Down Under

This image is perfect for us here at Chickadee this summer, as we explore Australia.  It came through my Facebook feed a few weeks ago, so of course I saved it.  It's an image that resonates deeply within our collective human memory, our shared story. The Aborigines have lived for 40,000+ years on their home continent, far longer than any other existing people on earth.  We cannot even imagine it.

The words of this aboriginal proverb is meaningful on many levels too.  Actually, Erin and I live this mission as Montessorians, it could be our mantra: "Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love ....."   And all of us as parents, all of us as children of the earth, have much to learn from this ancient perspective.  So I had to share it with you....

And so we've been "down under" during these weeks of summer.   It's been an ebb and flow of exploration, in the midst of many other joys of the season.   We've had a whole set of biome materials about Australia - I borrowed them from Harmony Montessori, my old school.  Supported by our previous learning about biomes, it didn't take the older ones long to develop an image of the continent, using this puzzle map - orange is the outback desert, yellow the grasslands, green are the temperate forests on the eastern and northern sides, dark green the tropical forests in the north.

Many weeks ago we painted this big map, and then the kids began coloring and tracing animals from the different biomes to tape up on it.  And marsupials!  So many marsupials.  I began writing down a list, one by one, as we came across these animals in our books and stories. These are the ones we have listed so far:  wallaby, bandicoot, marsupial mole, bilby, wombat, quoll, dinnart, numbat, Tasmanian devil, cuscus, wallaroo, tree kangaroo, ningaui, quokka, pandemelon, bettong, sugar glider.....  Amazing.  We will surely add more in the next two weeks.

This Australian theme has been especially blessed by Trevor's mom Amy, who grew up there (I'd forgotten this when I chose it).   Her family saved all their childhood books, and she has many other Australian artifacts.  It's been a treasure trove for us.  She brought in at least 20 books - many must now be out of print - all kinds of books about Australian animals and imaginary stories for children - engaging, unique, and vivid.  So enriching, such a blessing for us.  Thank you Amy!

It was my June visit to the Seattle Art Museum that led me to choose Australia for this summer, after viewing their current, absolutely stunning contemporary aboriginal art exhibit.  So it's been a time for dot painting, and for story telling using symbols from ancient aboriginal rock painting.  The children drew and made up their story as they went, then each child told it to us and we wrote it down.


They are hard to see in this photo.   Ava's is on the middle left:  "A person was gathering some food plants, and then she walked until she came to another person with a shield and a spear.  They walked on until they came to the waterhole where they sat under the sun.  Then it rained."  Or Morgan's on the bottom right, "A girl was sitting by a water hole when she saw a possum walking and an emu running.  She decided to follow the emu, and she caught up with it by the river, and it began to rain.  Then the sun dried up the rain."

The children have painted these same symbols - think of it, images many thousands of years old - on their T-shirts.  This has been a focused, one-on-one project for each child, with Erin helping just as little or much as is needed.

The T-shirt will be one small keepsake from the summer.  Another keepsake are their art projects. And then there are the ephemeral or inexpressible memories that will live in your children in ways we cannot know - music and stories,  ideas and knowledge, about another amazing part of our shared planet.

Echidna, trilling frog, and koala,

     Blue argus butterfly, kookaburra, and tree kangaroo,

         Sugar glider and crimson rosella.

              We are all connected.