“But what do humans do?” Khuloud asked during today’s lunchtime discussion about the sun and trees and what they “do.”
After a moment to reflect, a 5-year-old responded “To not pollute the Earth!”
Dr Maria Montessori spoke often of a Cosmic Education. She believed that we are all one, that the whole planet–plants, rocks, animals, you and me–are connected. Elementary-aged students can begin to understand a sense of place and time. But we know that younger children are challenged by the idea of history.
How can 2-, 3- and 4-year olds begin to grasp such abstract concepts? After all, these young minds are still soaking in information about their world (Montessori called this the Absorbent Mind) at an astonishing rate. To what extent can we expect them to understand how it all fits together?
We believe that an understanding and love of nature is the first step. Perhaps this is most evident on our regular school camping trips and our love of our playground. Enjoying our natural world is indeed something young children can appreciate. They also can take care of the natural world.
And so this week–as we emerged from Winter to a spectacular first few days of Spring–on Wednesday when the children arrived, they helped teachers to unload some flowers from the truck. And–lo!–there were also new shovels? What does one then do? You plant the flowers! There were many happy hearts (and eyes and noses) as we weeded, planted and watered our spring flower garden.
Now we can watch the flowers grow all spring!
