Acacia in the Desert

The Mystery Bag is a much-loved activity that has yet to lose its fun with the children.  I use it as a high-interest hook to draw the kids away from free play into group time.  After the activity, they’re already in a circle and in a concentrating sort of mood, so it’s easier to transition to the Bible story.  The original instructions state that each child should place his hand in the bag, describe what he is feeling (“I feel something soft and round”), make a guess as to what it is, then remove the object to check how accurate his guess is.  Our class attempted this.

Teacher – I feel something hard and poky…I think it is the star. Pulls it out. I’m right!  Passes bag to girl on right.

Girly Princess – Furrows brow, and carefully feels around bag. I feel something…brown?  Um…

Mischievous Cherubic Boy -  Figures he’ll take a shortcut, for why would he bother guessing when he could just pull it out? It’s a soldier!  Bang!  Bang!

The children simply did not have the vocabulary to think of adjectives to describe the objects before pulling it out.  So I changed the rules so that each child had to tell me what they were planning to pull out before they put their hand it.  That way, they’re still focusing on the tactile input coming into their brain. That worked out well.

Today, I dumped out the bag, and set out retiring some of the pieces and adding others.

The Favorites

The favorite objects seem to be ones that children can do something with.  The prism is always the first out, and promptly brought up to the eyes to look at the light through it.  The jingle bell can be rung, so it is generally second.  The boys like the metal soldier for reasons beyond my comprehension.  The bracelet can be put on the wrist, and one can put things in the velvet bag.

The Second-Stringers

The star has an easily identifiable shape, and the little bear is kinda cute.  The wooden knob, stone, cotton ball and shell eventually do get picked.   This shell is made of sterner stuff than the first shell I used, which broke within the first week.

The Rejects

I’m getting rid of the lego because I feel like it, and the penny because it always falls to the bottom of the bag and is difficult to find.  The ribbon tends to stick to a child’s fingers when she is trying to pull another toy out.

The Additions

I’ve got a pair of buzz magnets around the house somewhere that I’m going to add.  I’m also throwing in a plastic horse, and a dollhouse sized wooden barrel with a lid that comes off and on.

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Observations

Adherents of the Montessori method claim that children naturally enjoy and choose the Montessori activities.  In fact, Maria Montessori first picked which activities to keep in her classroom by observing what the children chose to spend their time with.

Montessori classes require an uninterrupted independent  three hour work period, and a prepared environment.

In my Sunday School class I have 1 and 1/4 hour teaching time. As it is a room shared with another class, any materials must be portable, brought in immediately before teaching, and taken down immediately after.

Research Question

Will 4-and5-year-olds actually enjoy a sensorial activity?  Can some semblance of the activity happen in my not-very-Montessori classroom?  And will it be a worthwhile activity?

(worth·while adj.  Sufficiently structured and engaging; distracts Boy #1 and Boy #2 from climbing to the top of the art easel and screaming madly)

Experiment

Using materials from the dollar store, and some essential oils which I already owned, I created Smelling Jars.  I dearly wished for some myrrh to use as a scent, but alas, I had none.  I did use some juniper berry, as well as cedarwood and cinnamon — all materials mentioned in the Bible.  A snippet of yarn was placed in each jar, so that each pair would require one blue jar and one orange jar.

Results

The kids enjoyed it!  They crowded around, unscrewing lids, smelling each smell, excitedly holding it up so I could also smell this new and interesting scent, and carefully repeating the scent names after me.  As the new activity in the room, no one wanted to play with puzzles or blocks, only these.  Which kinda backfired because…

Smelling Jars does not work as a group activity.  At all.  Way too chaotic.  I even tried it the next Sunday to be sure.  This activity really needs a “prepared environment” classroom, so that all the activities have the same level of newness.

I kinda had fun with it though.  Now that the bottles are made, I may use them during a lesson on Solomon building the temple (cinnamon was used in incense, and cedarwood for the walls), or for the Christmas story.

But I’ll need to buy that myrrh first.

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