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 Dewey- School and Social Progress 
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I loved the history lesson children got about cotton and wool. It was not a lesson they read about in a book but rather an experience where they made their own conclusions and discoveries. I'm sure they got so much more from the lesson this way.

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kristi


Sat Feb 15, 2003 8:20 pm
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Kristi, I also thought it was a neat lesson. It is unfortunate that we do not have enough time and resources to let children participate in more hands-on learning experiences. I am amazed at how excited my reading students are when we have cooking experiences in class. I feel like my students learn much more than reading skills from these experiences.
Cindy


Sun Feb 16, 2003 10:49 am
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have you ever read any of the work by maria montessori? she advocated just such things in the education of children nearly a century ago. teach what is relevant to a child's life and teach it in its natural context.


Sun Feb 16, 2003 7:41 pm
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Kristi, I also thought that the lesson was good about experiencing the actual lesson and discoveries made by the children. I think the old cliche "experience is the best teacher" applies to all no matter what century! I think many of us learn best by doing. I feel at times that we are so taxed to get in everything that for our grade level that we move quickly to cover material. This type of learning would be beneficial for all children.


Sun Feb 16, 2003 7:57 pm
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Location: Dudley Shoals Elementary
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I try to get cotton every year to bring to my class. They discover the seeds in the cotton and they also see how hard it is to get the seeds out. Now I need to get wool. I loved the comparison. Anyone have any contacts for getting wool? I have found that children are not playing outside exploring as they used to. We take for granted that they know an acorn is a seed. They are involved in organized sports and are not outside exploring and discovering anymore. We need to bring everyday things we take for granted into the classroom.


Sun Feb 16, 2003 8:58 pm
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i have a friend in 4 h who always brings sheep to the burke county fair and shears them for kids to watch the process. i am certain i could get some wool from him later this summer or fall. remind me and i will be glad to get you some.
p.s. it is really neat to watch a person shear who is good at it. they can get alamost the entire fleece in one piece.


Mon Feb 17, 2003 5:32 pm
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I really liked the cotton lesson, too. I can't recall having ever even touched cotton directly from the plant, but I do know that I am glad that I don't have to pick it. My grandmother has told me about picking cotton as a child. She hated it, so one Saturday when she and her brother were sent to the field to pick, they pulled unopened bolls off the stalk and tried to set them on fire. I read a book last summer that was about the life of a young boy and his families life during one season of picking cotton. (A Painted House) It really gave a good description of how miserable and painful the job of picking cotton is. It's so easy to forget or for some young students to never know that the clothes they are wearing came from a plant and that at one time it was picked by hand. The cotton lesson would be something that students would remember. As I think back on my years in school, those are the types of lessons that have stuck in my mind. Lessons where we were actually involved in doing something rather than paper and pencil tasks. In one of my classes in junior high, I made a pillow. I remember in detail what and how it was done. I even remember the material I used, but in one of my science classes everyday we spent the whole class time copying pages of notes from an overhead. I don't remember anything I wrote down. The only thing I learned from that class was how to copy quickly. There were so many notes that you only had a few minutes before the next page was put on the overhead. The teacher wanted to make sure that we got all the notes because there would be even more to copy the next day if we got behind.


Tue Feb 18, 2003 12:13 am
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I agree with all of you; the cotton/wool lesson was very good! I think that we would like to do much more of this type lesson with our children and that we don't feel comfortable sometimes because we are pushed so much to teach toward the test, and we feel we can't take the time to let the children explore this way in the classroom. I totally agree with you, Cathy, that our students don't spend the time that they used to outside, and they have no idea what they are missing in nature.

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Kathy


Tue Feb 18, 2003 10:14 am
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I agree that hands on lessons are great for kids. In teaching kindergarten, a large majority of our day is spent in hands on learning activities. Our curriculum allows time for that. It is too bad that as the children grow older, less and less time is spent for that. Not because the teacher doesn't want to do it, but because there is so much focus on testing or covering all of the basics in such a short time.


Tue Feb 18, 2003 10:35 am
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Hands on lessons are wonderful experiences for children! I feel that I don't have the resources or time to spend on many hands on lessons when I constantly feel the pressure of the EOG tests. I also agree that many of the children today don't have enough experiences to understand what we're trying to teach. Many of my students talk about playing with the Playstation instead of going outside and participating in activities. So few of my students are involved in extra curricular activities which often promote cooperation and responsibility.


Tue Feb 18, 2003 12:38 pm
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Airlie, my niece and husband have sent both of their children to Montessori school in Raleigh. Kat started at two and attended until she was five. Alex is two and started last fall. It is an interesting concept, and definitely one I would like to learn more about. What I do know is that both kids are extremely inquisitive about how things work.


Tue Feb 18, 2003 2:30 pm
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