Little Black Beans--In a Box

It happened today.  I was cleaning up the Church Nursery room after class was over.  In the corner of one of the storage closets, I found a small black bean.  From more than half a decade ago, evidence that the things I did with the Nursery-aged children still exists—hidden in places that no one thinks to look or to clean.  Those children spent 18 months of their life with me (from the time they were one and a half years old, until they reach their third birthday) for two hours every Sunday.  In those hours, I saw changes in each of them.

They learned that they were very important individuals.  When I asked them a question:  “Would you like some pretzels?”, I waited for an answer.  It could be a nod or a word or a finger pointing to where they wanted them placed on their small, paper snack plate.  Some, accustomed to a home where they were still considered a baby—took a little while to realize that if they didn’t answer, they didn’t received any of that treat.  The ability to make their own decisions was frustrating to some, irritating to others, ultimately liberating for each of the children.

I met this nursery member last week for the first time.

When I entered the nursery room for the first time, it was a bare, stripped down room.  No pictures, no colour, no music, no fun.  I soon added red curtains for the two windows.  I put together puzzles:  Noah’s ark, three children on an imaginary flying machine, a town scene complete with a train and rows of multi-coloured homes.  These were framed and hung on the walls.  

Old, broken toys and toys too old or too young for the children were replaced.  I loved combing stores for puzzles, blocks, and large activity cubes that could be set about the room on the floor.  I made a large quilt that had 18’x24’ padded patches distributed and spaced evenly over its area.  During reading time, each child had their own soft place to sit—each had a space defined by the unchanging pattern of the quilt.  

For lesson time, there were small, identical, tan chairs to sit in.  The small chairs each got a calico cover—different colours and shape designs ensured that every chair was different.  These covers stopped arguments that “This is MY chair!”  They picked the chair they wanted for the day—and no one else could sit on it during the two hour class time.  Ownership.  

This young man likes the chair with the rainbow on the back of it.

I introduced new foods at snack time.  Old familiars like fish-shaped crackers, and very thin stick pretzels were joined by baby carrots, apples that I cut into thin slices while sitting with them at the snack table.  I brought raspberries and small bowls filled with applesauce or yoghurt.  There were bananas and saltine crackers spread with peanut butter.  We made ice cream. 

There was routine:  opening play time with quiet toys:  puzzles, activity cubes, drawing tablets.  From there we had a short lesson and singing time.  Snack time went from a rushed-hurry-eat-don’t-make-a-mess-time to a pleasant, intricate pattern.  Instead of the adults smearing each child’s hands with liquid sanitizer, the children went into the attached bathroom and washed their hands.They learned to wait in line for a turn to rub hands with soap and then play for a few seconds in the running water as they rinsed their hands off.  The children helped to set the table and we had a short (very short) prayer on the food, ending with a joyfully loud chorus of “A-MEN!!” 

During the year, I called the children’s parents and arranged for me to visit each child in their home.  I brought cookies and spread each one with icing, watching my Nursery child decorate them with sprinkles and chocolate chips.  After I left, the preschooler got to show her older brothers and sisters, mother and father what she did that day with her teacher.  

Once or twice, I sent a handmade card (with a few stickers enclosed) to each of my students.  I told them that I was looking forward to seeing them on Sunday.  I told them that I loved them.

I spent lots of time (too much time my husband sometimes thought) planning the short lessons.  There were also colouring pages and other art projects for the children to make.  They brought what they had done home with them to show their families what they had done that day in Nursery.  

The number of students varied.  Some Sundays there were ten or eleven children, other times two or three.  One Sunday only a single child came.  When the mother saw that her daughter would be alone with me, she offered to keep her pre-schooler with her for the next two hours of Church meetings—embarrassed that I would be lavishing two hours on “just” her child.  I thanked her for her thoughtfulness, but reassured her that it would be wonderful to have the next two hours with just the two of us.  

One the members of our nursery now.  She is a kind, curious young girl.

It was a unique opportunity to get to know this youngest of women.  I was enriched by that time . . . I still remember the two hours I spent with her.

After all this remembering, I need to return to the small, black bean I found while cleaning after Nursery today.  That bean had come from a, well, a bean box.

As an added activity, I decided to bring the Nursery children something that my own children had loved when they were pre-school age:  a bean box.

This box I brought into the Nursery room, was as large as I could manage and we played in it just as we would have in a sandbox.  There were things to measure with and things to pour with and things to scoop up the beans with.  The rule was that the beans were to stay in the box—but of course that was really hard to enforce once we’d been playing for a while—so I laid a large tablecloth on the floor before the bean box came out.  In the end, the theory was that stray beans would land on the cloth and be easily swept up and returned to their storage container. 

For nursery, we used a light green, rectangular, cotton table cloth.  The bean box was an under-the-bed storage container—so it was long with sides just about 7 inches high.  Usually there were several things going on during play time, but when the table cloth was laid down and the bean box opened, all the children drew together and sat around the box.  Big spoons, measuring cups, funnels, a few small dump trucks and hands . . . lots of hands . . . moved the beans from one side of the box to the other.  They took turns filling up the teacher’s cup and then letting the teacher pour a cascade of silken beans over their outstretched hands.  It was a lesson in self-control and taking turns and finding joy in the feeling the constant motion of innumerable tiny spheres.  Thousands of tiny, shiny black beans flowing as if they were water.  

And escaping.

Scooting into corners; hiding inside the folds of the table cloth, skittering underfoot as everyone “helped” to capture the beans and return them to their family home . . . even in a room that appeared to have gotten every particle back and in place . . . still there were individuals who escaped.  

One of them tucked himself into the corner of the storage cupboard, waiting more than 5 years.  Waiting until I was released to fill other callings.  Waiting until I was asked to return and be the nursery leader again.  Waiting until I found him today.

I found him today and along with him, a flood.  There was a five years’ flood of old memories of children who had come into the nursery.  At a year and a half, they were just able to speak a few words but, as yet, unable to sit through a five minute lesson.  They grew to three years old in a moment in my mind.  Eager eyes, shy smiles, and increasing confidence—this remembering all came washing over me—like a cascade of beans poured into the bean box—over outstretched hands.  

That bean box was five years ago.  After I was released as Nursery leader, I left and the new leader threw away the beans and someone else took the box home.  The only part that remains is the light green table cloth.  This morning I spread it on the floor underneath the bubble machine and the three children danced about, heads tilted up, hands outstretched, feeling the tender “pop” of bubbles as they landed on their fingers.