We simply don’t have enough time to finish everything the elementary children want to do this year. They are so inspired about their end of the year program and have learned so much from this project. But they are still designing and researching!

I have great faith that they will have a wonderful program, even if it is rough around the edges. The important thing to me is not so much that it is professional looking, but that they enjoy sharing what they have learned. After all, the learning is what is important. We can attest to the learning that has transpired. Research on civilizations, research on planets, making costumes and masks. Drawing backdrops. Designing stage props. What is lacking is a script!!!! I am eager to see how this all comes together over the next two days.

On top of all this we still have students asking for tests! Teachers in regular schools would not believe this desire to learn right up to the last minute.

School just ends too soon. There is not enough time for all the learning still beckoning these children.

When visitors enter our classrooms they are often struck by how quiet it is. As Montessori teachers, though, we observe something very different. More and more we are working with children who have a very hard time being comfortable within the sounds of silence. These children engage in what I call random mouth noises. When the classroom settles down to a busy hum, these children will shout out, or increase the volume of the noises emanating from their mouths. This is not talking. It is just noise.

We have even heard comments from some of these children that they can’t get the noise to stop. It is like the song that keeps playing in one’s head, only this noise is different. It isn’t the internal voice we use to help us with critical thinking, or weighing our options. This is “static.” This noise overrides thought and choice, interfering even with social interactions.

It is very sad to me to see children trying to cope with this. They are truly suffering in a way that is hard for us to imagine as adults. They cannot find comfort in quiet solitude. They are missing an important factor that helps them develop and follow a moral compass.

An inner voice is an essential part of our ability to think through things. We don’t always use coherent sentences, but the thoughts are framed in words. “Should I buy this now or wait until it goes on sale?” We use that inner voice to figure things out. “We are nearly out of rice, so we’ll have noodles tonight. I need to put rice on the grocery list.” As teachers we even try to utilize the inner voice. “Each for each is what we teach. Fair and square when we share.” “Where do you start counting in multiplication?” “What happens when you get ten of a kind?” Imagine how crippling it would be to lack an inner voice. We are seeing the results on a daily basis.

I can only surmise the cause of this deficit. So much of what children are experiencing through TV and video games is visual. There is less time for reading, less time for being read to, less time for simple conversations among family members. Media is robbing our culture of the language of words and replacing it with the language of marketing, simple sound bites, and static.

Studies have linked media exposure in children to increased violence, ADHD, and obesity. I believe it is only a matter of time before we recognize the more far-reaching detrimental effects to the inner voice.

We have sets of “command cards” through out the elementary classroom. These provide a gateway for children to access the materials with little or no teacher intervention. They allow the children to learn quite independently.

There has been a ramping up of work with these lately. I have to admit that we have put more reminders on the board about them recently, but the increased use of the command cards goes beyond our hinting at them.

Some of these cards have assessments that go with them so the children can know which cards will move them into new skill levels. After an assessment we give the children a list of command cards that will address new or more difficult skill areas.

Monday I overheard a conversation about the cards that went something like this:

“You have been doing lots of language cards.”

“Yep.”

“How many have you done today?”

“I don’t know. I want to do them all so I can take another test.”

I am not making this up. Nor is this an isolated incidence. I have noticed that many of the children are working through these cards with great industry. I wonder whether the approaching end of the year has anything to do with this. Some children need to stock up on learning to tide them over the summer months!

In my last post I brought up the subject of children who don’t get enough sleep.
Consider this from WebMed:
Sleep, among other factors, influences your child's temperament. Poor sleep (too little and/or poor quality) is associated with behavior problems like aggression, defiance, non-compliance, oppositional behavior, acting out, and hyperactivity. The inability to put herself back to sleep unassisted and irregular bedtimes are also associated with behavior problems. It is clear, then, that the proper amount and quality of sleep are very important for your child's development.

So, how do we help children get the sleep they need? Experts offer several tips. Among these is creating a regular bedtime routine. It is important to have this time be calm so sleep will come easier. Reading together is an excellent habit to establish. In our rushed times, this quiet lull can be a pleasant time to share thoughts and dreams as well.

Another important factor is whether or not there is a television in the bedroom. TV is not conducive to settling into the calming state needed for sleep. It robs us of precious family time, too. Today’s News-Sentinel reported that the negative effects of having a television in the child’s bedroom extends even into adolescence.

It is hard in today’s culture for parents to swim against the mainstream. Holding a clear vision of what we want for our children in the long term can help to fortify the home front.

Don’t we want better for our children than to be just like every one else? Don’t we want alert, bright children who can think for themselves instead of accepting without question the drivel dolled out by the mass media? Don’t we want children who aren’t merely sleep walking through each day?

Let’s all wake up for the sake of our children's future.

Sometimes children come to school just plain sleepy. We see them nodding off at their lessons or catching a few winks when they could be reading. Children who don’t get enough sleep tend to be more emotional, less calm and definitely less able to concentrate. Lack of sleep affects their social interactions, too. Some of them are very argumentative when they are tired. When children are sleepy at school, the entire classroom suffers. It is no surprise that studies have found a strong correlation between insufficient childhood sleep and ADHD. Now it has come to light that too little sleep also results in childhood obesity (followed by adult obesity).

Guidelines for the amount of sleep required for children are clear. For children under five years of age, 11 – 13 hours of sleep is needed every day. Naps are still part of the norm at this age, but even so, most children do not get this much sleep. For children between five and eight years of age, 10 – 11 hours is recommended. When I hear children say they go to bed at 9:00 or 10:00 PM I know they aren’t getting enough of this precious resource.

Parents have made an important choice in sending their children to Montessori school. That choice indicates that they want their children to have the best opportunities for learning. It is easy to overlook choices in other areas of life that undermine the advantages of sending children to a school that fosters learning.

It isn’t always easy to do what is best for children, especially when they resist our efforts. Hopefully information about the effects of sleep deficits will help parents in the battle of bedtime.

We had our last staff meeting of the year this evening. As much as we enjoy working with the kids, it is nice to get together over dinner and share perspectives. We made some plans for the coming year, including some things we hope will help parents.

It is hard to believe that this year is drawing to a close. So far the children have not gotten too antsy about how many days are left. We adults are feeling the shortness, though. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time left to do all the things that we had hoped to do.

At the farm festival for the Middle School I had made lots and lots of corn bread. It was the sweet variety. There was a great quantity left over and I brought it to school for the teachers to enjoy. After we had all eaten as much as we could hold yesterday there was still plenty left over and Rebecca suggested that we serve it for snacks today.

It was a hit. Some of the children wanted to know if we could have it for snacks again. So I told them I would send home the recipe. And here it is:

Sift together:
¾ cup self-rising corn meal
1 cup self-rising flour
1/3 cup sugar

Stir together:
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp melted butter (I use the squeeze kind to save time)

Mix both sets of ingredients gently and pour into a greased 8” square pan.
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

As a side note, I was just getting ready to put the last three batches into the oven Friday night when the big storm came through. The electricity did its flickering act and I wished for only 20 minutes to get all that corn bread finished. Just think. If I had lost power, the kids at school might never have had this special treat!

Note: I wrote this yesterday, but could not access my site.

I have written previously about how much I appreciate the biomes materials available from Waseca. This morning a first year student got out the biomes of Africa for the grasslands. He had worked on these previously and was able to remember every animal that he had done. I overheard him reciting these to another adult.

Then over the next forty-five minutes he read about each of the remaining animals, drew their pictures and labeled them. He was in deep concentration for most of that time. He was working at the table where I was conducting student-teacher conferences. At one point he looked up and said, “I think I’ll do my conference before I finish these.”

Once he had completed his conference he went right back to work. The interesting thing though was that during his conference he expressed an interest in doing further research on elephants. We see this phenomenon fairly frequently. One activity inspires another, and another.

We also see that horizontal inspiration happens. One child gets excited about a topic and that interest spreads to others. We even use that process to get disinterested children inspired in different areas.

Through it all, I find that the biomes material lend themselves to a great deal of inspiration across the curriculum.

Some children come to us with more challenges than others. One student has struggled this year with behaviors that might test Maria Montessori herself. We see improvement followed by regression in a pendulum swing that keeps us working hard to meet the particular needs of this student.

Today he said to me, “I finished all the work on my desk, did an SRA without anyone asking me to, and was really busy.”

“Sounds pretty impressive,” I replied. “How do you feel?”

“GREAT!”

Of course. Don’t we all feel good when we have really accomplished something?

Another student has sometimes expressed some boredom. She is certainly old enough to understand the idea of “flow” as described by Csikszentmihalyi in the book by that name. I shared with her a chart that shows how flow is most easily achieved when the challenge and the skill level are in balance and neither is too low. She keeps that chart in her lesson log and refers to it these days when she is feeling a hint of boredom. On the chart boredom falls at the intersection of low skill level and low challenge. So, she now is learning that to combat boredom, she needs to increase her skill level and/or challenges.

In both of these cases, the challenge for us has been to find ways to allow the students to take more responsibility for their choices.

Challenge is intertwined in all our tasks!

Yesterday a second year student was matching element names to element samples. He asked about the graphite, wanting to know if it was really carbon. I assured him that it was.

He was suddenly quite animated, clasped his hands together and squeezed them. “Just think,” he said, “Diamonds are made of the same kind of atoms, but they are really, really tight.”

Yes, indeed. One could almost imagine the graphite being squeezed in those hands, turning into a diamond.

A dad said to me that he wants his kids to go to a school where they come home and talk about the things they do at school, sharing ideas about lessons they have learned. A school where the kids are upset when they are too sick to come…

Our peace pole is up. The dedication was yesterday. I learned that I still have a hard time thinking about the loss of the infant sibling for whom our pole is dedicated. I so appreciate that Wren’s grandparents donated such a beautiful memorial for him. The pole is lovely. The message is important. The memory of Wren will endure.

The annual May Pole dance followed our Peace Pole dedication. The children did a fabulous job weaving the ribbons in this celebration of spring. It is so short. I wish the dancing could go on and on.