It’s not really mine, it’s as old as the hills. It’s sort of maths.. and It goes something like Input in + time to simmer in child’s head = new ideas, even output.

The Montessori method has the concept of the great lessons where you have a big reverent display of a big idea like the passage of time starting with the big bang. The kids watch. There are no worksheets, no close activities, no repeat back to me and the kids are left to make of it what they will and follow their own related, semi related ideas…. using it as a springboard to discover their own black holes. I think of it as a seed.

Today’s little seed was National Radio’s Kim Hill interviewing Brett Doar. My father looks the programme up in advance, all the better to time his constitutional (walk or bike ride) and he saw the video of OK Go ‘This too shall Pass’ and wanted to show Helena. Reporting back to me about it I couldn’t tell if she liked it so I watched it with her, then we watched again… I don’t think she noticed it was a music video. There was another link to a Heihei (NZ kids TV? or some new fangled  something) and a programme called What’s Your Problem?. It has kids in it. It has real things and shows you how to make them. It has humor. We watched it then HAD to show it to Dad. Next minute Helena is off outside in her own world with some boxes and tape and I’m in mine doing some household chore. This is a marble run. It has two entrances and two exits, the tracks cross in the box.

This Helena jumping for joy when it works….

Brett Doar talked a little about being a kid and he sounded somewhat like Helena the compulsive maker. This may just be a little flower she’s made or maybe it’ll turn into a tree. Some seeds don’t even appear to germinate – wrong season? I don’t think the seed analogy totally works with my ideas of gardening. I have this idea that the seeds will plant themselves where they like to grow so I let things go to seed. I also like things tidy and weed. Helena likes to plant the weeds in her garden. Hmmm