Further thoughts on Cursive

I've been asked about cursive in many places of late. While I have upcoming Montessori Nuggets on the topic, I thought I would share some of my own personal thoughts here. Yes, you may translate that phrase as "soap box." I won't judge your choices if you won't judge mine. I just ask that you hear me out. :)

My son just turned 8. In a regular school, he would be entering 3rd grade this coming fall. In our area, 2nd graders in their 2nd semester start learning cursive. It is a big milestone for the children.

The teachers also complain that academic work in other areas drops. Drastically.

Some random thoughts - in no particular order - hence random:
;)

• my son has been writing in cursive since age 4; yes we had some print experiences in there too (see Adventures in Writing)
• by 5 1/2 he could write anything in cursive; he just didn't; I continued to state "I'd prefer cursive and soon it will be a requirement" - one day he just started doing it - and has never gone back. 
• In January of last year, the 2nd graders (a year older than my son) in his atrium class were just starting cursive and writing on the chalkboard in the atrium. They were still learning and the results were interesting and quite beautiful, if not entirely legible. I loved their enthusiasm! However, all the children were just amazed that my son could already write so well, without thinking about it. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I learned when I was ready." (can't improve on that answer!)
• During that time of learning to write, he was in the strongest part of the sensitive period for language. While we were towards the end of the part when re-focusing on the cursive, we were still able to utilize it. 
• Older children just don't have that sensitive period. 
• Maria Montessori worried about teaching the children print (she'd taught them cursive first). Then they started reading Gothic words on the calendar. They taught themselves print. 
• If she stopped worrying, why should I worry?
• Since children are in a sensitive period, their interest and focus is right there; they learn easily in a form of writing that comes naturally anyway (curved lines allowing a variation of creation, versus straight lines being a standard of perfection that is hard to achieve). 
• Again, they learn easily - thus it doesn't take away from their other learning. 
• But in 2nd grade, it DOES take away from their other learning - because they have to consciously RE-learn everything know, RE-learn a natural instinct that was trained OUT of them in kindergarten and 1st grade (and preschool if they went). 
• Print is everywhere - but that does not mean I need to dumb down my handwriting for my child. I do NOT dumb down my vocabulary - why would I dumb down the handwriting? 
• Print is everywhere - more so than in Montessori's time - and the children figured it out all on their own then. Since my son was writing in capital block letters at 3 1/2 (noone taught him, except perhaps the keys on that laptop that Grandma gave him ;) ), it would seem that print is prevalent enough to be learned by anyone at any time. Why spend time teaching it? Time that is best served elsewhere? Like making cookies with my son. 
• we have to print on forms. Ok. Fine. But we don't fill out forms all day every day. We DO write grocery and to-do lists, letters to friends (e-mails aren't even printed - they're TYPED), thank you cards, all the copy-work my son does, etc. 

And this list doesn't touch the practical reasons of cursive such as assistance with dyslexia, spacing of words, understanding of concepts of words (a word is connected as a single unit), etc. This list only touches on some of the thoughts running through my mind for OUR situation. 

Is it the end of the world if your child learned print first? No! 

But how much more wonderful use of their time to teach cursive first and not bother to teach print at all (since it just comes). 

Ok. So I know at least one reader of this blog will be thinking "why should we *teach* cursive at all if print is so much easier?"

BECAUSE: 

• cursive is for writing; print is for reading (we type print for books and computers; original printing press wasn't for handwritten books)
• cursive is actually EASIER at the primary age compared to print because children naturally curve their lines. Straight lines are perfection; variations on a curved line become an art form.
• Cursive is an art form. It is beauty. It is individual. It is expressive. 
• Print is actually harder to teach at the primary age, dyslexia or not. 
• Kids with dyslexia NEED cursive writing to help with the orientation of letters, groupings of words, and general confidence building. 

I hope this information helps! Or at least provides food for thought!

Making a Large Bead Frame

Do you have a Melissa and Doug abacus lying around? Ready to get just a TINY bit creative? :)
This one doesn't take much AT ALL!

The glue doesn't tend to be terribly strong on abacus, so you can wiggle out one leg removing it from the metal rods and the wood rod across the top.

Now. Remove the 4th and the 8th metal rods (counting from the top).

Now, rearrange the colors so you have (from the top): green, blue, red, (space), green, blue, red, (space), green. Re-attach the side leg.

Ok, you're going to be short on colors! So you get out some paint (washable child safe paint is NOT ideal here), and you paint 10 of those natural colored beads green. They can hang on the metal rod, with space in between, to dry. Polyurethane if you want (I never did on ours and it's fine, but I think I would have preferred the texture of the polyurethaned ones - plain paint feels different from the rest of the beads).

You'll also want to paint the sides with white gray and black, but I've not done that on this one; I tend to use colored paper taped on for presentations and remove it for other times (another story).

You can see our painted ones on the bottom;
polyurethane would have been nice. 

Leftover yellow and natural color beads? Give them to your younger children for stringing practice; or any of your children for jewelry or other just fun crafty project of their liking.

It's not a Montessori abacus - it's a large bead frame!

Want a small bead frame? Just wrap up the lower 3 bars, so you have only up to the thousands showing. For homeschool purposes, the large bead frame is much more adaptable - so if you have to choose just ONE size, make or purchase the large bead frame because it will extend from primary into elementary.


EDITED TO NOTE:
In AMI albums, the small and large bead frames can be used in primary; the large bead frame is used in elementary (even if used in primary); but the small bead frame does not need to be in place in elementary, since all the same work can be done on the large bead frame and the children are older and capable ;)

What if the world stops turning????

In our home, I've been known to say, "It's not like it's the end of the world!"

I've also always made a point of saying, "When the earth faces the sun" or "turns toward the sun" or "the earth has turned away from the sun" - rather than referring to the sun doing the movement.

I've just always wanted to be very accurate with my speech.

So one day, my just turned 6 year old son, comes to me a little while after some now-forgotten incident that prompted me to say, "It's not like it's the end of the world!" and asks, "What if it is the end of the world? It will stop turning! What will happen then!?" He was curious and thinking - now at the elementary age (second plane of development) of not just accepting everything on factual statement, but wanted to understand WHY and WHAT IF and HOW?

So, out of order from all elementary geography presentations, I said, "Ah! I have a chart for you!" This was his first official chart presentation, though he'd seen me painting them previous to this time.

We talked about it a bit. "What do you see here?"
"If this is the earth, where is this side facing?" (pointing to the flames)

• How do those flames feel? (hot) And where is the heat coming from? (the sun)
• I see something else! (icicles!) How do those icicles feel? (cold! because the sun can't give that side of the earth any heat!)
• I wonder if life could exist on this earth if it didn't turn and have times of heat and times of cold? (his response: I wouldn't want to live THERE!)

Now in the time since then he's had the "usual sequence" and we've come back to this chart in the proper scheme of things. 

It means something different for him than the children who only just saw it this year (in proper order); but every child took away what they needed, and brought to the conversation at their level, contributing to the growth of understanding in all the children. 

No, I would not show this to a child in the first plane of development - it might instill fear of the unknown and the what-ifs because their minds work in the concrete, right-now, here in the moment. We do not want to instill fear into a child, but trust, at this age. In the second plane, the child has a strong foundation and can contemplate the what-ifs in a realistic manner without inappropriate fear. 

It was ok that my son saw and discussed this chart out of order; our presentation did not follow the typical album page, because he'd not had the typical pre-requisites. Just because he'd not had the pre-requisites did not mean he was not ready! He was ready in a different way; and at the proper time, he was ready in another way. 

Learn from our Children

I have been slowly reading through a short book that a friend asked me to read: The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner

It is interesting - just provides a slightly different perspective on life issues.

One chapter though stood out - perhaps because I know of a few parents who need to KNOW this, and most Montessori parents already deeply, truly know: We have a lot to learn from our children. Not just because of them, not just for their sakes - directly from them.

Many adults make the mistake of thinking that because someone is younger than they are, they can't possibly learn something from them. This both an egotistical and insecure point of view in my mind. ...I have met many young people, even children, who were more mature and better-thinkers than some adults I know.    ~~~Thomas M. Sterner

Botany Study at Co-Op

Our co-op finally got started on official dissections this week! Yay!

Before Easter, the children were using a rubbery/plasticy scalpel to dissect soaked beans. Since I only have the children once a week, I want to establish some ground rules and practice them a little bit at a time.

So this week, we pulled out the dissection kit and away we went.

First thing was just feeling the mat - what a sensorial experience all by itself!


We first reviewed what we already knew, just talking through things like dicotyledon and monocotyledon, how many leaves each one originally sprouts, how the plant grows. Then we looked the branch, stem, leaf with veins as an overview. We'll get into the details in the next couple of classes.

Photos of our work:

one sample of a dissection
follow-up drawing

the impressionistic chart of
plants expressing water

one girl's rendition of the chart