EUROPE 2025
This blog post shares: art, Montessori, art, Montessori, then . . . Art & Montessori
Recovering from Covid a few years ago I did not have the energy to stand at an easel and paint, my favorite healing practice. So I tried acrylic painting because I could sit down and paint whatever came to my mind. Acrylic paint dries very quickly so changes are easy, and a satisfying painting can be created much more quickly than with oil paint. But after years of making art of many kinds this was my first acrylic experiment, and I made a lot of errors. However, during the end of the time in Romania I was invited by my hosts Catalina and Catalin Ivan and their three daughters, Alexandra, Teodora, and Victoria (my unofficial Romanian goddaughters since we met seven years ago) to visit the studio of the most famous artist in Romania, Felix Aftene. I had seen an exhibit of his work at the Palace of Culture in Iași three years ago, and this year at the new airport.
Mindfulness in Nature
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
As a break from the political and environmental turmoil in the globe at this moment, I am focusing today on nature. This is a special time of year for me because for several weeks each fall the maple trees in our garden slowly change color.
Paris
Arriving in France I was met at the airport by an American/French colleague, Patricia Peterson-Fontenay, who is doing a lot of good Montessori work for children in Madagascar. A very small airline provides non-stop flights from Iași, Romana to the Beauvais–Tillé Airport (BVA), 50 miles from Paris so we had plenty of time to talk on the way to her home. I felt very comfortable in this part of Paris, Le quartier du vieux Saint-Maur. The streets were filled with flowers and trees; silence reigned just like home; and in the night I could watch from my window as two foxes explored the garden, lit up by motion sensors!
Bordeaux
I had not taken a train since traveling from Delhi, India to somewhere (I forget where) many years ago. It felt strange to be moving along on the planet earth smoothly rather than having to wear a seatbelt and be always prepared for ups and downs of plane travel. Finally, I arrived in Bordeaux to visit old friends from our shared year in the international student house in Washington DC where they were in graduate school and I was taking Montessori 6 to 12 training in 1976-1977.
My daughter Narda suggested that we visit the wine museum where we found even more beauty of nature, pictures and videos of grapes and the development of wine throughout history and at the end a small glass of our choice as we stood on the balcony and looked out over the city.
Vinyards and wine culture is very important in many parts of the world and I learned a lot at the museum. For example, even having experienced participating in picking grapes in a local vineyard here in California, I had no idea how much work there is all during the year, not just during the harvest season. There is no down time.
Years ago, I visited the Montessori elementary class in Rome where the students, in their study of botany and food of the world, were creating a timeline of growing grapes and making wine. In many places where this is part of the culture it must be a wonderful experience of nature when children grow up aware of the planting and care of grapevines.
Montessori Botany
Care of plants, gardening, and experiences in nature are part of Montessori education at all ages. When children love and care for nature when they are young, they will do the same as adults.
In 2018 I lectured at the first AMI Montessori teacher training course in Casablanca Morocco. One day my host and hostess offered their beautiful garden for our botany study so teachers-in-training could explore all the leaves, stems, flowers, trees, and plants that they were learning about through lectures. This would give them real hands-on experiences which was excellent preparation for their later work with children.
They searched for leaves to match the leaf shapes of the leaf cabinet back in the classroom, photographed the variations in venation, discussed whether a leaf was compound or simple, and the opposite or alternate attachment of leaves to the stem. It was sometimes easy and sometimes almost impossible to locate flower stamens, and so interesting to thinking about what pollinator was attracted to the variety of corolla shapes. I overheard discussions about the true botanical shape of the Sansevieria leaf and, when one student noticed that all of the smooth-edged leaves she had found also had linear veins, the search was on.
We stayed much longer than planned and it was difficult to pull them away from this exciting exploration. Students were taking closeup pictures with their phones till the very last minute as they reluctantly left the garden to head back to the school, École Montessori Casablanca, where the training was taking place. I am sure this enthusiasm will be shared with their students when they are Montessori teachers.
The book that result of this Montessori course
Here is a list of the botany work from this book: practical hands-on movement activities, sensorial experiences and classification of those experiences, and the accompanying language. These are chapters from the book:
THE WORK OF THE ADULT
Leaf Collection … page 35
THE WORK OF THE CHILD
Culture, Botany … page 109
The Language of Culture … page 246
For more information here are two links:
CLICK: Red Corolla
CLICK: Red Corolla blog post
I hope this blog post inspires you to take a moment to be still with the beauty of nature found in your own place. It is always there waiting.
You are welcome to share anything you find here.
Thank you,
Susan
Home page – CLICK: Susan