Montessori School of Greater Lafayette Blog

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• This is What They're Thankful For

  Somdatta and Felicia of the Canoe Birch Class and Cathy and Mary of the All-Day Program invited the children to tell who and what they are thankful for and then wrote their answers on leaves. Each class has a paper tree by the door displaying the children's gratitude. As this Thanksgiving Day draws to a close I thought it would be nice to share the gratitude of these 3, 4, and 5-year-olds with all of you. 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

    

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

   

  Enjoy your holiday weekend!

   

   

   

• This week I heard...

  “The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!" - Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

  

  The Spinosaurus
   

       Perhaps you like listening to and collecting phrases like I do. Our Montessori classrooms are great theaters for listening. Three, four, and five-year-olds are intensely thoughtful and they tell us so much about themselves just by talking with their friends. 

       This week I had the pleasure of working in the Willow, River Birch, and Canoe Birch classes and I collected as many fabulous phrases from the children as I could. The words are theirs, the spelling is mine.

  On being the first to arrive... "The only time I'm not first is when Mommy brings me. Daddy is faster than Mommy."

  "Frogs lay eggs, right? Butterflies lay eggs, right?"

  "I had my birthday before my brother's."

  "Our grandpa makes a Donald Duck sound."

  While drawing dinosaurs with friends... "It's a Spinosaurus. It's the biggest carnivore on land and it's name means lizard. It reaches in the water just a little bit and snatches a fish with it's crocodile long snout."

  "A drobeosaurus has toe claws and it goes 25 miles an hour."

  A different dinosaur friend... "It runs 100 and 90 hours. He has a bunch of blood in his body. It's called Spinadoctora Hundreds."

  "At my house I have five lipsticks. No, six."

  A child was looking for a bike to ride on the playground. I asked, "I see that blue bike is available. Would you like to ride that one?"  "No! he said. "I just fell off that one."

  "I'm trying to sing Let it Go, in German, but it's too hard." (The children in one class burst into singing "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen at least six times in one morning:)

  "Being in the sun is so much fun."

  "Will you do something interesting?"

  I like to listen to teachers, as well. I overheard a few of them talking about the possibility of having a couple of chickens at school and which type might be best suited to be Montessori chickens.

  "They're good egg layers, the Wyandotte's. "And they're peaceful."

  "I am concerned about them getting upset and flying up into the pine tree."

  "There is a 100% chance of them getting upset."

  
  Wyandotte chick

         May all your chickens be peaceful as you enjoy some fun in the sun this holiday weekend.

       ~ Heather

• Wayback Wednesday: 2001 - This Was a Church...

  ..and this was its steeple.

   

  Don Harvey and Tony Harvey ready the steeple for removal.

  When we remodeled the former Calvary Baptist Church in 2000-2001 to become our Montessori school, we had to replace a few fixtures. The steeple was detached from the roof and lowered by crane to the parking lot below.

    

   

      What do you do with a second-hand steeple? We gave it to a church down the road. 

  
  

       The demolition crew also removed the fiberglas baptistry by cutting it into pieces. All of the beautiful wood pews were sold. You can see one being used today in the school office. The colored windows were eventually replaced with clear glass. 

  
  

       This is what Building B looks like today. 

  

  Have a great Wednesday!

• One Duck's Destiny

  The Duck - portrait by Harriet.

  
  

  He could have landed anywhere. A bathtub in Chicago or maybe a swimming pool in Des Moines. But this rubber duck found a home inside an Illinois photographer’s toolbox. And for the past 30 years, he and his person, Harriet - a.k.a. “The Ducky Lady” - have traveled around the Midwest photographing school children.

  The Duck’s job is to draw a smile from the child just before Harriet makes the portrait. He does this by “tickling” the child’s nose or Harriet’s nose. Sometimes he sits on her head and waits for the child to “blow” him off. It’s theater, really. Ducky theater. And it’s wildly successful. The Ducky Lady’s school portraits are the best because the children’s smiles are real. They’re smiling because they are laughing at the goofy antics of this dynamic duck duo. Harriet explains her tactics.

  “In order to get the smile I am looking for, I try to make them feel comfortable,” she said. “For a second they forget they are supposed to smile and they just smile.”

  If you have been a student or teacher at MSGL you have smiled for The Duck and The Ducky Lady - probably many times. They have been taking photographs together at our school for 20 years. And, like me, you probably have questions about The Duck and his amazing person that you were too timid to ask. This year on picture day I was able to hang out behind the camera with The Duck and Harriet. They agreed to an interview for our blog.
  The first question I had to ask was, is this really the original Ducky? Is it the same one I smiled at 15 years ago?
  “Oh, that's the original one,” Harriet told me. “He’s thirty years old. He doesn't squeak anymore and he's glued all over.”
  So why doesn’t she just get a new duck?
  “This is the only duck I really like,” she explains, “because it’s perfectly flat and it sits on my head.”

  This is one lucky duck. He gets to see the world and he makes thousands of children smile every year. He is quite possibly one of the most famous rubber duckies in America - second only to the one in Ernie’s bathtub on Sesame Street. Over the course of his career he and The Ducky Lady have traveled to schools in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. He took to his career like, well, like a duck to water. But does he miss the water?
  That brings up another sensitive but important question. Why is he so dirty? Harriet explains that people think The Duck is dirty, but his feathers are just worn from years of being in show business. Getting picked up and placed on Harriet’s head every day has caused discoloration that won’t wash off.
  “I wash this duck every single day,” she admits.
  Just for fun, here is a photo of one of The Duck's siblings that was hatched at about the same time. Sure, he looks great but he hasn't spent his life on the road like our story's handsome hero. 

  
  
  

  I should mention that there ARE other ducks in the toolbox. They are small ducks that fit in Harriet’s pocket when she carries her camera and tripod to the classrooms to take group photos. But The Duck only works the main room. There is also a rubber frog that sometimes gets called up on the rare occasion that The Duck can’t get a child to laugh. Harriet’s experience tells her which toy to try.

  The Duck and friends hanging out in his custom toolbox.

  
  The Duck and the Ducky Lady do this show all day long. From September through November they are on the road 7 days a week. But Harriet is not complaining. She accepts her schedule with a smile.
  “I used to travel the entire winter, spring, and fall,” she says. “I don't care much for winter.”
  Now she spends the winter months doing freelancing work close to home. She also used to photograph weddings but discovered that her heart wasn’t in that business.
  "I just love children, so that’s what I do,” she says.

  
  

  Sometimes only your big brother can get you to smile.

  
  Harriet’s love for children shows in the way she works with them and sees them as individuals. She visits the same schools and remembers the children from year to year.
  “I do remember kids,” she says. “For some reason its easy for me to remember. I don't remember names but I remember behaviors, you know. And I remember the faces.”
  Harriet is one of the few photographers who still takes group photos inside the classroom. Most photographers today create a composite class photo made up of individual student photos. Harriet believes you can see more of the child’s personality when he or she is standing with their classmates. She also does all of the photo proofing and editing herself.
  “I have to because I know the children," she says. I know a child from the moment I started to work with them and no one can make this decision but me. For someone who has never interacted with the child it’s impossible because they don't know. I insist on doing this, always."
  Sometimes parents are frustrated when their child gives a cheesy grin in a photo or refuses to smile at all. The Ducky Lady has excellent advice for parents looking to get a nice photo of their child. She explains that children cannot really control their smile before the age of 5 or 6.
  “There is an age after that when the kids can control their smile. They want to look the way they want to look,” she says.
  Until then, we have to find ways to encourage them to be themselves. That’s why The Duck is so important. It’s practically impossible to say “Hi, silly ducky” and not smile. (Go ahead. Try it. See? Practically impossible.)

  She also encourages parents to let their children wear something comfortable on picture day. “Don't overdress them because children don't act the same way if they are overdressed,” Harriet suggests.

  
  

  Lena and Ian had VIP passes to meet The Duck backstage. Ian brought along his star-struck friend.

  
  It was great to spend picture day with Harriet and get answers to all of my (and your) questions about The Duck. But I had to confess that up until a few years ago, I didn’t even know she had a first name. I had always known her, as we all do, as “The Ducky Lady.” That seems to be how she likes it. But she was willing to share just a few personal details.
  Although The Duck doesn’t spend much time in the water outside of his daily bath, Harriet enjoys being outdoors when she’s not behind a camera.
  “I go kayaking and hiking. I belong to a kayaking group. That's what I do when I don't photograph," she says.
  A few years ago, our school director Suman invited Harriet and some friends from school on a trip to India. For Harriet, that was a dream come true. One favorite memory is of riding on an elephant with her friend Beth.
  “That was nice," she says, smiling. "India was my dream country. That's where I always wanted to go. I wanted to go there before they lose their saris and all the colors and become jeans people."
  At the end of picture day as Harriet packed up The Duck to leave MSGL, Lena and Anita made sure she got one of our tie-dyed school t-shirts. The shirt made Harriet really happy and I asked her why.
  “It’s yellow and orange,” she exclaimed. “My favorite colors!”

  
  

  
  

• Wayback Wednesday: Halloween Edition

  We're really reaching back here for Halloween gold - all the way back to 1989. Back in the day, the whole school had a costume parade in the Morton Center gymnasium. It was a big year for bunnies, clowns, and superheroes. 

  
  

  1989 costume parade in the Morton gymnasium.

  
  
  

  1989 costume party in Room D.

  
  
  

  1989 - Long-time teacher Durga Desai and Room A's costume parade.

  
  
  

  1990 - An apparently fabulous convocation with art, pumpkins, and puppets.

  
  

  2000? - Briana Hinds scrubbing a pumpkin in Cathy Stier's ADP class.

  
  
  

  2000? - Toddler class Halloween party. Mason Arndt facing camera.

  
  
  

  2001? - A Halloween tradition - Ginny Meyer greeting the children dressed in her spider costume.

  
  

  2003 - Becca and Tessa Farmer, Grace Harvey, Catherine Chua, Hannah Hawkins & friends at a Montessori family Halloween party.

  
  The classrooms don't dress in costumes as much anymore, but they usually go on field trips to the pumpkin patch.
  
  

  2004 - Miss Jennifer and the Toddler class carving a pumpkin.

  
  
  

  2004 - Darby B., Hannah D., and Bridget O. on a field trip to the pumpkin patch with Ana Orizondo's Willow class.

  
  
  

  2004 -Zoe with her treasured but kind of icky pumpkin.

  
  
  

  2005 - Revati Nemani helps a friend with the parts of the pumpkin work in Catalpa.

  
  
  

  2008 - Dana Adamson carving a pumpkin with River Birch children.

  
  
  

  2009 - Heather Harvey carving a pumpkin with River Birch class the following year.

  
  
  

  2010 - Elementary class goes to the pumpkin patch.

  
  
  

  2010 - Emma and Zach scoop out the pumpkin guts.

  
  
  

  2011 - Ashton's big haul from the pumpkin patch trip with Canoe Birch.

  
  
  

  2011 - Anita Trent helps carry Red Oak pumpkins from the patch to the bus.

  
  
  

  2012 - Willow class friends share a special fall party treat.

  
  
  I hope you have enjoyed our first-ever Halloween edition of Wayback Wednesday. If you know anyone in these photos and want to share their names with us (or our website with them) we would really appreciate it. Have fun tomorrow and I hope you get lots and lots of candy - or not. Whichever you prefer :)

• Wayback Wednesday: 2000 - Building MSGL - We got the keys and went to work

       On September 21, 2000, Montessori Parents, Inc. officially closed on the purchase of the property at 2552 Soldiers Home Road that would become the new campus of the Montessori School of Greater Lafayette. To celebrate and prepare for the next step, the board of directors and some staff and parents met that evening in the sanctuary of what was the former Calvary Baptist Church. Board president Craig Lamb offered a toast with champagne served in paper cups. 

  Board members, staff, and parents celebrate the beginning of the construction of the new MSGL campus.

  
  

       The next morning, demolition of the buildings began. MSGL parent Tony Harvey coordinated the building project. His father, Donald Harvey, was the general contractor.

  
  

  Don and Tony Harvey

  
  

       These are photos of the front of the sanctuary that is now the northwest corner of the Catalpa Room. When asked about these photos, Tony said that the gold walls on the left were part of the room that lead to the baptistry. "If you came to Calvary Baptist Church and you wanted to be saved," he explained, "you had to go through that room."
  

  Tearing out the walls of the former sanctuary to create the Catalpa Room.

  Just for perspective, this is the same wall four months later with new heat/ac, drywall, and paint.

  
  

       This was just the beginning of 5 months of hard and dirty work by many dedicated staff and parent volunteers. Three generations of families came together for one common goal. True friendships were forged. A lot of those people are still involved with MSGL today. I look forward to sharing the few photos and many stories of that time here on Wayback Wednesdays. If you were part of this amazing project and wish to share your stories, please add them as comments to the bottom of these posts or emaill me and I will be so happy to include them in an upcoming post. Of course, any photos you share will be greatly appreciated.
  
      Thanks for reading! Have a terrific Wednesday.