One Step Further

Yesterday was a very exciting day.  Several months ago the center received a grant from an agency whose mission is to improve the health and eating habits of 3 to 5 year old children.  Among the equipment that we had requested for indoor active play was an item called an "Alfresco Climber"  It is composed of a series of plastic parts, including bases, ramps, stairs, tunnels, and waves that can be put together to form a balance/beam climber.  This also can be reconfigured in a number of different ways so that the children do not become bored with repeating the same motions over and over.  It took several days for all of the twelve boxes of parts to arrive, and it was difficult waiting.  I couldn't wait to see how the children enjoyed playing on the climber.

When the time came to play on the climber, the children enjoyed it just as much as I had anticipated.  There was, however, one thing that I had not anticipated.  I had thought that the teachers would be reconfiguring the climber into a number of arrangements that the children would enjoy.  I did not realize that the four and five year old children enjoyed rearranging the parts into new designs as much as they enjoyed climbing.  Watching them work together was a joy.  They discussed what to do, made a plan, and helped each other.  "Let's move the tunnel over here."  "Turn the stairs over and make a ramp."  "Bob, grab the other end and put it in the red piece."  The words flew as fast as their arms and legs.  The children would complete their arrangement, play on it for a while, and share new ideas for the climber.  They would then get to work, sometimes changing plans in midstream, and make a new creation.

When I found the climber in a catalog, I was looking forward to getting an item that would challenge the children's muscles and sense of balance, that would give them exercise, and that would be fun.  I did accomplish that goal.  What I did not expect to do was to help the children develop social skills, language, vocabulary, physical problem solving skills, and self confidence.  As an educator, I should not have been surprised that the children took the climber an extra step.  I can't wait to see what they do tomorrow!

Oh, Deer!

I have written about the fun of gardening with children, about how our garden was planted this spring, and about how I was looking forward to all of the fresh produce.  While I was picking the asparagus, I noticed that the tops of some of the stalks were missing.  The mystery was solved when I found a deer hoof print in the asparagus bed.  When the asparagus season was over I eagerly awaited the next harvest.  I had the first cutting of Swiss chard (beans and greens for lunch!), and went to find more.  What I found was that the local deer must have mistaken the garden for the local 7/11. 

The Swiss chard consists of bare stems.






The peppers have no blossoms or top leaves.




The green beans are bare between the top and the bottom of the plants.


At least the deer do not like the hot peppers and the onions.  I have found a few that have been spit out onto the ground.  One high point, though - they do not seem to like the tomatoes!  But,to add insult to injury, I have to pooper scoop the deer do if we want to walk through the garden.

There are apparently several things that can be done to scare away the deer.  I do not plan to sit in the garden all night so that I can jump up and yell when they tiptoe in.  I can order cougar urine on the internet and sprinkle it around.  (I can picture myself running into the post office asking, "Bonita, is my cougar urine here yet?").  Human urine is supposed to work.  (Why didn't we need it when my grandson was here?  Every ten year old boy worth his salt would jump at the chance to pee in the yard without being scolded.)  Hanging pieces of soap around the garden to shoo the deer sounds like the best bet.  Hopefully it will work and we will have vegetables after all.

This week I read Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden.  The story is about two young ladies from Auburn, NY who, in 1917 travel to Colorado to teach for a year.  The story is taken from the girls' letters home, interviews, and diaries.  It is fascinating.

Maybe My Family Is Right!

As you know, I love working with young children and have devoted much of my adulthood to them.  In addition to actually spending time in the center, I attend conferences and webinars, go to trainings, and read many books about child development and early childhood education.  Since child care centers are always on a tight budget, my church family and friends are used to seeing me collecting bags of wet coffee grounds (to dry and use in the sensory table), empty coffee cans (to use for storage and to make drums and other wonderful things), and feathers from the resident gulls.  My family thinks that I am a little over the top, but I prefer to think of myself as dedicated.

I begen to rethink this a few day ago when I was in Wegmans.  After I had checked out, I went to the Lotto counter.  When Sally came to wait on me, I smiled, said hello, and told her, "I would like two Megas and two Legos, please"

The Best Laid Plans

Thursday was a typical day at the center.  The children arrived at their usual times, everyone ate breakfast, there was a period of free play, and the teachers began their lesson plans for the day.  Just then, with a whoosh and a bang, the Blue Angels flew overhead.  They were in town for the air show this weekend and were spending a few hours practicing over the city.  Rather than doing the planned activities, the children and staff spent hours sitting under a tree and watching while the planes dove, swooped, and spiraled overhead. 

None of the carefully planned activities that were developmentallhy appropriate and designed to help the children grow and learn took place that day.  Did the children miss educational opportunities?  No.  While the planes were flying the staff talked to them about what they saw and heard.  They talked about noise, shapes, the sound barrier, going fast, the words on the bottom of the wings, and the shapes of the smoke trails that they left in the sky.  Did the teachers mind?  No.  They had a unique educational opportunity that does not happen every day.  Did the administration mind?  No.  We understand how children learn.  They will remember and understand the concepts of speed, loud, wings, and even sound barrier when they have had such a vivid demonstration.  We also did not mind because our desks were empty and our work was undone.  We were outside jumping up and down and cheering with the children.

Today is another day and now . . .  Wait - I hear them again. . . . . .

I Just Called to Say...

Several months ago I wrote about one of my three year old boys who discovered that he could stick an accordion shaped building piece with a magnet in each end onto the corner of a classroom wall.  The metal beading on the corner attracted the magnets and kept the piece in place.  Yesterday, as I was visiting in the same room, I witnessed another child who found a unique use for the same piece.

LeTisha was standing in front of the classroom mirror, which was made of polished steel and stood in a wood frame.  She had put the piece onto the mirror at about the same level as her head.  While she was looking at herself in the mirror, LeTisha would take the piece off the mirror, hold it up to her ear, and chat away.  The whole time that she was talking on her "phone", she would watch herself in the mirror.  Her head would wag and her body would move in time to her conversation.  After a minute or two of talking, she would hang up her phone, wait a few seconds, and pick up the phone for another conversation. 

A battery powered toy phone that sets out a script for a child?  Twenty dollars plus lots of batteries.  A magnetic building piece that will allow the child to talk to anyone about anything?  Priceless!!

Growing Up In a Library

"I had always imagined that paradise would be a kind of library."  Jorge Louis Borges

Libraries have always played a large part in my life.  When we were growing up, my mother regularly took us to the Fishkill Plains library.  It was a community library that was housed in an old church and taken care of by Mrs. Alley, who looked very old to me at the time, but I imagine she would not seem terribly old to me now.  The library was lined with books, had more books, magazines, and puzzles laid out on the pews, and had an old pipe organ with lots of stops.  We played with it, but I can't really remember if it played music.  Mrs. Alley even kept boxes of the old series books - Nancy Drew, the Bobsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, etc. - under some tables.  She said that they weren't supposed to belong in libraries, but that the children still loved them so she kept them.  We occasionally went to one of the larger libraries in neighboring towns, but this is the library where we spent hours and where I volunteered while in school. 

My love of libraries stayed with me.  During high school, I worked in the library whenever I had a study hall or free time.  When I went to college I spent four years working in the college library and joined the local library.  Once I married I went to the library in each town in which we lived.  I now have to travel to Geneseo to the library, but it is only a few miles.  I especially love the OWWL system, in which I can order books from the network of fifty-something libraries and have them delivered to Geneseo.  Heaven!

Emile Buchwals has said that, "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents"  When I was growing up, my parents read to us daily.  Boys are often less interested in reading than girls, in part because fathers tend to read less than mothers and boys tend to emulate their fathers.  I remember my parents sitting down with their library books when they had their after dinner cup of coffee each night.  We were surrounded by books, and my brother, my sister, and I all developed a deep love of reading.  When my children were babies we began the weekly trips to the library for books, they saw their parents reading every day, and they both love to read.  When I became a grandmother, I began to take my grandchildren to the library, although I had to share that joy with their mother who is still an avid reader.

Hearing the word "library" fills my mind with pictures, sights, and even that special book smell that is embedded in my mind from years spent in libraries.  I love the new children's books that are being written, and especially those for older children who used to fall into a space between picture books and adult books with little that was special for them.  One of the things that I enjoy about being with children is that I can enjoy the new books while revisiting favorites from my youth.  This week, while my grandchildren are visiting, my granddaughter and I have been reading "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton which was a favorite of mine when I was her age.  Unfortunately, we were so busy that we couldn't finish it, and it went home with her.  Maybe I will have to get another copy. 

If you do not belong to your local library, I urge you to visit.  In addition to all of those books, which is reason enough to join, many libraries also have music, videos, story hours, summer reading programs, book clubs, knitting groups, and special speakers and entertainment.  Best of all, don't forget the books - all of those lovely books.

My latest read?  I just finished My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira.  It is the story of a midwife who, in order to become a surgeon, worked as a nurse during the Civil War.  It is based on the fact that twenty women became doctors due to their work during the war, and the author has done an enormous amount of research on Civil War society, medicine, hospitals, army life, and battles.  It was fascinating.