I firmly believe that "school" prior to age six should consist of play and process. Kindergarten and preschool should focus on centers, sewing, singing, baking, sorting, building, cleaning, dancing, painting and gardening.
After years of figuring out, and adjusting to, the world through play, kids are naturally ready for more advanced concepts. In fact, many of them begin to read without any formal instruction at all. They learned their numbers counting out items playing "grocery store" and sorting fruits and veggies into colored bins. They learned language and phonics through songs and stories sung with the teacher and they learned about the seasons through years of nature play and decorating the classroom. So, they're ready for school without years of being forced to learn concepts they weren't developmentally ready to retain (or interested in) until now.
Imagine spending a day on the letter "A" and teaching both capital A and lowerecase "a", but also teaching capitalization punctuation, sentence structure, handwriting, the number one, the correct use of "a" and "an", fractions, months of the year, cause and effect, addition, primary colors, and form drawing in one first grade lesson on the first day. It's all possible while also teaching to the child's heart! And, because we're living in a utopian society of our own creation, school doesn't start until September.
First, the teacher starts by telling the students we're in the month of September in the season called fall. She's drawn an image on the board featuring an oak tree, fallen leaves, pumpkins and magical gnomes and fairies. She asks them to draw an apple introducing the idea of King line (the stem), Queen curve through the round shape of the apple and the color red. She may even ask students to leave a small white space at the top of the apple where the light hits it and the apple shines. Then, she asks the students to draw 4 lines from left to right using the "baby bear" edge of their block crayons and she models writing a sentence VERY SLOWLY sharing her thinking out loud.
"Since I'm starting a new sentence I'll use a capital "A" starting at the top of the letter and moving down to the ground where my line sits. I'll do the same thing on the other side and connect the lines in the middle so neither line falls over." The children may giggle at this thought, which opens the heart and therfeore the mind remembers. The teacher continues, "Now, I'll add a star next to the "A" to space out my words." She writes the rest of the sentence one letter at a time carefully sounding out each letter and chunk.
"A is in apple. Each apple has a star."
Then she calls the students to the floor and tells them the story of "How the Star Got Into the Apple" and then slices the apple in half to reveal the star of seeds. She tells the students, "I had one whole apple" and writes a "1" on the board, "But now I have two halves," as she writes the number "2" on the board. She shows 1/2 equals one half and then acknowledges that the letter "a" as is also in the world half. What other words have the letter "a" as the students brainstorm, the teacher models sounding out letters, blends, dipthongs, and phonograms. The children are absorbing this information like dry sponges dipped in water. Their thirst for knowledge is palpable. She takes the seeds and asks how many ways we can group the seeds to equal the number 5 and writes 5+0, 4+1, 2+3 and the reverse of each one totaling six ways to ADD numbers to equal five. She gives the students a chance to return to their desks and draw an open apple with five seeds and copy the addition problems. She then asks them what happens when you start with 5 and take away 4. This continues until they have a group of subtraction problems on their paper as well.
Now, first graders lack the ability to do desk work very long so they're invited back to the floor to do five jumping jacks, jog in place for 5 seconds, high 5 a friend et cetera et cetera et cetera. Once they're worm out and silly, ask them to sit and read the story "Apple Cake" about giving and receiving (cause and effect). Then, cook the apple cake together as a class and enjoy. The teacher might draw a cake on the board and write words like "apple, cake, plate, eat, share" to model the many sounds the letter "A" can make.
I've taught this lesson many, many times and it never fails to not only capture the interest of the students, but it lasts about 1-1.5 hours and look ow much the children have learned! I often discuss things with the children throughout the story such as the difference between maiden and matron, where apples grow, climate required, the setting of the story, the season it may be, the colors used in the illustrations, and we may even discuss the genre of the story and acknowledge the difference between author and illustrator. While the children are listening to the story, perhaps they're modeling an apple with some modeling beeswax to work their hand muscles during the story and improve engagement. The apples stay in a basket on the class nature table all season long. This helps the students follow the rhythm of the year as well!
This is an example of how efficient, and thorough, a multidisciplinary approach to education can be! The students are engaged and connected to the material through song story, play, and art all in one lesson. They've covered concepts in math, science, and language arts as well. If a wheelbarrow or hoe is featured in the tsory, we may stop for a monent to discuss simple machines..
The point is, our current approach to education is NOT working. Learning the letter A can be boring as all hell in the current model and take weeks to learn because the students aren't connected to it. Most teachers try to reach the student's mind, but children do not think with their minds, they think with their hearts. We must reach their heart to reach the mind. This approach can work with not only every letter of the aplhabet, but every area of learning whether its a time period, a historical figure, a concept or country that's being studied!
Reach out to learn how to use the Whole Heart approach in your classroom or with your children that you homeschool!
Chelsea Vail
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