The World We Live In: From Immersion in Nature to Third Grade State Projects
|
|
 | |
Gavin creates experiential context for future reading!
|
While it's great fun to play in a pile of leaves or cavort in the snow, this type of activity also lays the contextual foundation necessary for intellectual development and academic achievement.
Early nature experiences
create strong memories. For many people, the best childhood memories are of outdoor experiences. Researchers explain that most children feel an intense sense of well-being while playing outside and it is that emotional response which provides these memories with staying power. Those memories, most falling over time below the surface of our recall, become the underpinnings for vocabulary, imagery, empathy, literary symbolism, simile and metaphor. Formal science instruction also reaches back to these memories stimulating interest and motivation.
Our job as parents and teachers is to provide not only the experiences, but use the experiences as a jumping off point for higher level thinking: evaluation, analsis and synthesis. It sounds complicated, but don't worry! As is so often the case in child development, it's easy to get an early, simple start which makes all the thinking chores to come a whole lot easier.
If we consider snow, for example, an adult can provide opportunities for higher level thinking quite easily:
- Compare and contrast the nature of snow and another substance, i.e. sand.
- Help the child create a simile "the snow was as cold as..." or "___ was as cold as snow" or both!
-
Stage an experiment; make a prediction. Will snow melt faster or ice? Why do you think? Were you right? What have you learned by being wrong? (The great thing about being wrong is that one often learns what is right!)
-
Find an everyday use for snow-igloo, snow cone, etc.
The 3rd grade States Project is a great example of students using what they know to extrapolate, also a higher level thinking skill. Students take what they know about their home and their environment and try to imagine and explain another spot on Earth. They accumulate information from a variety of sources and make sense of it using past experience, much of it so deep in their consciousness they don't even know it's there. Do you remember when you realized you lived on a particular "spot" on the globe? It was probably sometime in early elementary school.
 | |
3rd grader Makel uses his experiential knowledge, much of it so integral to his thought as to seem innate, to conceptualize (understand without direct experience), organize and present information about his chosen state, Colorado. Mmm, ribs.
|
Silent Spring, wrote of the more spiritual advantages of a childhood spent exploring nature's wiles.
"For the child. . . it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused - a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love - then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response . . . It is more important to pave the way for a child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts that he is not ready to assimilate."
Who can argue with that?
|
 |
 Monica Ros grad and Thacher freshman Jordan Perry comes back to volunteer once a week. The 2nd graders look forward to her visits which often include accelerated math! Share your news! |
|
Book Fair Kicks off with Holiday Boutique and Caroling!
|
 | |
Here we are a caroling! Residents at St. Joseph's, The Gables, and the Skilled Nursing unit behind the hospital enjoyed visits from Monica Ros carolers. Many thanks to all who joined us.
Insert: 2nd graders take their play, Turkeys Go on Strike, to The Gables just before Thanksgiving.
|
Here we are a caroling! Residents at St. Joseph's, The Gables, and the Skilled Nursing unit behind the hospital enjoyed visits from Monica Ros carolers. Before they hopped on the bus, carolers browsed the Book Fair and the Holiday Boutique were parents and friends of the school shared their goods.
Thanks to Penny Herring, PK Designs; Cecily Conine, Six Sapphires, Lisa Lynch, Ojai Baby; Carrie Misisco and Natasha Scott, Ojai Juice; Elizabeth Kun, Evergreen Wellness; Jan Randolph Jewelry, and Kelli Loughman, Body Essentials; Emily Ayala, Friends Ranch; Andrea Haffner, Andrea Haffner Designs, for joining in the Holiday Boutique.
|
Third graders on a hike and The Ventura River Preserve.
|
|
 | | Many thanks to Book Fair and Holiday Boutique Chairs, Kara Hooper and Lili Schafer, and all the volunteers. The Book Fair earned $2275 which will go toward the library collection, classroom reference and literature circle materials. Every classroom will share in the bounty. Thank you so much for shopping! |
 | | Mark Aglietti and Aaron Dalto manned the burgers and dogs for last Friday's 3rd Grade BBQ with the help of Kathy Speer and Jasmine Dalto and all those 3rd graders! |
 | Watch out! Behavior displayed here is neither condoned nor authorized!
But, it's fun. No one was actually squirted in the making of this image. |
|
|
Annual Fund Update
Many thanks to our donors!
Roger Redfield, Rod Jacobsen and Susan Hardenbergh, Claudia and Ted Gall, Don and Susan Reed, Anonymous, Emily and Tony Ayala, Mike and Susannah McGowen, Kelli Loughman, Lisa Wallmark and Jonas Svensson, Brian and Blossom Pidduck, Eva and Marcus Kettles, Darko and Erica Bulatovic, Lisa and Ryan Lynch, Jen and Niall Kelly, Aaron and Theana Snyder, Lili Schafer, Stephanie and Pete Galgano, Chris and Hahn Platt, Carol Hardenbergh, Rachelle and Evan Giuliani, Trevor Quirk and Altetheia Gooden, Nicole and Brian Kehoe, Derek and Carey Poultney, Tara Bullock, Paris and John Collins, Esther and Mario Saucedo, Mike and Susie Swan, Penny and Greg Herring, Justin and Katherine Zackham, Ross and Patty Atkinson, Anne and Tony Thacher, Marty and Doree Young, Carly and Ernie Ford, Michael and Blair Cahill, Bessie Hatch and Nicholas O'conner, George and Alice Ramsey, Theresa and Chris Vyhnal, Koroos Samadzadeh and Maria Halvorson, Kelly and Malcolm McDowell, Jason and Megan Carney, Kate and Erik Dachs, Snow Talifero, Bo and Julie Manson, Kathy and Roger Wachtell, Jim and Tania Kirchner, Carolyn Huntsinger, Kris and Jim Finch, Sean and Natasha Scott, Jeri and Troy Becker, Robert and Tegan Duffy, Isabel and Jim Coleman, Gerry and Merry Dunn, Samantha and Helmut Billy, Jena Collins, Robert Davis, Liza and Blu Atwood, BD Dautch and Liz Pretzinger, Susan Hardenbergh and Rod Jacobsen.
Thank you for participating and giving so generously!
|
|
|
Parents Corner
Hello from Oregon!
I just had to write back and say thank you. I don't know the context of how it came up, but I find this praise topic very fascinating, and Maria and I grapple with it every day. Casper and Amelie have taught us enough to know that the delivery is as important, if not more important, than the content. I haven't looked at all of the links provided yet, so please please PLEASE leave them up for a bit!
In addition, I wanted to share an article I came across in the Rivendell Reader, a small magazine from Rivendell Bike Works in Walnut Creek that discusses bike-related topics and other things -- like how to talk to your kids. The article, titled "How Not to Talk to Your Kids -- The Inverse Power of Praise", was originally published by New York Magazine and republished with permission in the Reader.
The article clearly explains how beneficial the "right" kind of praise can be, and does a good job showing how giving praise in an undisciplined manner can have unintended long-term consequences. It helped me formulate a blueprint for giving my own kids praise, if only an aspirational blueprint. Please give it a read; it may be worth adding to your links on the MRS webpage. Here's the link:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
Hope all is well, warm regards from all of us up north!
Spencer
|
|
|
|
