Spontaneous Work

This week, a teacher and I were standing chatting at the end of the day, looking at a table that was earlier filled with paper, glue sticks, scissors and odds and ends. Later in the week, I watched as a completely different cohort worked in front of me, with a few friends rummaging through the recycling. Even though we see it throughout the year, the end of the year brings more bursts of spontaneous work in the classroom.

Most Montessori works are set up with a lot of structure, with a tray and only one person using it at a time. All the materials are carefully laid out, steps meticulously taught and a clear process that each child should follow. For most of us, seeing a table with “chaos” brings out some control issues that all Montessorians have to some degree. However, I have to stop myself from ending this work and go back to the philosophy of “Follow the Child”. And at this moment, that child needs to create with their hands, make what is in their mind. Given some basic rules, most children are given freedom in the classroom to engage in this spontaneous, creative work. After all, there is method to the madness: fine motor skills such as cutting, gluing and drawing are being used. Imagination is used to make beautiful 3-D art pieces with paper and color pencils (and occasional boxes from our recycling).

All teachers agree that if there is a plan in their minds, and if the space is left clean after the work is done, the children should be allowed the freedom to put into work the skills that they have worked on all year long. We usually have a different approach to this kind of work at the beginning of the year. However, by this time, the older ones want to use their knowledge of their environment (where all the paper is, where the scissors are), the skills they have practiced and the knowledge they have gained from our curriculum. The result might be tiny color wheels made from dots from the three-hole-punch or a monster’s mouth with 3-D teeth sticking up.

Another type of spontaneous work the happened this week is shown in the picture below:

The teacher realized that a lot of children were not getting anything done because of distractions by all the critters that have come out this week. She also knew that there was no way around this. Instead, this became an opportunity to count, make charts and teach children how to group by 5s. Other than some healthy debate on whether the bug had been “counted” before, instantly the entire class was engaged and working together.

Spontaneous work such as this is much more common at home, especially with more open-ended materials such as blocks, Magna-tiles, etc. Even just having paper, pencils and markers available to your child helps them to have an outlet when inspiration strikes. While I am sure different households have different tolerance levels to this type of work, but who knows what could be made from that empty toilet paper roll?