Learning with Books!
As summer rolls on here, I have noticed how amazing a good book is to learning! Bunny has found certain books inspiring and most of the time, it inspires her to do something creative as a result of it. Today was a perfect example of this. The book was a story I grabbed at the library to read. It honestly isn’t a well written story and I really didn’t like it a lot. It was good for a quick good night story, but I wouldn’t read it more then once. However, this book captured Bunny’s imagination! In the story, Isabella is asked by her Dad to help out with his to do list. She always tells her Dad that she is somewhere else. One time she is an archaeologist at the pyramids, another time she was an artist at the Eiffel Tower, another time she was the Statue of Liberty, etc! I did love that it incorporated all of these great places in the world, so did Bunny! She read this book and then it started a whole day of little projects! She started by drawing a picture of Big Ben in London (it was in the book) and a picture of the Statue of Liberty. This she made into a card to send to her writing bunny in England. She even wrote a bit of it herself! After that she dug out the Around the World Toob Objects from the continent boxes. I suggested she could make a map of where Isabella went or to make a map book of where the different landmarks are in the world. She didn’t like my ideas however, and instead matched them to the book. She even sorted them by tall landmarks and short ones. I can see how amazingly easy it is for her to want more information and to go after it, just from reading a book! I am hoping so very much that this is a good start for the fall when I introduce the Great Lessons! The Great Lesson are stories told in a Montessori Elementary class about the beginning of the world that are a told in such a way that they inspire a child to look for more information! The goal is that we can inflame a child’s imagination, and this will lead them to want to learn more! So it is fun to watch Bunny start to learn that way. To hear a story and then learn more about something in the story is a HUGE part of the Montessori Elementary. It is so cool to see how it works so naturally! I again am so amazed at the gift of watching a child learn naturally! It really affirms my goals to stick to the basics, and keep it simple in the fall!