Each year, project work takes on a life of it’s own.  As a teacher, it’s one of the most exciting as well as one of the most challenging parts of the work we do.  Following the children’s lead requires a high level of attentiveness and reflection, as well as a willingness to let go of a certain degree of control.

One of the important elements of our work is documenting the children’s words.  A benefit of having more than one teacher, one of us is often recording the children’s words while the other mediates the discussion.  This allows us to look back at our conversation and identify the main ideas and strands that will take us to the next step.

At the ages of 7 and 8, children still retain a strong element of magical thinking while also thinking more concretely about the world.  This magical thinking is something that is often dismissed or shut down by adults (or older children) but it is often the very thing that opens up questions and possibilities that lead to our richest explorations.

One of the most intriguing provocations was brought to us by our Atelierista Anna Golden who told us about scientists who discovered that trees respond defensively to the sounds that caterpillars make when eating their leaves. When caterpillars begin munching on leaves, trees normally emit an unpleasant chemical to deter the caterpillars.  Scientists then recorded the sound of caterpillar feeding vibrations and played it back to a tree, and the tree emitted the chemical in response!

The children asked,

“ Do trees have ears?” 

Powered by both their observations of the natural world and their magical thinking, a rich project unfolded.

Here are just a few of their thoughts which we recorded during some of the project time discussions which helped inform the direction of our explorations and conversations.

On the life of trees:

Syd: I heard a beat in the log.  If it didn’t have a heart it couldn’t stay alive.

Julia: I don’t actually think trees have hearts but I think there is something that keeps them alive.

Shayna: I don’t think they really have a heart that’s like a human but it has something that helps all of the water to flow through the tree and helps.

Zoey: I think inside of a brain there would be a controller of a tree that tells it what to do.

On communicating with trees: 

Eve: You can’t actually communicate to it.  It probably can’t hear you…since it probably doesn’t know what you’re saying.  It can’t speak but it can feel you speaking through it’s roots.

Zoey: I think you could tap the ground to the beat of what you’re saying to so trees can hear the vibrations, and then listen to the tree and it might give you a tap back if you listen.

Shayna: I think that the roots absorb the sound and then it goes into the tree. The roots hear it- the tree doesn’t.

Kate: When I’m home I’m eating dinner sometimes I look into trees and I see a K there. It’s communicating things while it’s growing.

Shayna:  If anyone has lettuce you should eat it and see if the tree does anything about it. Someone would have a stethoscope and see if it’s different afterwards.

Reflecting on some of their experiments: 

Zoey: I stomped under a tree and then used a stethoscope on the tree while I was talking and I heard vibrations of me and Syd stomping on the ground.

Shayna: I ate my snack and Julia listened…..I think there was a response to the munching.  Me and Avery listened to our hearts and we could hear it thumping, so if a tree had heart then you would be able to hear it.

Syd: We could have three plans and then X them out if they don’t work.

On the similarity between trees and humans: 

Lorelai: The tree itself looks like a human.

Annabel: The leaves are like our hair.  Soft like hair and beautiful.

Kenny: Bark and skin are alike and are pretty much for the same purposes.

Julia: [Like leaves and branches] our hair, fingernails, and teeth all fall off and grow back.

Shayna: Trees defend themselves with chemicals.  We use our words, and sometimes our hands…and bodies.

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