The following story was created by 3 4-year olds.  At my children’s school, the early  childhood curriculum/theme is dictated by the children and their interests.  Zoë’s class was fascinated with natural materials–sticks, leaves, stones, and making books.  So, natural materials, the natural world and books became the year’s focus and all areas of the curriculum were taught through the exploration of the natural world.  It’s great because the culminating project in their classes are never the exact same.

The final project in Zoë’s class was a collection of stories written by the students.  Below you will read the story written by Zoë and two of her classmates.

This is the Earth Flower.  It’s a flower that everybody lives in.  There’s an earth inside of the flower.  Bees come to take the earth out because there’s pollen inside this flower.  The bees actually come and take all the earth’s pollen, but when it’s nighttime, the earth takes all the pollen back.  

The bees live in the earth, and they make honey for the earth.  The bees give it to the earth, and then the earth gives it back.  Then somebody takes the Earth Flower and makes it into more flowers. 

The Earth Flowers die at some point.  They turn littler and littler until they die, except for the big one.  It stays alive.  People live in the Earth Flower; they just walk around and they have houses.  The bees are nice and they don’t sting anyone at all.  Because the Earth Flower somehow died, it doesn’t stay how it looks forever.  It changes.  the stem somehow pops off, and it turns into the regular earth.  The people didn’t know what to do, but they had an idea. They put some tape in a big line and what they did was they turned it back into the Earth Flower. 

I read this story and I see so many of the things that Zoë (and her classmates) learned at school.  They spend one to two mornings a weeks in the greenhouse or on and “adventure” with the sustainability teacher.  This story showcases the emerging understanding of pollination and it is beautiful.

It is moments like these that remind me of what our children are capable of doing and understanding. If only we stopped seeing their limitations and only saw their potential–what a beautiful world we would live in.