The Farmer In the Dell

The Farmer takes a wife, the wife takes a child, the child takes a nurse, the nurse takes a cow, the cow takes a dog, the dog takes a cat, the cat takes a rat, the rat takes the cheese and the cheese stands alone. Heigh Ho the Derry-O

Kenz sang this to me on the way home from preschool today. I had forgotten about it. That's one of the nice things about grandparenting, you remember songs from your children's earlier days and then you remember them again from your childhood. I can almost remember standing in a circle waiting for a turn to be anything, a farmer, a wife even a cheese.

We cannot under estimate how much is happening in the mind and memory of a child participating in a game then recalling the song to sing to a parent or grandparent.

I love Maria Montessori's philosophy.

The Main Premises of Montessori Education are:

Children are to be respected as different from adults and as individuals who differ from each other.

The child possesses an unusual sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb and learn from his environment that is unlike those of the adult both in quality and capacity.

The most important years of a child's growth are the first six years of life when unconscious learning is gradually brought to the conscious level.

The child has a deep love and need for purposeful work.

He works, however, not as an adult for completion of a job, but the sake of an activity itself. It is this activity, which enables him to accomplish his most important goal: the development of himself, his mental physical and psychological powers.

With this depth of understanding..... the cheese could certainly..... stand alone.

By the way what is a dell?

In physical geography, a dell is a small wooded valley. Like "dale", the word "dell" is derived from the Old English language dæl.