Ocean in a bottle
During summers, the child development classrooms loosen up a little, laying off the more structured play. Kids are often out in the summer so the classroom’s not so crowded, and people drop their kids off late or pick them up early, so the structure’s harder to hold onto—I dropped Will off in the middle of a student teacher’s lecture the other day, which must’ve been good practice for her in handling classroom disruption. Everything’s just more flexible in summer. Music day, game day, share day, cooking day, water day—the kids’ll spend whole afternoons doing nothing but making crafts or squirting each other with spray bottles (because of course we couldn’t have water guns).
On Will’s daily sheet the other day, we found out that he ate two helpings of mashed potatoes and corn, but skipped the meatloaf, probably a smart move. He was energetic, happy, busy as a bee. He napped from 12:45-3:05. And in the blank after “Today I did something special,” his teacher had written “I made an ocean in a bottle.” He came home happily shaking an old Pepsi bottle with a taped lid full of sand and a couple of shells and some sort of blue rock—and three dolphin/whale looking creatures. I wonder if Miss Amanda let the kids add the ocean water themselves; it looks like some combination of oil and water, although I’m not sure why the oil’s in there. I can just imagine the mess.
But the room seems to be in part about socializing the kids to handle things without too much mess—and certainly they deal with messes easily and without fuss. I took Laura and Will to the library Friday morning to sign them up for the summer reading program; we got a late start and then spent a while in the library, so we were late getting Will to daycare and came in just at lunchtime. He wanted us to stay for lunch, so we hung out a while and watched their lunch routine. One of the student interns and the assistant teacher got all the lunch things ready while the lead teacher read the kids a story—it’s this very complicated process. Get the lunch cart from the kitchen down the hall. Cover the manipulative play center (i.e., puzzle shelf) bookcase with a plastic table cloth and wipe the surface down with bleach water. Wipe the kids’ table too. Stack papers plates in a sort of pyramid on the bookcase—the kids can’t separate the plates themselves yet. Spread napkins around in a similar fashion. Add cups and spoons.
Once the eating area was all prepped and the story ended, Miss Amanda started singing this song to the tune of Bingo: “There was a boy in the Glow Worm class and . . . . Dalton was his name, oh! Dalton, you can wash your hands, Dalton you can wash your hands, Dalton you can wash your hands and then go eat your lunch!” The kids were all sitting around in a circle—on their spots, which are marked with little cutout animals with their names on them laminated to the floor—dying to be chosen to wash their hands, raising their hands and kind of bouncing quietly in place during the long pause before she would name the lucky child. In classic teacher mode, Miss Amanda chose the children who were “waiting so patiently” first.
As the kids actually made it over to the table, they dropped many cups, some before even sitting down. A couple of forks. A peach and a chicken patty or two made it to the floor. Crumbs of course are just part of the landscape. Extras of everything are ready on the lunch cart. But nobody spilled their milk, which they poured themselves from a tiny pitcher into their tiny glasses. And the quiet at the table (which Miss Amanda assured me was unusual)! Kids sort of politely asking for seconds. No pressure to eat green beans. Just six kids having lunch with three teachers, everybody happy, nobody complaining—although there is a rule that if you drop two forks you don’t get another. Was it just last week that Will’s note came home, explaining how he wouldn’t eat lunch and cried all afternoon?
That ocean in a bottle reminds me of Will’s day at school, in ways I doubt were intended. I have it sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen, in front of the sink. Once it’s been sitting for a day or so, the sand all settles to the bottom, and with the light behind it, it’s so clear—the dolphins, the sand, the blue rock. Everything peaceful. Then William will see it and start begging for it; two seconds later the sand has exploded and the only way to see the dolphins in the cloudy water is to turn the bottle again and again until one bumps up against the edge. The peacefulness of the ocean, the ocean in the storm. A perfect metaphor for the three-year old life.
On Will’s daily sheet the other day, we found out that he ate two helpings of mashed potatoes and corn, but skipped the meatloaf, probably a smart move. He was energetic, happy, busy as a bee. He napped from 12:45-3:05. And in the blank after “Today I did something special,” his teacher had written “I made an ocean in a bottle.” He came home happily shaking an old Pepsi bottle with a taped lid full of sand and a couple of shells and some sort of blue rock—and three dolphin/whale looking creatures. I wonder if Miss Amanda let the kids add the ocean water themselves; it looks like some combination of oil and water, although I’m not sure why the oil’s in there. I can just imagine the mess.
But the room seems to be in part about socializing the kids to handle things without too much mess—and certainly they deal with messes easily and without fuss. I took Laura and Will to the library Friday morning to sign them up for the summer reading program; we got a late start and then spent a while in the library, so we were late getting Will to daycare and came in just at lunchtime. He wanted us to stay for lunch, so we hung out a while and watched their lunch routine. One of the student interns and the assistant teacher got all the lunch things ready while the lead teacher read the kids a story—it’s this very complicated process. Get the lunch cart from the kitchen down the hall. Cover the manipulative play center (i.e., puzzle shelf) bookcase with a plastic table cloth and wipe the surface down with bleach water. Wipe the kids’ table too. Stack papers plates in a sort of pyramid on the bookcase—the kids can’t separate the plates themselves yet. Spread napkins around in a similar fashion. Add cups and spoons.
Once the eating area was all prepped and the story ended, Miss Amanda started singing this song to the tune of Bingo: “There was a boy in the Glow Worm class and . . . . Dalton was his name, oh! Dalton, you can wash your hands, Dalton you can wash your hands, Dalton you can wash your hands and then go eat your lunch!” The kids were all sitting around in a circle—on their spots, which are marked with little cutout animals with their names on them laminated to the floor—dying to be chosen to wash their hands, raising their hands and kind of bouncing quietly in place during the long pause before she would name the lucky child. In classic teacher mode, Miss Amanda chose the children who were “waiting so patiently” first.
As the kids actually made it over to the table, they dropped many cups, some before even sitting down. A couple of forks. A peach and a chicken patty or two made it to the floor. Crumbs of course are just part of the landscape. Extras of everything are ready on the lunch cart. But nobody spilled their milk, which they poured themselves from a tiny pitcher into their tiny glasses. And the quiet at the table (which Miss Amanda assured me was unusual)! Kids sort of politely asking for seconds. No pressure to eat green beans. Just six kids having lunch with three teachers, everybody happy, nobody complaining—although there is a rule that if you drop two forks you don’t get another. Was it just last week that Will’s note came home, explaining how he wouldn’t eat lunch and cried all afternoon?
That ocean in a bottle reminds me of Will’s day at school, in ways I doubt were intended. I have it sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen, in front of the sink. Once it’s been sitting for a day or so, the sand all settles to the bottom, and with the light behind it, it’s so clear—the dolphins, the sand, the blue rock. Everything peaceful. Then William will see it and start begging for it; two seconds later the sand has exploded and the only way to see the dolphins in the cloudy water is to turn the bottle again and again until one bumps up against the edge. The peacefulness of the ocean, the ocean in the storm. A perfect metaphor for the three-year old life.
posted by Lisa at 6/05/2005 06:27:00 AM
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