07/31/2026
it!
No child has ever walked into my classroom in September asking about apples.
Sixteen years. Not once.
Nobody came in buzzing about apple varieties. They came in talking about their new shoes and whether the worm on the sidewalk was still alive.
September apples were my idea. So were October pumpkins and November turkeys. That calendar was written by adults, for adults, long before these particular children showed up.
So we spend all week working hard to make kids care about something they didnāt choose, then wonder why weāre wrecked by Thursday.
Now I follow the childrenās interestsā¦
A child brings in a cicada shell. Three more end up on the floor around it. Somebody wants to know if the bug is still inside. They get the bug book. They draw it. They hunt for more outside and find three. By Thursday thereās a museum on the windowsill with signs, and nobody told them to make signs.
You didnāt have to motivate anybody. They stayed because they picked it.
Themes still show up in a play based room. What changes is where they come from. Yours might be worms. It might be turkeys in March, which will wreck your color coded calendar, and that is fine.
Kids donāt care about apples in September. They care about apples when somebodyās grandma brings in a bag from her tree.
Monday night, Jocelyn and I are teaching how to actually run a room this way. Setting up an environment that surfaces what kids are into, a circle time they lean into, and documentation that points right at the standards even when the plan was worms.
This Is Not a Lesson Plan Workshop
Monday, August 3 Ā· 6 PM Central Ā· $9
Two plus hours live, Q&A, PD certificate, replay.
Comment REVERSE and Iāll send you the link.
