Over the
past couple of months Thailand has been receiving continuous rainfall which
prompted the discussion about rain water at our classrooms. The children shared
their ideas on the importance of rain water and how to take care of themselves
during rainy season.
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| Watering the crops activity |
We also
talked about different types of food crops that grew during rainy seasons and
we saw curiosity and deep interests on the lesson as the children gave amazing
suggestions from corn, morning glory, salad, long beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, kales,
onions, carrots etc.
We extended
our discussion to the outside of our classrooms in order to have the children
interact and experience nature through gardening.
Dr. Maria
Montessori believed that nature was the most important place of learning for
children. Montessori also saw the importance of connecting the children with
nature in order to give them opportunity to experience with the natural world
and to teach them to respect it.
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| Harvesting the vegetables at Wangpha,Huay mai pen & Namdip Schools |
Thereafter, we
invited the children to choose the
seed crops they wished to plant, and
surprisingly most of them settled for morning glory, onions, Kales while others
on corn.
The children
loved the idea of digging the soft soaked soil and getting their hands dirty.
Together we prepared the garden beds, made rows, planted the seeds, and
sometimes watered and watched them sprout and grow. Each morning the children
could visit the garden to check on any new growth and learned a lot more by
observing the growing process and nurturing the seedlings from beginning to grown
plants. Besides planting and nurturing the plants the children were sure of
harvesting and preparing their crops for food which provided them with a unique
opportunity to learn how to keep their bodies healthy by eating lots of
vegetables. The gardening activity encouraged the children to be good
environment stewards and also created a sense of responsibility.
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| Washing the vegeatables - Practical life activity |
“When children
come into contact with nature, they reveal their strength”. Dr. Maria Montessori
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| Finally the children enjoyed their vegetables meal- Yummy, Yummy! |
