Category: A journey with The Marigold School of Early Learning

 Using some space I set up a provocation combining food and counting.  I put forth the question, “how many servings?”.  Now I don’t expect preschool aged students to read this question, but I do expect them to be curious about what it says and ask for assistance with reading the card.  After that, this provocation falls directly into their hands.  How they interpret what I’ve set up is entirely up to them.

 I love using real pictures for children to look at, think about and figure out.  These pictures can spark conversations about what each had for breakfast, lunch, dinner or what they like or don’t like to eat.  I am always close by with ears perked to jump in and add to or assist with information to keep the learning process going.

Using fairies to assist with drawing attention sometimes works really nicely because it can add one more dimension to the provocation.  With plums being in season right now, this picture is perfect for a conversation starter that children can relate to easily, especially if they’ve been enjoying this particular fruit lately. :)

 Back to the question card.  The purpose of a question card can be to draw attention to, provoke curiosity, open the door to deeper thought and meaningful conversations all centered around acquiring knowledge.  The question or questions I come up with are based on what students talk about with each other or things their parents have mentioned to me about their children’s interests and experiences.  Paying close attention and listening to children gives me the ideas I need to further their learning.  This provocation is promoting social interaction, literacy, math, feelings with likes and dislikes and language skills.  You also may not see this right away, but it is also promoting or leaving the door open for children to take risks with trying foods that they may have hesitated with before, but now seeing pictures of and taking part in conversations centering around food, they may want to try food they have not yet given a fair chance.

 Hey, how many servings of your favorite foods have you had recently?  Or did you try any foods that you’ve shied away from in recent days?  I would love to know!  Share your experiences! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning :)

My final week of beans!  They are so pretty! :) I am very happy to report my beans have finished growing.  I don’t think being indoors will actually allow them to grow quite as large as they would have outdoors.

The package said the beans will turn green once cooked, which made me a little sad.  I had hoped to eat lovely purple beans!  Oh well, such is life.  Purple carrots stay purple. :)

Anyway, I plan on sharing this small batch with my family.  I hope you all have tried growing something indoors, whether that be flowers or vegetables. :)

This was a fun experiment and a happy surprise, so I hope to repeat this next year!  And I will be documenting the experience once again with maybe a few different varieties of beans to see which do better indoors as opposed to outdoors. 

Happy gardening! :) Please share some of your experiences!  I would love to read all about them!

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

 Young children learn naturally through exploration and manipulation through a physical connection.  For young concrete mind’s it is important to support their need to explore and interact physically with their environment. Sensory materials provide the insatiable need to learn for understanding. The above materials are just one example of how versatile sensory materials can be when used as open-ended learning tools. Using a jar, a cup and two painting pallets children can sort either the rocks or the dried peas.  

 Fine motor skills are being utilized while mathematics is being explored.  Sorting, grouping, and counting are all done as a way to gather information and form meaning.  Attention to detail while noticing the slight variances with each rock is also something young children do naturally. Allowing children to explore means that I also notice and recognize when they are paying close attention to the things that we as adults take for granted.  A lot of these fine details are what we want children to notice and question as they enter elementary school, so let preschoolers do what they innately can do and build their foundations for learning and understanding, strong.

My role as an Early Learning Teacher is to always support, extend, inspire and challenge my preschool students.  I want to make sure each leaves preschool with the abilities needed to be successful once they enter elementary school.  The way in which I feel that is done best is by teaching children through developmentally appropriate methods.  The curriculum I design and implement is derived from aspects of Constructivist learning theories which include, Piaget, Vygotsky, the Reggio Emilia approach and Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory.  I enjoy combining what I see as the most valuable aspects of each to help guide and support the emergent curriculum that I implement.  So my curriculum will always be changing with the students that enter and leave through the years.  I do not follow any type of “cookie cutter” approach because a curriculum without creativity, individuality, and aspects that encourage consistent questioning and challenges is not a curriculum in which young minds hungry to learn, require.  They need a curriculum that supports their natural abilities and prepares them for the future.

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT  *  The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)

 Growing beans indoors was a fun experiment even though the life of the plants was shortened by their deprivation of the great outdoors. :) :(.  However, there is some positive news to report!  I found tiny baby beans forming off the lovely purple blossoms! :)

 Sometimes I’m not very observant because I was just about to write a blog post on how my beans died, but as I was inserting the pictures I noticed the baby beans!  So I am pleased that even without bees to pollinate the plants, the vegetables still grew!

Growing plants indoors will always be my favorite way to introduce and challenge preschool children in the area of science.  And this lovely bean plant is great inspiration for creative artists too!  Not to mention the math and new vocabulary that just falls from this plant!  I could go on about all the great learning stemming from this very plant and all the ideas derived from it, but I don’t want to bore you too much. :)  

  I do believe the bottom leaves are turning white before they would if they’d been given the chance to grow and flourish outdoors, but that is okay as long as the process as a whole inspired learning. I will keep you updated on how big these baby beans get and if they taste good when picked.  Stay tuned! :)

If you have tried any indoor planting experiments please let us know! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning!

 These are tall marigolds and I think I will be transplanting them into one of my flowerbeds soon. :)

 They’ve been growing for some time now and they seem to really like this pot and the window they are stationed at.  I am hopeful when I transplant them they don’t die upon planting! :(

It really is fun to watch tiny seeds burst into each stage of their development! :)  Plants are one of the best ways to introduce young children to science and a great way to continue to challenge them!

Please share some of your indoor plant experiments too! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning

 I can’t believe it was five weeks ago that I planted my bean seeds. :)  They took to the twine I tied with just a little guidance.  The morning sun is just peering over the neighbors house, so the leaves are catching some lovely natural light.

 The runners have traveled almost to the top of the window!  I love how they travel.  The leaves are still forming and the color is good, so this week for sure I will add some fertilizer and keep a close eye on it.  I really want to see how healthy my plant can be not in a green house or outdoors, but just in my window. :)

The leaves have continued to grow large and have spread out nicely.  At first I thought I might plant two jars in this window, but I think one leaves the right amount of room for the plant to spread without being cramped.  Like I’ve mentioned before, this is a great project to document when children are not able to be here for every step.  I do look forward to this coming school year when we can plant more things and document the progress together though. :)

I love how the roots are visible and the plant is growing so nicely.  I have detected a little bit of moss growing on the inside of the jar, but I think that is a result of the plant being inside a glass jar; somewhat of a a mini echo system. As far as the jar goes, like with the snap peas, when they finished growing and producing their vegetables I used scissors to cut the roots and take out the whole mess from the jar.  I like reusing my jars and find no reason to break them.  The old plant can then go into a compost pile or in my case the yard bin.

 Please share some of your plant growing adventures! 

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)

 This is the beginning of week four for my bean plant.  I am so happy to see the runners have made it to the twine on the window. :)

 Bean plants are definitely great for anyone that is impatient.  I’m not necessarily saying I am an impatient person, but it is always fun to have the things I plant actually grow.

From here on out I will need to be diligent about fertilization.  The snap peas we grew this spring suffered due to not having enough nutrients.  I also am looking forward to the whole window being covered with green bean leaves! :)

Please share some of your growing adventures!  We would love to hear about them! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning :)

 At the end of this week, week 3, the runners finally took off!  All four of the bean seeds came up, so now it is just a waiting game.  Beans are one of the easiest plants to start indoors.  This experiment is like the snap pea one, in which the beans will not be transplanted outdoors.  So I hope the plant will produce some nice green beans. :)

 I also enjoy being able to see the roots!  Children can really benefit from getting to see the root systems with indoor plantings.  When we grow things outdoors we don’t see what happens underneath the ground, so being able to see what the entire plant looks like takes away the mystery and misconceptions young minds will often have.  Don’t worry, they fill in where they don’t understand.  It’s just that those assumptions are very creative and not very realistic. :)

 I have been only watering this jar ever other day.  And so far I’ve only added fertilizer twice.  So I will probably add some this weekend.

 One thing I will remember to do next time is not secure my beans to the window.  I would like the plant to be more mobile.  I like to measure the growth of the beans next to children to see how quickly the beans close the  height gap.  Measuring a taller plant next to children is also a great concrete and visual way for children to see the rapid growth.  Planting vegetables and flowers indoors really makes the entire process more accessible to young minds.  Children need to be a part of the whole process and not just he beginning and ending stages.  If we want to help children construct knowledge and build onto what they already know, we have to respect they can handle learning and being an active and responsible part of the experience.

 Enjoy your own planting adventures!  Please like and share this posting and share some stories with me! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning

 Week three and my bean plant is doing great!  I put up the hooks and string in the window and hopefully the runners will travel in the direction I want them to.  I don’t think there will be a problem with the plant till later.  I just need to make sure I fertilize good.

 I only planted four beans and all four sprouted.  I think bean leaves are so pretty.  They are nice and big and the sun shines through them illuminating the green leaves as a bright light.

• One thing I find fun with indoor plants as well as if you are outdoors, is to shadow draw.  Children love to draw and shadows are another visual they can explore through drawing.  I read a lot about using overhead projectors and light boxes for children to shadow draw, but nature gives us not only an abundance to use in our art, but natural light to do the same things artificial light can.
•  This picture captures the direction the light was casting the hydrangea shadows.  True, the children would have to negotiate who drew first and move with the shadows, but I think that is a great way to work as a team, possibly problem solve and collaborate.  The complexity of the object’s shape and textures will also determine the complexity of the shadow too.

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning!  Come play with us! :)

I’ve mention many times before in previous blog posts how nature is a great way for young children to learn many different skills.  Hydrangeas are one of those hardy flowers that never let me down as far as all the wonderful texture and visual discoveries there are to observe.  The leaves are dark to medium green, shiny, large, and the veins are very prominent which make for wonderful crayon rubbings and many more art infused projects.

The flower petals are clustered together and fit well and the violet color is so vibrant when they first bloom.  This particular type of hydrangea has a second stage of flower color.  Near the end of summer and into fall the flowers will change to a light green and dark red.  So this plant just keeps giving us many more opportunities to observe how nature keeps changing in front of our eyes!

My second week bean sprouts are another great example of why nature is so useful for helping children form strong foundations for future learning.  Once again we have color, shape, multiple leaves and prominent veins.  The roots are not yet showing, but I’m sure they will in the next week of so.  And being a vegetable, children will see how beans first form, what they end up looking like and why we enjoy them.  Counting, color  and shape recognition, texture from the soil, leaves and eventually the bean itself are just a small example of what children can learn from this plant and others. I mustn’t forget patterning too! :)

The mini marigolds are also wonderful examples of nature and the knowledge contained in each vegetative life.  These flowers not only offer differing colors of petals, but the leaves are a wonderful lacy work to count, feel, pattern and admire.  Being able to see the little buds form and then the flower bursting into something so lovely is also a good way to help young minds grasp the concept of change.  Many young children struggle with change, in their home lives, at school and any other areas in their lives in which they interact with people and the environment.  Change is an abstract concept somewhat and nature provides an easy concrete example. As adults we are always very much aware of how important routine with flexibility is and how crucial it is to pay close attention to the emotions  young children experience as things change that are not in their control.  I believe plants are a positive way to expose each to what change is and what it can mean.

I also wanted to mention that young minds will assimilate a large amount of new vocabulary as they grow and are exposed to the differing forms of nature.  Modeling writing, writing  their words for them, accepting what they give,  and keeping growth charts and graphs of various sorts, will all support early literacy as children put on their science caps.  Integrative curriculum strengthens the whole process of questioning, experimenting, discovering, constructing and working as a team.  The summer season is here and I look forward to meeting new friends!  So come join me in a continued learning journey at The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT