriate sentences using only the words provided.

When they were finished, I invited the older one to do some more square root work with me. He got the pegboard out while I handled a phone call. Then we got into BIG numbers. This was the first time that he had done square roots beyond the thousands, but I knew that this challenge would be perfect for him.

He has been preparing for this work directly and indirectly through many different lessons. So when I talked with him about marking off the place values at every other hierarchy, he got it right away. We looked at the large square that represents the hundred thousand so he could actually see that ten thousands make squares just as units and hundreds do. I think the first problem he did had only 11 thousands. He sailed through it with little intervention. Eventually though, he had a square root problem that involve 170,000 something. His excitement was very high. He shared with me that on another day he actually had to record one of his squaring problems on two lines. He thought that was pretty cool because the numbers were so big.

Big numbers are fun. Who would have thought that giving students such big problems to solve would keep engaged and connected. Who would have thought that children in elementary school would want to tackle finding square roots of numbers into the hundred thousands.

Montessori education is so logical and meets the needs of children so precisely that they hardly blink at such huge tasks. Why can‘t all children learn this way?

In my position I get to interact with all the children in the school enough that they all consider me “their” teacher. Today my focus was on the early childhood classroom, while yesterday I spent the morning in the elementary.

When I looked at the list of sensorial lessons that children were ready to learn, I noticed that several children were ready for the thermic bottles. That lesson is high maintenance for the teachers since the bottles only keep their temperature for about 45 minutes once they are prepared for the children to use.

I left the room for a few minutes to prepare the bottles. When I returned I was able to teach or re-teach the lesson to several children. In between times, there were other lessons that I was able to share. One was the constructive triangles. I personally love this lesson. And apparently the little girl who watched me do it thought it was pretty exciting, too. Whenever I pushed two triangles together to make an entirely new shape, I heard her give a sharp intake of breath. The real test of her interest came after I put the lesson back and told her that she could choose it at any time. The time was right for her, because she choose it immediately.

The tenor of the class is very different in the elementary. Students at that level of development have their own ideas of what they want to learn. They will often just tell us that they are ready for a particular lesson. This week, though I knew there was a student who was ready to move into doing squaring with some very abstract material. He has already started working on finding square roots with the more concrete manipulatives, and I wanted to get him ready to move more into the abstract with working square roots, too. He was delighted with the big numbers he could manipulate with the pegboard.

I wish we could distill the joy of learning that our students exhibit and sell it to the general public. It is priceless, but so easy for children to lose once they go “have” to learn.

I have arrival duty on Mondays and today was no different. Except that we have been out of school for a week. In traditional settings one would expect the students to be moaning about having to return to school. Not so in Montessori. What a pleasure it was to unload the cars and see the smiling happy faces of children who are glad to be back. Some of the parents were even happier than the children that school had reopened!

Looking around the classrooms, it would have been hard to find any evidence that we had been out of school for a whole week. We were good to go.

As the days wound down toward the end of the term, it was a busy, busy time at school. The elementary was preparing for their historical dinner and I was trying to get some annual reports done for the state. I did not have much time in the early childhood class.

Finally on Friday I found about an hour to spend with the younger children. Working in the early childhood is such a refreshing and renewing experience. It is very unlike working with the elementary. The older children have their own agendas and the adults must work hard to meet it. But younger children want to learn everything.

So, during my time in the EC room, I looked at the contact list. Since there are many teachers interacting with children we keep a log of which children have had new lessons so we don’t miss anybody. I found a child who had not yet had a new presentation and he was also not busy at the time. It was an easy check to the computer where we keep our list of lessons that children are ready to learn and I found a lesson that was marked to present to him.

When I approached him to give a new lesson he was willing, but when we went to the shelf to select the knobless cylinders, he actually clapped his hands with joy! It is that kind of joyful reaction that truly makes teaching such a rewarding activity.

Yesterday was a perfect day for the East Tennessee Montessori Community event at Volunteer Landing. Montessori Schools from all over East Tennessee came out with different information to help parents. Those schools presenting topics about how to do activities with children were a big hit with the younger set.

There was lots of wholesome food and the weather was delightful. Each school had a wealth of parent information. We will be sharing the handouts electronically, so those of you who were not able to attend will still have a chance to read the information presented.

It was a festive afternoon with a good sense of community. What a good way to kick off the 100th anniversary year of Montessori education. I was delighted with the bright t-shirts worn by our portion of the Montessori community. I look forward to seeing them often over the next few months.