Nature's Gift

The Love of A Tree

April 25, 2017

Yesterday Venus and Emma worked in the studio. There was no plan for the morning so I offered them an invitation.

~Can you find materials made of only wood?

They were receptive to the suggestion and pieced

together a wood totem using cardboard cylinder, wood slabs, tree bark, wine corks, and a few other pieces.

As they worked,

I asked~Where does wood come from? 

The girls thought about it for a moment but were not

certain.

I knew they knew the answer but nudged them a little.

~What grows in the forest, is tall and full of leaves? 

~Trees, wood comes from trees~ Emma

 ~Nature offers us so many beautiful things doesn’t it?

When the girls were done they returned to their classroom with the promise of continuing the work the next day.

The next day I asked the original girls as well as Hannah to meet me in the studio where we read.

The Giving Tree

The discussion, after reading the story, outlined how the girls understood the gifts offered by the tree; the shade of her branches, the fruit that she bore, the wood to provide the shelter of a home and the trunk of her tree to fashion a boat.

They learned a new word, sacrifice. The tree offered all she had for her love of the boy.

We talked about how selfish the boy was because he cared only for himself.

The girls drew representations of the story. 

Join us tomorrow as we plan to make a loose part representation of the story line.

Authenticity

For those of us who are seasoned in working in an authentic inspired learning context, it's often frustrating when we encounter, for a lack of a better word, copy cat work.

Social media is as much as tool as it is a hindrance to teachers.

Images inspire us to want to do the same work with our students but work without context and meaning offers very little to children.

Similarly taking courses and participating in workshops may often leave teachers feeling more frustrated and "lost" than inspired.

My thinking is that the best teachers of teachers are those who have worked in the trenches.

To know a methodology well you must live it, practice it and believe in it before you can teach it to others.

Perhaps adopting this mindset can help you in your quest.