The Spirit of Adventure

Note: I had this entry all written and ready to go, just waiting for a photo or two, but when I saw Pixar's "UP", I knew had to change the title in its honor.

Last week on the METRO, one of the young adults who asked me about what we were doing spoke wistfully about how much he enjoyed field trips as a child and how that was all over once you grew up—no more field trips. I wanted to tell him that doesn’t have to be true. As an adult, you can still go on field trips! You just have to plan them yourself—and then GO!

A few months back, I ordered a book from one of the Scholastic book clubs: 101 Places You Gotta See Before You’re 12! by Joanne O’Sullivan. As I am wont to do when I've discovered something cool, I immediately began carting it around to show to everyone. They tease me for bringing “show-and-tell” when I come over for play dates, but all of my adult friends were jealous of this great little book! I won't share all 101 places, but I couldn't resist sharing a little of it with you this summer—and adding some Houston hints and a few "places" of my own to the list!

The book opens with: “Get Up & Go!
LONG AGO, THE EARLY EXPLORERS SET OFF ON THEIR JOURNEYS with nothing more than a spirit of adventure and the stars to guide them. Sometimes the only information they had about their destination was an ominous phrase written on the edge of a map: Here there be dragons. Today, we have global positioning satellites to tell us where we are all the time, and guidebooks that tell us exactly what we should see and will see when we get to a certain place at a certain time. True, people don’t get lost in jungles or eaten by sea monsters much these days, but sometimes, having too much information can make exploring a little less exciting.

That’s where this book comes in. It isn’t a book, really. It’s more like a scavenger hunt. Instead of hunting for things, you’ll be hunting for cool places and amazing experiences. . . . We’ll give you some clues . . . The rest is up to you. No two kids are exactly the same, so no two journeys will be the same—which makes your discoveries truly your own. You may not live in the Age of Explorers, but you’re definitely the right age for exploring. Before you’re 12 is the perfect time to get out and see the world.

So, what’s your reward at the end of this scavenger hunt? A collection of incredible experiences, a lot of fun new discoveries, amazing memories, and a lot of great stories to tell your friends. Even if you don’t see all these places before you’re 12, you’ll have made a great start to a lifetime of exploration.”

Yes! Get out there and see the world! "Touch it. Smell it. Taste it!"

But you don't have to go far or spend a lot of money to have a great adventure. Houston offers so many fun finds (many of them free!), right here in your own backyard!
Dig into the Summer Homework, and plan a field trip for your family and yourself!
I'll help you out with some challenges and clues along the way. "Adventure is out there!"

Super Fantastic Marvelous

Tradition!


We have a long-standing Third Grade Field Trip tradition.



Mrs. C. came to me as we were closing in on the end of maybe my first year here and explained that she would be saying goodbye to third graders who had started with her as first graders and she wanted to find a special way to mark the occasion. We adapted a “Towers and Tunnels” field trip that another public Montessori teacher was already doing with her third graders and made it our own. With two experimental detours, we eventually settled into a downtown trip tradition. A year or two into it, Mrs. C. and I looked at each other and realized, “The children should be doing the planning for this!” and that has made all the difference.

Since 2006, the trip has been theirs---and, as an added bonus for their teacher chaperones, since the children have begun planning the trip, there has been zero whining about the heat (trust me, May in Houston is hot and sweaty!) or the walking (sometimes from one end of downtown to the other!). Being an Excel geek, I arm the children with largely blank spreadsheets on which they organize their research and keep track of places, addresses, names of contact people, phone numbers, web addresses, costs, etc.

METRO has attempted to make public transportation more difficult (and expensive!) for anyone who is not a regular commuter. Five years ago, children could buy a day pass for 50 cents, including transfers from bus to train and train to bus. (We loved an excuse to ride the new rail!) Last year, with the advent of the Q-card, we discovered it was no longer possible to transfer from bus to train without paying an additional fare. As a result, for the first time in the history of our tradition we did not transfer to the rail this year, instead riding our bus all the way downtown. To make matters worse, we discovered this year that children now have to procure official METRO discount ID cards in order to receive the discount child rate. Roundtrip transportation this year cost each child $2.50! Talk about inflation!

The day finally arrived. We rendezvoused early in the classroom, dispensed with bathroom visits, and hurried out to the bus stop.
“At 7:47 we went to the bus stop and we waited for the bus. When the bus finally came we got on. On the bus I sat with Morgan and Alicia. The bus ride took about 45 minutes.” (K.E.)



“Then we walked and walked” (E.N.). At each turn, I asked the children to consult their maps and compasses to tell us which way to go--


A very real opportunity to practice their map skills and exercise independence, but also my sense of direction is terrible. Honestly, we are much better off with them as navigators.

To my great glee, my young geologists began to notice the building materials around them as we walked. “We're walking on bricks of granite!”

“The first place we went to was City Hall” (M.H.). “We were going to see a video but the video wasn't working so instead we got smelly pencils” (W.L.). “City Hall was cool but I was sad because the movie wasn't working. I liked the pins and smelly pencils that they gave us” (C.G.).

“So I called my Aunt Karen. She came and I got to introduce her. Then we walked out of the theater and Aunt Karen told us that the seal on the ground represents liberty and the one on the ceiling represents the universe and Houston is in the center. She told us that the old city hall burned down and she told us that in the 1930's the employees would get their paycheck and then get drunk then the mayor would have to get them out of jail. So he got the reflection pond so when they got drunk they could stay there.” (K.E.)

When we walked out to look at the reflection pool and the surrounding green space, the children exclaimed, “This building is engraved with fossils!” “It's limestone!”





“At City Hall we had to go through a really cool inspector thing” (E.N.).

“Then we went to the council law room where they make the laws. We got to bang the hammer that the mayor uses” (W.L.). “We got to sit in the council members' chairs” (J.B.). “I got to sit in Bill White’s seat” (C.J.).

“And after City Hall we had to walk to the Wells Fargo Tower. We took the elevator to the very top that our ears popped.








It was WEIRD! But it was like we could see the whole city.” (M.H.)
“Wells Fargo Plaza was cool. It was scary when my pencil got stuck in the elevator.” (C.G.)

In the Wells Fargo building, the children got distracted by more rocks.
“Look! This is polished marble and this is marble that isn't polished!”




“Then we went to the library.






“We got a tour of the children and teen's rooms” (K.E.).









“We went to the teenage area and sat in the cool egg chairs” (M.H.).












“Then we got on the new catalog. Then checked out books.” (K.E.)









“And you should know after that was a long walk to lunch” (M.H.). “We went through the McKinney Tunnel to Discovery Green” (C.J.). “It was fun when we got to go to the underground tunnel” (C.G.). “They smelled good” (J.B.). “It looks like a mall in there” (C.B.).

“After starving from hunger, we saw Discovery Green” (E.N.) “and ate at the Lake House. I ate a hamburger, chips, and a drink. We ate outside.” (C.J.)

“After lunch we played on a cool playground and then we had to rush to the bus stop” (M.H.).

“We had to catch the bus and on the way back most people fell asleep" (J.B.).
“I read on the bus ride back” (K.E.).
“Then we arrived to tell our story” (M.H.).

I always worry we will miss our return bus (which only comes once every hour!), fleetingly wondering as we pass a series of van taxis how many children we could jam into one, how much the ride back to school would cost, and would they take a credit card. When we are safely on the bus, I can relax and enjoy the pride that comes with having accompanied our third graders on yet another successful downtown adventure.

I had begun to wonder if this just might be the year we would break with tradition and not go at all. I was sad and missing Mrs. C., and the children were slow on the follow-through with planning. I’m glad they pulled it off!

It is a pleasure and an honor to go downtown with the third graders. They are joyful and excited to be on a trip that they planned themselves—paying for the bus, enjoying the destinations for which they have made arrangements to visit, consulting maps and compasses to figure out which way to go, buying their own lunch. Everyone is so very kind to the children—cheerful about us occupying the usually plentiful bus seats, curious about and amused by their field trip plans, pleased to meet the children with whom they had spoken on the phone, impressed by their independence and excellent manners, happily pointing us in the right direction when we are mislead by a tunnel sign, patient with their money fumblings as they each order and purchase lunch on their own. Every May, just when I need it most, this trip renews my faith in humanity.

“The third grade field trip was awesome. All the third graders were happy.”—C.G., 3rd grade
“It was so much fun! The super fantastic marvelous end.”—W.L., 3rd grade

It's a Small World

After All





There is just one moon
and one golden sun . . .







A funny thing happened in Room 28 last week: Mrs. Corona visited.

Mrs. Corona was my teacher when I was my students’ age. She spoke quietly, moved peacefully, and never lost her calm demeanor. She was patient with my day-dreamy, slow-as-molasses work habits and the horribly disorganized innards of my desk and my penchant for drawing pictures on everything, including the pages of my math booklets. Intensely shy and quiet, I loved to learn. Each new lesson felt like a gift. I loved reading SRAs and wrote long, detailed stories (my mother still has one--filed away somewhere--about doing the Checkerboard with my friend Chelly). Mrs. Corona smelled of coffee and perfume, and in the afternoons she read aloud from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods. I could almost taste the maple candy Grandma and Laura made in the snow. At Christmas, Mrs. Corona gave each of us a handmade ornament, and for Mother’s Day we painted tiny glass bottles. It was in her class that I experienced my first British tea party. At the end of the school year, when she gave away gently-used supplies, my gift was the set of watercolors I hardly ever got to use because I never finished enough work.

Well, this week, Mrs. Corona came to observe my classroom. Our school district has contracted with the Montessori training center to do an evaluation of our public Montessori programs. Each Montessori-certified teacher in the district was visited for an observation, and Mrs. Corona was scheduled to visit my classroom . . . in the middle of May . . . two weeks before the last day of school!

I’ve wanted her to visit because I’m proud of what we do in our classroom. But if you’ve been reading here regularly, you know how I feel about May. It is perhaps the last month I would choose for anyone to observe, particularly my teacher who has been doing the job I do now for over thirty years. We all start to lose our grip on peaceful work in May. There is craziness in the hallways, our usually predictable schedule is repeatedly interrupted, and we all hear the Siren call of summer. It seemed like an unfair amount of pressure to tell the children that my very own elementary school teacher was visiting. So I didn’t—and hoped for the best. I merely explained that a teacher of Montessori teachers was coming to watch our peaceful, hard-working classroom—and quietly hoped that that is indeed what she would see.

By some miracle—thanks, I think, to the pride the children take in our peaceful classroom community and perhaps partly as a gift of kindness on their part—the children managed to pull off one more morning of peaceful work.

After Mrs. Corona left, I told the children that she had been my Montessori teacher when I was their age. They were less surprised than I expected. One child commented that she had been a very peaceful visitor. Another piped up, “Well, then I’ll need to get your phone number, Ms. S., because I want you to come watch my classroom when I’m a teacher.”
I look forward to that call!

“Though the mountains divide . . . And the oceans are wide . . . It's a small, small world.”



Image courtesy of Bruins Montessori

Metamorphosis Revisited

I have a love-hate relationship with May.

Many days, I might tell you that May is unquestionably my least favorite month. There is a pile of paperwork to be done. Forms arrive at the last minute with due dates that have already passed me by. Mother's Day projects must be completed. The much-storied "permanent record" must be updated for every child. Kindergartners must be invited for visits to their future classroom. The gardens must be prepared for summer. Summer homework must be compiled. Our myriad shelves of Montessori materials must be moved to the center of the carpet for summer cleaning (what Mrs. D. affectionately refers to as "shelf slinging"). My personal belongings must be packed and carted home. How will we ever get it all done?

As numerous end-of-school special events (Music Program, Boys' & Girls' Days, Field Day, TAKS Relief Dance, etc.) crowd the calendar and disrupt our routines, the children sense the approach of summer and get the jitters. Unlike our typically peaceful days of working and learning together, some May days I feel as if the children and I are pulling in different directions. To further complicate our lives, I've unwittingly added a few of our own class traditions to the mix: Our End-of-School Breakfast and The Third Grade Field Trip.

After three years in community, learning together, we have developed a special bond that requires the recognition and honor of a celebration. It has become a rite of passage for third graders from both Montessori classes to work together to plan their own field trip. In the fall, they will join one another in a single Upper Elementary (fourth/fifth grade) Montessori classroom, and working on this project helps them begin to view themselves in community together. Tradition dictates that we go downtown, use public transportation, go "up high" (in a tower) and "down low" (in the tunnels), and eat lunch in a restaurant together. All of the details--of how, where, what time, and how much money we'll need to bring--are up to the children to research and plan.

For our first brainstorming meeting (April 21), all 19 of us ate lunch together. What will we need to find out in order to plan this field trip?

Of course, lunch was the first topic of discussion. "Lunch is important," emphasized one third grader. It is indeed. What will we need to know?

Which restaurant? Where? What time is it not too crowded? What type of food is served? How much does it cost? What kinds of foods does the group like? The Lunch Committee was also commissioned by the other children to be sure that any restaurant considered could safely accommodate our student with a peanut allergy.

The "Up High" and "Down Low" Committees were charged with finding out which places were open to the public, where, how tall or low, and hours of business. The group asked The Transportation Team to research METRO schedules for buses and trains, investigating nearby bus stops, a route map, cost, and schedules. A final group was designated to firm up details, make permission slips ("Will we get to type it ourselves?"), research weather, what to bring (including how much money) and wear on the day of the trip, behavior expectations, and possible hazards. I once held a job called Loose Ends Coordinator. That's what this group seems to be about, tying up the loose ends and finalizing plans. Already, the children were compiling a list of things we should bring: first aid kit, field kits, a watch, money, maybe rain gear depending on the weather.

The next time we met, each committee reported on the information they had gathered so far. We clarified tasks and added some additional questions for research. The committees were clear on their tasks and eager to get back to work . . .

And then we had our third meeting.
"Oh. I didn't get a chance to look that up." "I couldn't find that." "I haven't had time to check yet." "Ummm . . . I don't know."

A few committees were organized and working smoothly, but some were falling short. We desperately needed a downtown map (including the tunnels) and a METRO route schedule so that we could put together a reasonable plan for the day. Without these, the other committees were stymied, and we were running out of time.

This is where fostering independence is a pain in my pants. I could easily sit down and plan a field trip downtown with a few phone calls after school, but this is their field trip. It is for them to plan--and for them to experience the consequences of inaction if they don't follow through. (For this reason, our classroom plants have dwindled in number to one this year. If it is your job to water plants and you don't do it, the plants die.) Feeling frustrated and a stronger than usual hatred for May, I explained to the children that if they didn't complete their tasks and find the information we needed for our next meeting, we would not be able to go on the field trip. "If you don't plan it, it won't happen. Ms. H. and I will not be doing this for you." If I intend to cultivate independence, I have to be willing to let the children experience failure when they don't manage responsibilities well.

I felt mean, but the children understood I was serious.

The room was suddenly infused with a renewed sense of motivation: a date was chosen, a detailed downtown map was located and printed, our local METRO bus was identified and a route schedule printed.

Scripts were written

and phone calls were made (three cheers for the adults who were the patient--if somewhat confused and amused--recipients of our students' phone calls!).

Lunch, drinks, and tax were added with METRO fare to calculate how much money students would need to bring,

and permission slips were typed.

This is the part I love.
This is the part that adds hints of hesitation to any definitive declaration of hatred for May.
May is complicated.

One of the benefits of teaching the same child for three years is that we are privileged to witness a remarkable amount of growth. When I look at where my third graders are now and think back to who they were when they arrived in this classroom as first graders, I am always amazed. I hear some public Montessori teachers talk about classes of only first and second graders, with the third graders separated in another class due to state testing--"It's too much to try to do all three." I completely disagree. It would be too much to manage without the third graders. They are such an asset to our classroom--providing such leadership and wisdom and modeling, I don't know what I'd do without them.

Truthfully, at the end of every school year Mrs. D. and I look at the second graders and wonder if they'll be able to fill the shoes of our departing third graders. Will they become good leaders? They always do. They step up and manage responsibility beautifully.

Happy Mother's Day

"My grandmother loved her gift so much that she wants me to show her how to make it!"
--N.J., 1st grade




No problem.
After our Earth Day exploration of the trash on our campus, a re-use project seemed perfect for Mother's Day. Consummate collectors, Mrs. D. and I have been amassing glass bottles.



Each child selected a bottle and used a brush to spread on a mixture of glue and water.



Next, the children carefully applied a mosaic of colored tissue paper.

To seal the tissue paper and make the exterior of the bottle water-proof, each project was completed with a coat of acrylic gloss.



Presentation is important. So we also spent some time on gift-wrapping. First, fold the top of a paper sack over and punch a row of eight holes.

Use a marker to write a message on the front .
Choose a ribbon and wrap it around the sack twice to measure the length you will need. Cut.

Place your gift inside. Unfold the flap and thread ribbon through the first and last holes.
Refold the flap and wrap the ribbon around to the back and through the second hole from the end.

Pull to tighten.

From both ends, begin to weave the ribbon toward the center. Then tie a half-knot and a bow.

Some of the children were inspired by our recent letterboxing fun and hid clues to lead their mothers on a treasure hunt!


"On Mother's Day I made my Mother's Day present like a letterbox. I hid the clues and that led her to the hiding place where I hid my present. My mother had a funny reaction. Her eyes grew big. Then, she started to jump around the house. My mom loved it."--D.Z., 2nd grade

"For Mother's Day I hid my gift and hid the clues. I gave my mom the first clue and she had to find her gift. When she opened it she loved it and put a flower in it. She is planning to put it in her office."--M.M., 2nd grade