Wednesday, April 1, 2009

More Star Wars in day care

So last month, my son's day care actually did a unit on Star Wars. The children were clearly obsessed with it, and the child-led curriculum means that the children's obsessions should guide the teachers' choice of themes, so there you go.

I was surprised to hear of this decision, but I have so much faith in his teachers that I knew they would make a great unit out of it, and they did. They paid the most attention to the idea of Jedi life and training. The children did Jedi meditation. (I'm not sure exactly what that looked like, but anything that introduces the idea that sitting still and quietly is an activity unto itself, and not just something you do so that you can see/hear someone else doing something, is a great thing in my book.) They went through a "Jedi training camp" that the teachers set up on the playground--running from here to there, climbing over this and that, pushups, jumping jacks, and my favorite part: running with a backpack full of blocks, as Luke ran with Yoda on his back. They made "Wookiee cookies." They talked about doing kind and helpful and useful things, like Jedi.

It was pretty cool.

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