A Day in the Life: San Mateo ErdKinder Spring Festival preparation

Getting Ready for the Spring Festival!

Last week, the Erdkinder students spent a lot of time finishing up their innovative costuming for the dance "Resilience" in our Spring Festival celebration. As always, in an authentic Montessori environment such as ours, we give students significant latitude to be innovative - which by its very nature means that obstacles arise, problems occur, and there needs to be the space and commitment from the teachers and guides to allow students to resolve issues for themselves.

 Here, the students are using UV "glow" paint to make designs on their black clothing so that these will be luminous under the UV lights onstage.

Checking our props and costumes are complete: the students are 100% responsible for ensuring that they have everything they need for the celebration. Each is given a grocery bag to collect and keep all of her costumes, props and accessories. Each student organized these in advance of and during transportation to the event.

Costumes drying in the classroom. Note that the closet door is open... as students finished painting their clothes, they went into the closet and shut the door. Then, they turned on the UV light to check that their painting was thick enough to glow properly. They were very focused on ensuring that the end result would be the best quality they could achieve for audience enjoyment and the satisfaction of a job well done.

The head covering was difficult to achieve. After trial-and-error, large opaque black tights were procured. They were then cut up and converted into head stockings. Tape was then affixed to the face portion of the head stocking in pairs of geometrical shapes: square, circle, triangle, etc., to symbolize how we need to work together to problem-solve and develop resilience - the theme of this year's celebration!

 And - even though all of this was happening, there was still time for our regular work. These students are working on European geography.

 This week, the students had to do some trouble-shooting on the community's Bokashi composting venture. It was a pretty smelly job, but all plunged in with a great attitude. Our compost collection needs to be "recalibrated" to ensure it is correctly balanced.

Finally, to end an exciting and varied week, a representative from NAEP (National Association of Educational Progress) came and administered national "STEM" testing for what is called the "Nation's report card". All of the older students (equivalent of 8th grade), were tested for their understanding of math, science, engineering and technology concepts. Here he is with our students - a retired high-school band teacher! - explaining how to conduct the testing using the NAEP's online testing tool.

Even though we do not "teach to test" at PRINTS, we always welcome the chance to have the students experience testing...after all, for us it is a practical life lesson!