parts of a pear- observation

After many days sorting, washing, cutting, tasting, cooking and observing pears, the extended primary class spent a day drawing them.  In line with my Montessori roots and Reggio philosophy, I believe it is critical for children to have lots of hands-on experience with something before they delve into more structured activities, thus curiosity and wonder progress into a desire to discover.

Instead of telling the children what the parts of a pear are (rather straightforward and boring), I simply ask a lot of questions.  "I wonder what this is? And what does it do?" (pointing at a stem)  I don't assume a possession of authority, but engage in equal measure with their adventurous spirit of investigation.  They come up with great answers every time: "It holds the tree", "It grows the pear", "It keeps it on the tree til a storm comes and it falls off".  We practice holding onto imagined branches, we let go and fall toward the earth.  They tell me about the mushy pears outside and the bees all over them.  We wonder about this.  "The bees like them cuz they smell so sweet".  We all smell our pears.  They do smell sweet!  We taste our pears! Delicious.  We look at the surface with it's shades of green and yellow and orange.  We examine the tiny dots on the surface.  We trace the shape with our fingers and we draw that shape- the outline- on our paper.  We decide which colors are in our pears by laying crayons and colored pencils nearby to examine color relationships. We draw.  I do too.  Not silently.  I say as I draw, in a quiet voice, "I am using my looking eyes.  I see a bump here, I will draw that." or "Wow.  My pear has green that blends into yellow.  I will need to blend two colors to draw that."  The kids are listening.  I don't need to tell them how to blend.  I blend.  They watch.  They try it.  A child next to me says, "I am using my scientific looking eyes.  I am using my color eyes.  I am using my scientific, color, looking eyes. I am a scientist looking."

After drawing the outside, I dramatically (and silently) cut a pear in half.  They have seen this before.  We have been doing it for weeks, but they are rapt.  We guess what might be inside and then the big reveal...a collective gasp and a chorus of "seeds".  Some of the children choose to draw the seeds and stem, the flower and the flesh.  Everyone chooses to eat another piece before returning to their classroom.