Following the Child into the Cretaceous Period and/or the Second Plane

I have a very interesting child in my classroom. We'll call him Raj. Raj is my oldest third year student. I'm pretty sure that many other teachers would classify him as ADD or ADHD. Raj has trouble sitting still. He certainly can't stop talking. He often finds himself pushing, shoving or wrestling with other children and he has no idea how his physical actions got so out of hand. He is also incredibly bright, creative and quick. He memorizes facts easily and while it's hard for him to sit through a book or story, he can't get enough information about things that interest him. For the most part, getting him to do work is like pulling teeth. He constantly turns materials into "army men" or "transformers". He will do this with anything - knobbed cylinders, binomial cube - anything with small pieces. His greatest focus come from drawing - which he would do for 8 hours if we had enough paper. Needless to say, I'm constantly searching for a hook to get him to do something cerebral.

As a Montessori teacher, I am trained to be aware of those moments that show an interest for him and maximize them to their fullest. Even though Raj can drive me crazy, I love working with him because I know how capable he is. When he pulls it out of himself, it's always impressive.

When we returned from winter break, Raj was talking my ear off about Dinosaur Dan. I had to look it up, but apparently this is a show on Nick Jr. I asked him if he wanted to work with our classroom Dinosaur Cards. (Note: I don't always put out Dinosaur cards because I think it can be difficult for children to understand the idea of extinction, let alone the millions of years. However, I keep them in my closet because every once in a while I have a child who is obsessed with Dinosaurs and, of course, for moments like this.) My Dinosaur Cards (technically Prehistoric Animals) are from Montessori for Everyone and can be found here.

Raj went nuts for them. He took them out repeatedly and I told him stories about some of the dinosaurs. (Yes, I had to do some extra research) He loved that the Camptosaurus had no front teeth, only side teeth to chew grass and vegetables. He thought the Hadrosaurus, which has a duck-billed face was hilarious. And, of course, T-Rex is his favorite.

After two days of discussions with loads of great questions from him ("But how does the T-Rex protect himself with those little arms? I mean, the Ankylosaurus has spikes and a ball on his tail!") and three period lessons, I saw the passion starting to wane. That's always the challenge with Raj, everything is fleeting for him. At one point, I found him setting up the cards and pretending to engage the dinosaurs in "fights". I was somewhat exasperated and disappointed, so I said to him: "That's not what those cards are for. Besides, that's not even plausible because not all of those dinosaurs lived at the same time."

Like a horse turning its ear to focus on a noise, his eyes peaked up. "What do you mean?" A giant siren and lightbulb went off in my head and I told him he'd find out tomorrow.

I went home and set to work on a mini dino timeline. Raj is nearly 6 and his interest was peaking. This was going to be perfect timing. I figured why not try a little of my Elementary training out. Here is what I made.

I divided the paper into three sections: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. I also put a picture of what the world looked like during these periods. (This is because I want to later point out where the bones were found and he can see that some of the continents were once connected.) I placed the prehistoric animals on the timeline based on when they lived. I only added one dinosaur that was not in the Montessori For Everyone set. I added the Plateosaurus to the Triassic period. I thought it was important to note that dinosaurs began to emerge then (as well as mammals), but their reign came later.

Here is a close up of the Cretaceous period. Also, I want to note that I didn't have any color ink, so I photocopied my cards at school and colored them in with colored pencils at home. The cards from M for E are a bit more vibrant.

When I opened the timeline, Raj immediately noticed the Plateosaurus and pointed out that it was not in our set. I then told him a story about the emergence and extinction of the dinosaurs. Raj requested to get the set of cards and match them to timeline. He practically ran to get the cards. After he matched them up, I suggested that he make his own timeline. I taped some paper together and told him to use colored pencils. He was set with this work for over an hour. He decided to place the paper over the timeline to trace the outline of the dinos and then used the cards as a reference to add in any details he had missed.

This is Raj's timeline:

And a close up of the Cretaceous:

I'm hoping that he will put the names of the dinosaurs and time periods on there tomorrow. Nonetheless, I was so happy that my time line hook worked for Raj. His work is great and impressive! Furthermore, it shows to me, once again, how Montessori can be a positive solution or outlet for children who seem to be "antsy", "hyper" or "over-active". For the record, Raj was none of those things while he was busy working on his time line. I just had to find his hook.