The Small Things That Loom Large
The children found two headless baby birds. What happened? Things are rough for birds out there. That it was a predator was certain, because the heads were gone. So that was the discussion. What did it? And should the pink beads go in the ground when it is buried? The facts, just the facts.
Three Breaths
He chooses "Thorny Devil" breathing. A thorny devil is a lizard native to Australia, but what do I know about it? Nothing. I ask if it is covered in spiky thorns and wondered if it rolls in a ball. I just need a couple clues so that I can figure out how a thorny devil can take a deep in-breath and exhale slowly, to then fill the lungs again. Three times we will breathe in and out like a thorny devil.
When all the shelves are empty
Without picking up a pencil, without using a worksheet, without direct adult instruction -- these materials and the children's imagination leads to exploration in quantity, attribute, position, movement, direction, order, sequence, and pattern.
Parents On Site and IN On the Play!
The parent partnership is so comfortable and so ingrained that it is difficult to describe the process in which it is shaped to a person outside of the cooperative model! Yet it is the very source of our school and every participatory model school's longterm success and exactly the reason we are able to hold to a play-based model. Parents, once they are involved, arrive naturally to the play-based model.
