More children are stepping forward to share

Although I did not get a picture of this(batteries stopped working), I wanted to write about Jesse Barnet's presentation at our second morning meeting today. Jesse worked hard on "an arts and crafts book" which involved many skills. He drew pictures using different writing implements, attached one picture to the next, and carefully cut fringe along the whole perimeter of his book. Jesse also shared the fact that he made a building out of wooden blocks that had people and furniture in it. He was proud of both of these things and was eager to share them with the class. More children are starting to share their work during meeting time as they see their classmates doing so. There will be times when we divide the group in half to hopefully make it easier for some of the children to speak in front of their peers.

Reflecting on our learning

Learning how to show their work at second morning meeting is a very rich experience for our children. They are learning how to organize their thoughts, give a brief presentation, speak in front of a group, listen to each other, ask questions, and give answers. Their pride in their work is evident from their expressions when presenting. The rest of the group applauds for each child at the end of the sharing. The children are also learning to think critically about the process of learning itself. What were the steps involved in their creation? How did they think of the idea? What were they happy with? Did something unexpected happen? What could they do differently the next time? Today Mia was showing her creation made from Magna-tiles. It had doors that opened, and I believe it was a laser that she gleefully said: "is shooting at Melissa!" I tried to redirect that one! Sam was showing his inkblot picture which was "an invisible butterfly. These are the two wings, and they are big, and come down here." Now the butterfly is invisible." Ilana and Hadley made a lovely series of colorful pictures of fun places to go and beautiful things to see. Josh said that his picture was of a "place where they kill people in jail. Whenever there is danger they call the police on the phone." Oliver shared his Magna-tile structure, saying: "I made this. The bathroom is in there. It's a space craft with a bathroom."It is important to understand that children of this age are wrestling with strong emotions, and are also trying to make sense of the world around them. It is perfectly natural that their artwork will express this and contain themes of violence, shooting, killing, etc. Fear not; this is healthy and to be expected.