Dear, Wonderful Parents
I often start these little posts jumping right in to what the children are doing and playing. Today, however, I'd like to share a few short thoughts with you.
First, I would like to thank each and every one of you for making this a memorable, pleasurable year for our little group. This group would not have had so much fun and learned so much without your everyday loving support. From those special items your children have brought to share to just making sure your kids were able to make it to preschool on time daily (and believe me, I know how much work and discipline it takes on the parent's part!), I have felt very grateful for the structure you've provided your children. This has enabled them to come to school ready to learn and play together.
And I couldn't imagine our Plumtree year without any of your children. Their individual contributions more than certainly made the whole greater than the sum of its parts!
Please know, too, that this is our last blogpost. We're all off to new summer adventures, new preschool adventures and so much more...
Over the last two weeks, we've been talking about bugs, which means all those creepy critters outside, skittering around on the ground. We've read some great books which have clear pictures of all sorts of bugs, how they move, the parts of their bodies and what they eat, which is usually other bugs. Our Morning Gathering has been a silly time these days as we sing little songs that celebrate what bugs do ("Out in the Garden", "The Fuzzy Caterpillar", to name a couple) and what we do to bugs ("Bringing Home A Baby Bumblebee"). The children laugh and giggle when we sing about 'squishing up a baby bumblebee' (instead of licking it up, though, we wash our hands) and the caterpillars in the garden going "munch munch munch". Our songs stay with the children; later during playtime, B calls to me "Hey, Hazel, I singing the bumblebee song for all my friends. 'I love him, my my momma be so proud of me'". Later, V sings "Way down south in Baltimore, B is wearing a dress", a combination of "Eliza Jane" and "Mary Wore a Red Dress".
What's been best, though, has been our outdoor explorations and walks. Last week as we headed out, a neighbor waved us over to see a bee swarm, docile and collected, on a tree. This was beautiful timing as we'd just read "Honey in the Hive" earlier. Hanging from a branch, the swarm was an impressive, quiet cluster. The other bugs we've seen have been bees visiting the rosemary in the front yard, roly-poly bugs, spiders hiding in the tall grasses, some with gray egg sacs hanging from their black abdomens. We compared this with the wooly-looking silk egg sacs the spiders have hung in various places in the backyard. We've lifted up big planting pots to discover small black beetles and deep reddish-brown millipedes, feet scurrying frantically to find another hiding place. Worms galore reside in the composter, and baby slugs are found here and there throughout the back garden. We've only spotted a few ladybugs; our seasons are a little late this year, and the usual ladybug larvae we'd see around this time has yet to be spotted anywhere. We read "Miss Rumphius", a lovely story of a woman who sows lupines everywhere in order to make her part of the world more beautiful, and then went on a "Lupine Walk" to find the beautiful blue and purple spikey flowers. We touched the undersides of the delicate leaves of hostas, with their nearly-quilted looking patterns, and stroked the soft, velvety seed pods of spent peonies. Rose petals were collected, then forgotten in my pockets ('Oh, Hazel, you hold them' say the children, and I remind them I might forget they are there, which inevitably happens, as the children are more interested in collecting them up than they are in keeping them).
Outdoors, we've had a lot of nature play. The children have continued their game of "Going to the Bird Festival", pretending they are birds and flying all over the backyard, from one cedar round, a path around the peas and Children's House, and onto the other round. The Plumtree House has been a 'shelter' for the birds, and it seems very fun and real for them when they pretend to 'lock the doors' and 'close the windows' to keep themselves safe.Sometimes B and V switch off being the Mama and Baby Birds; T is a bird of unknown character, never saying if he's a Daddy bird or child. The Crocodile Chase is a daily occurance, with the children sharing the role of being crocodile. The sandbox is still being used as a place for "planting", small stacking cups are filled with sand and adorned with a stick or dried fern frond as a "plant" to be watered repeatedly. A mysterious 'soup' has been concocted of sand, water, lemon balm, sweet gum pods, pinecones and clover. The peas are beginning to form pods, at last, and so we might find we have a handful for snacking on by our last days of school. Sadly, our carrots experienced some sort of plight, slug or drought, we are unsure. So at present, one lone carrot sprout remains.( I am guessing slugs, though, as my zinnias in the front appear to have suffered a similar fate.)
Our art projects have been a blast and we've explored some new activities. We've painted with yellow and black to make all sorts of bees, with colorful buttons for eyes and wax-paper wings. The children got a chance to try sharpening crayons to create shavings for a wax paper melt (we added sequins for fun) to make dragonfly wings. Then, they used glitter glue to decorate the body and their beautiful creations flew on home. We've also offered some sticker sets (fuzzy 'monsters' or robots, their choice) to make pictures with, play dough (where the children wished themselves many happy birthdays) and lacing butterfly cutouts, with yarn, beads, and sparkly markers for decorating.
The play has been very reflective of the children's days. Here, have a look at your children, playing school.
V asks B: "Can I be the teacher? " She leads the others in our "Hello Song", says "Hello to Hazel" and points to self.
T: "Are you Hazel, V?"
V: "I'm Hazel. Pretend Hazel."
She then leads the group in singing "Eliza Jane", finishes, then tells T and B that they can "get up and play", and proceeds to tell the children what they can do. Over at the Housekeeping, B tells V: "You can be the cooker". "Okay" says V.
T heads off on his own, deciding to roll nuts down one ramp. When they begin to rattle across the floor, I suggest using inverting the second ramp, so that the angle allows some nuts to go up and back down "Just like a skateboarder". This sparks up T's favorite interest, and for the next while, T stays engaged with figuring out which nuts will roll far enough (not the almonds or Brazil nuts-- too flat) and learns that too many nuts on the rug will cause the other ones to stop rolling when they bump into them. So the walnuts and hazelnuts slide down; pretty soon B is over there, wanting to roll things down the ramp as well.
Spiderweb play has been one of V's repeated requests, and this was big fun. We last played this in autumn, and I watched as this activity changed, developing into a new game. V asked each child "are you a spider or a fly?" and then they scrambled after each other under the web of yarn we'd strewn all over the kitchen. The children were repeatedly 'stuck' in different areas, and we all decided that it must be hard for bugs to get out of webs.
Apparently, too, there's been some sort of base-jumping going on with a couple of dolls in the blocks area. Our crane truck shape sorter has a long string on the front; T tied a dollhouse boy to it and let him 'jump' off several times, complete with sound affects. V decided that was pretty interesting, so a string of yarn was offered for her doll. (This was also a great opportunity to talk about never, ever tying any strings around our necks when we are playing, as the dolls were first hanging by their necks. I helped to re-tie the strings around the doll's waists, to emphasize this point.) The children came back to this play several times over the last week.
Something lovely has happened at school where all of the children are taking turns leading the play, and many circle games have emerged as the three play together. Many times I have heard the children singing "The Earth Goes Around the Sun", walking swift circles over the rug. Several times we've had "ice cream cones" sold on the rug. There have been fewer block creations and more songs, like "Hi Little Airplane" and so many pretend "Morning Gatherings" that they have quite displaced most of the usual play there. They have also worked as a team a few times as we do a "Letter Card Hunt", where the lower-case letter cards are hidden all over and the children collect them up, then we match them to their corresponding upper-case mate. We've also been playing a simple game of dominoes in the mornings, working on matching up either fruit pictures or picture/number dominoes, depending on which set we use.
Next week will bring more fun: we'll celebrate B's birthday on Tuesday, make popsicles for our last day celebration, and many open-ended activities will be available. Please know that you and your little one are welcome to join us at 1 on Wednesday for popsicles and a few silly songs before we say goodbye. The little books of our year together will be going home that day as well, as will the contents of their cubbies and their mailboxes. The ending of each session is a beginning of something new for each of us, and we are sure to have good fun over our next two days together. See you then!
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Where Do You Live?
While preschool is a special place for a young child, your family home is by far their most beloved. You, their parents, are there, and this gives their life the stability it needs. You also provide some delightful moments for your child. We explored this at Morning Gathering, as we made a list of Things We Like to Do at Home:
V: I like to play dress up.
B: I like to play dress up too, just like V. I like to do cooking.
V: Me too.
T: I like to watch my mommy cook. I like to watch her make pancakes.
V: I like to help Mama make pancakes. (pause) I think I like to watch movies. I like to eat pancakes with whipped cream.
T: I like to cook by myself on my pretend stove.
B: I like to do painting.
V: Me too!
T: I really like to do painting too.
V: I like picking flowers in our backyard.
One of our special one-on-one moments I had with the children this week was working on pages for their books. I asked each child the color of their house, which everyone knew. Then we talked about, and recorded, their addresses and telephone numbers. Some children chose to use a glue stick to create 'houses' from cut-out rectangles, squares and trapezoids (this shape makes a great roof and it's always fun to have that word reintroduced!) to add to that page. Cut-out paper shapes were added to make doors and windows for their houses. We've also been reading stories about the right kinds of homes for different animals, as well as people. Going on a walk, each child received a card with one letter and one number of their choice printed onto it for a hunt. We used the address numbers, license plates, street signs and more to find these symbols; this activity was focused primarily on letter/number reinforcement and also made them a little more aware of the labeling of addresses and streets. Some street corners even have letters and numbers set into the concrete in our neighborhood. Very novel!
The idea of homes was also explored through the continuation of Nest and Bird play in the backyard. Dried grasses are gathered into piles and collected up, redistributed around the play yard as 'nests', and little flight courses for the birds have been created in the moment. They play 'follow the leader', those wee little birdie children, with one child leading, "flying" around the Children's House, up onto a cedar round, back down and behind the plum tree house or back to their nests. They take turns being the adult and younger birds.
Much of our time over the last couple of weeks has been spent trying new-- and sometimes challenging-- activities. We've been spending time before Gathering to learn a very basic group game of dominoes, which primarily involves matching the shapes and building the dominoes onto each other. We do this with the pool of dominoes face-up, for everyone to use. We are using our Fruit Dominoes, so this sparks some fun conversations about fruits we like, too. On other days, we revisited our "Dice: Most and Least" game I mentioned in the last post. One day, we used paper plates to create an over/under weaving. This activity contained many facets : the children followed instructions; used scissors to cut the edge from the plate; traced a circle in the middle, using a metal canning lid and pencil; cut out the circle, on the lines, did over/under weaving, which was challenging- most especially regarding the tension of the yarn (we had a little help); colored the plates and added beads. We rarely do such direction-oriented projects, and the children present that day really rose to the occasion. The next day, we used yarn, beads and feathers to make a decoration to take home. The beading and feathers were easier, the knots more tricky and requiring assistance. The purpose of that activity was 1-to-1 correspondence. ("One feather goes into one bead" as opposed to random amounts of feathers in each bead.)
Artistic opportunities were offered as well. Sticky paper and construction paper squares were offered for a mosaic craft, which the children assembled as they pleased. T liked to place his in rows and columns, V's were a bit more random. Their process was narrated. V hummed "Happy Birthday" and then tells me "It's a rainbow pattern", then the children decided that the squares looked like pages in a book. "Once upon a time there was a million fairies and they were all girls" V 'read' to us. "Once upon a time there was a forest and an owl spied...." T began a story as they walked away from the table, holding their creations.
The big easel was offered; with the tempera paints, V painted " an ocean". Lately, some children are choosing not to take time at the easel as they have been busy with other kinds of play. Everyone is given an opportunity to enjoy the easel, but no one is forced to paint. We've done some print painting with random objects and some exciting pictures came out of this activity. We revisited the eyedroppers and used our long easel to work wax resist 'drippies' pictures; two children worked on these independently and all three joined in for a group work, which was exciting to the children, especially when the paint 'jumped' over some big white patches of crayon which are relatively invisible. Play dough was offered as well. A few letters made it into friends' mailboxes, and watercolors were available too.
Some other moments from our time together:
Lots of circle play on the rug. The children sing songs as they go around, arms spread out: "Airplane Airplane go so fast, Don't fall into the air blast crash!" and all fall down. "Ring Around the Rosy", "The Earth Goes Around the Sun" and a made up songs about "Butterfly Butterfly Fly so High" which always seems to have new words in each singing of the song.
House play extends to the rug: B and V; B is the mom, V is the little girl. B makes pancakes for V. They decide they "are cold". B wears an apron as a shawl tied about her shoulders and V wears a silk scarf tied around her middle, which she dubs "a warm up thing". V then "practices" her dancing and brings out instruments.
T and B building with the magnetic blocks. "I'm building a skate park" says T. B says "I'm not building a skate park, but I'm playing." She makes a car with three seats.
V builds a Princess Castle with blocks, then she and B dance next to it. They are Dancing Princesses.
The silliest play dough time ever! This started out with cutting pieces of the dough with scissors, "bake in the oven" says V, baking a 'cake'. T makes a game. "If the ball (of play dough) goes across and it can't go into the sharks and this (the scissors) will eat it up". He has two pieces of play dough connected with a 'bridge'. V imitates this. The balls are very dramatic as they meet the fate of the scissors. "Oh no, I got snipped!" cries V in a silly voice, pretending to be the ball of dough. "Whoa! Whoa! I'm gonna be eaten!" hollers T.
B: Which ice cream to you want?
V: Cinderella. (pretends to eat. They both giggle.)
We created an outfit for our paper dolls, which went home. If any parents feel like expanding on that play at home, please let me know and I can provide some easy tips.
Outdoors, carrots have been planted. The children were inspired afterward to play "going to a plant festival", pretending to plant 'seeds' in 'pots' in the sandbox. Containers are the pots, stones are the seeds and sticks are the plants. Watering cans came out and all of the 'plants' were watered liberally!
More fun next week as we explore the creepy, crawly, wiggly world of bugs!
V: I like to play dress up.
B: I like to play dress up too, just like V. I like to do cooking.
V: Me too.
T: I like to watch my mommy cook. I like to watch her make pancakes.
V: I like to help Mama make pancakes. (pause) I think I like to watch movies. I like to eat pancakes with whipped cream.
T: I like to cook by myself on my pretend stove.
B: I like to do painting.
V: Me too!
T: I really like to do painting too.
V: I like picking flowers in our backyard.
One of our special one-on-one moments I had with the children this week was working on pages for their books. I asked each child the color of their house, which everyone knew. Then we talked about, and recorded, their addresses and telephone numbers. Some children chose to use a glue stick to create 'houses' from cut-out rectangles, squares and trapezoids (this shape makes a great roof and it's always fun to have that word reintroduced!) to add to that page. Cut-out paper shapes were added to make doors and windows for their houses. We've also been reading stories about the right kinds of homes for different animals, as well as people. Going on a walk, each child received a card with one letter and one number of their choice printed onto it for a hunt. We used the address numbers, license plates, street signs and more to find these symbols; this activity was focused primarily on letter/number reinforcement and also made them a little more aware of the labeling of addresses and streets. Some street corners even have letters and numbers set into the concrete in our neighborhood. Very novel!
The idea of homes was also explored through the continuation of Nest and Bird play in the backyard. Dried grasses are gathered into piles and collected up, redistributed around the play yard as 'nests', and little flight courses for the birds have been created in the moment. They play 'follow the leader', those wee little birdie children, with one child leading, "flying" around the Children's House, up onto a cedar round, back down and behind the plum tree house or back to their nests. They take turns being the adult and younger birds.
Much of our time over the last couple of weeks has been spent trying new-- and sometimes challenging-- activities. We've been spending time before Gathering to learn a very basic group game of dominoes, which primarily involves matching the shapes and building the dominoes onto each other. We do this with the pool of dominoes face-up, for everyone to use. We are using our Fruit Dominoes, so this sparks some fun conversations about fruits we like, too. On other days, we revisited our "Dice: Most and Least" game I mentioned in the last post. One day, we used paper plates to create an over/under weaving. This activity contained many facets : the children followed instructions; used scissors to cut the edge from the plate; traced a circle in the middle, using a metal canning lid and pencil; cut out the circle, on the lines, did over/under weaving, which was challenging- most especially regarding the tension of the yarn (we had a little help); colored the plates and added beads. We rarely do such direction-oriented projects, and the children present that day really rose to the occasion. The next day, we used yarn, beads and feathers to make a decoration to take home. The beading and feathers were easier, the knots more tricky and requiring assistance. The purpose of that activity was 1-to-1 correspondence. ("One feather goes into one bead" as opposed to random amounts of feathers in each bead.)
Artistic opportunities were offered as well. Sticky paper and construction paper squares were offered for a mosaic craft, which the children assembled as they pleased. T liked to place his in rows and columns, V's were a bit more random. Their process was narrated. V hummed "Happy Birthday" and then tells me "It's a rainbow pattern", then the children decided that the squares looked like pages in a book. "Once upon a time there was a million fairies and they were all girls" V 'read' to us. "Once upon a time there was a forest and an owl spied...." T began a story as they walked away from the table, holding their creations.
The big easel was offered; with the tempera paints, V painted " an ocean". Lately, some children are choosing not to take time at the easel as they have been busy with other kinds of play. Everyone is given an opportunity to enjoy the easel, but no one is forced to paint. We've done some print painting with random objects and some exciting pictures came out of this activity. We revisited the eyedroppers and used our long easel to work wax resist 'drippies' pictures; two children worked on these independently and all three joined in for a group work, which was exciting to the children, especially when the paint 'jumped' over some big white patches of crayon which are relatively invisible. Play dough was offered as well. A few letters made it into friends' mailboxes, and watercolors were available too.
Some other moments from our time together:
Lots of circle play on the rug. The children sing songs as they go around, arms spread out: "Airplane Airplane go so fast, Don't fall into the air blast crash!" and all fall down. "Ring Around the Rosy", "The Earth Goes Around the Sun" and a made up songs about "Butterfly Butterfly Fly so High" which always seems to have new words in each singing of the song.
House play extends to the rug: B and V; B is the mom, V is the little girl. B makes pancakes for V. They decide they "are cold". B wears an apron as a shawl tied about her shoulders and V wears a silk scarf tied around her middle, which she dubs "a warm up thing". V then "practices" her dancing and brings out instruments.
T and B building with the magnetic blocks. "I'm building a skate park" says T. B says "I'm not building a skate park, but I'm playing." She makes a car with three seats.
V builds a Princess Castle with blocks, then she and B dance next to it. They are Dancing Princesses.
The silliest play dough time ever! This started out with cutting pieces of the dough with scissors, "bake in the oven" says V, baking a 'cake'. T makes a game. "If the ball (of play dough) goes across and it can't go into the sharks and this (the scissors) will eat it up". He has two pieces of play dough connected with a 'bridge'. V imitates this. The balls are very dramatic as they meet the fate of the scissors. "Oh no, I got snipped!" cries V in a silly voice, pretending to be the ball of dough. "Whoa! Whoa! I'm gonna be eaten!" hollers T.
B: Which ice cream to you want?
V: Cinderella. (pretends to eat. They both giggle.)
We created an outfit for our paper dolls, which went home. If any parents feel like expanding on that play at home, please let me know and I can provide some easy tips.
Outdoors, carrots have been planted. The children were inspired afterward to play "going to a plant festival", pretending to plant 'seeds' in 'pots' in the sandbox. Containers are the pots, stones are the seeds and sticks are the plants. Watering cans came out and all of the 'plants' were watered liberally!
More fun next week as we explore the creepy, crawly, wiggly world of bugs!
Friday, May 13, 2011
Kids!
Sometimes, there is nothing more interesting to our children than other kids.
At our Morning Gathering last week, I introduced "Kids", a book by Catherine and Laurence Anholt. (Their books are wonderful. We've also enjoyed another of theirs called "What Makes Me Happy", which has really opened up our conversations around this topic.) Your children are, by turns, thoughtful, serious, gleeful and goofy, frustrated and then delighted when a solution is found to end the frustration. They watch each other carefully, direct each other in their play, and strive to master the challenges in life by play-acting those situations regularly.
Playing school is happening each day now. V or B will start the game by handing out instruments and leading the group through their version of Morning Gathering. As it has been our school ritual, now it becomes theirs. The "Hello Song" is now sung repeatedly through the day, at the onset of a child assuming the 'teacher' role. Then, many directions are given. V regularly addresses her class as "You kids" and the 'teachers' enjoy handing objects to the other children to use as they are directed. There are many variations on this theme: V leads the group through our "Weekend Song"; B 'reads' them a story; B brings the bowl of nuts to the "Gathering" she's leading, and shows the group how to "crack them" by hitting one on the other; V follows this theme, but instead instructs the group in a sorting nuts exercise: "Find two (which) are the same". And they do. (It's always a little odd to have to interrupt the 'teacher' to move on to our next transition, so this is done respectfully, of course!)
The Housekeeping area is also one where roles of adult/child are explored. In the little restaurant, everyone played together. T sat down at the table-- he was "a customer and a daddy", V was 'the kid' and also sitting with her 'father' while B was 'the kid and the cooker'. Daily, V and B play "being the mama and the girl", dressing up in scarves and necklaces, usually making something interesting to eat in the little kitchen or walking through the kitchen to some imaginary adventure.
Collaborative work goes on too. Outdoors, the children take turns being the snapping crocodile for their "Crocodile Chase". Our big piece of convex driftwood has curves perfect for using it as a catapult: the children regularly help each other situate the board on just the right part of the grass so it's at its most tippy, and then pine cones are placed on it--some have soared as high as the top of the children's house. We had a group discussion about why pine cones were the best materials for this instead of rocks or sticks and all agreed that no one wants to be hit with by a flying rock or stick, but the pine cones were light and soft enough that they were safe. We also went on a Collection Collage walk around the neighborhood: anything from nature that was on the ground was allowed for collection. We found some hyacinth flowers another child had discarded and gathered those up, a mass of pine cones big and small, some sticks, fallen mosses and lichens, and of course dandelions were allowed for picking. Then we went back to school, where an artistic assemblage was made; sticks framed the top borders of the collage, rocks from school and the collection bag were added in too. Borders for the collage were made by placing pine cones in a line at the bottom of the work and it was done.
As mentioned earlier, we are also talking a bit about feelings. Everyone has them and it's important to name them well: one parent recently pointed out to me that sometimes kids label their sad feelings as being 'mad', and this is true. These discussions were kept very light and grounded in "If You're Happy and You Know It", with some verses added. "If you're sad and you know it, you can cry-- Boo hoo" "If you're frustrated and you know it, ask for help--Help please!" "If you're mad and you know it you can growl--Grrrr Grrr" (not what we suggest when we're really upset, but this was more about the feeling of being upset). Later, I sat with each of the children to work on a page for their books. "I feel X when...." and they filled in the rest. Here are a few of their answers:
"I feel happy when I go to a swimming pool. I feel proud when I go to school." --V
"I feel proud when I run around and skateboard (I love to skateboard!); maybe when the wind is out and I can fly a kite but I don't have one. I feel happy when I have some milk; mommy snuggles me; somebody plays with me."--T
"I feel happy when I go to the bee's castle. I feel sad when I go to get my glasses fixed and my daddy comes. Because I don't want to wear my glasses."--B
We are also working on paper dolls. The template for the body is a little cartoony, but the faces were drawn under each child's direction, and the rest is their own creation. We'll be working on clothes for their little dolls over the next weeks. I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of dresses and skate park clothes!
We hope you Moms enjoyed your Mother's Day gifts! The children each scented the foot soak salts themselves, and the stencils were something new for our group. I really enjoyed writing down each child's appreciation for their mothers. You all do a wonderful job as parents in supporting your children, and I so appreciate it too!
On the big rug, the squashes, nuts, rocks and shells were brought out again to make a simple park for the wooden animals. V and T immediately brought blocks into the play to make gates "so the animals can't run away" (T). V then was concerned that the animals will 'jump over' so higher gates are added. J was visiting and commented "So animals can't jump over the moons", to which T replied "But cows can jump over the moon. Just kidding!" Later, T added ramps to the park so that nuts could be rolled down into it.
Some more moments from our time together:
At Morning Gathering, while we waited for friends, each child was given a die. We all rolled them, then counted to see which dice showed the "most" and the "least". More and Less are newer concepts, so we are beginning to give language and concrete examples for this.
An Inside/Outside collage was created this week, and hangs in the window of the school door. A yarn rectangle was placed on the sticky paper first and the children were given scissors and materials for filling in the space "inside" the yard. Then, they were given sequins to place "outside" that yarn border. (By the way, 'sequins' sounds a lot like the game "Sequence" and there was much discussion about this. Ah, homonyms!)
V used pattern blocks to make another "all around" pattern, and is beginning to count out how many of each she will need from the basket of blocks before assembling them into her work.
We are now playing our Animal Babies game as a Memory type game. Big fun!
We constructed boats out of foil and filled these up with stones too, to see if the long broad boats would sink slower or faster than the container boats. They sank at the same rate, but we did notice that the broad boats tended to list to one side, being sunk more my taking on water at one side than the weight itself.
Straws were brought out for some scissors work; straw-piece necklaces and bracelets went home.
An interesting conversation was sparked by T's question "How does the food make our body strong?" This was a perfect invitation to talk about villi, "They are part of your small intestine, and they're like little fingers, grabbing all the good parts of the food and they help it to go into your blood.The rest is waste and comes out the other end, because your body doesn't need it." After a quick sketch of villi, we looked at a picture of the digestive system from a reference book.
Silly marble run play: T and V each built a marble run and after using their own creation, traded runs. Their marbles began to compete with the other marbles of their own 'teams'. (Each child had three marbles, so there were parallel competitions going on.) The children cheered their own marbles on, then each child's marble talked about winning, using silly voices. "We are faster than you guys!" "No you're not, I'm gonna block you!" (One child's marbles talking to each other. ) V tells T "Say 'no fair!'"
And one lovely idea: "We could go to the Milky Way and drink milk!"
Have a great weekend!
At our Morning Gathering last week, I introduced "Kids", a book by Catherine and Laurence Anholt. (Their books are wonderful. We've also enjoyed another of theirs called "What Makes Me Happy", which has really opened up our conversations around this topic.) Your children are, by turns, thoughtful, serious, gleeful and goofy, frustrated and then delighted when a solution is found to end the frustration. They watch each other carefully, direct each other in their play, and strive to master the challenges in life by play-acting those situations regularly.
Playing school is happening each day now. V or B will start the game by handing out instruments and leading the group through their version of Morning Gathering. As it has been our school ritual, now it becomes theirs. The "Hello Song" is now sung repeatedly through the day, at the onset of a child assuming the 'teacher' role. Then, many directions are given. V regularly addresses her class as "You kids" and the 'teachers' enjoy handing objects to the other children to use as they are directed. There are many variations on this theme: V leads the group through our "Weekend Song"; B 'reads' them a story; B brings the bowl of nuts to the "Gathering" she's leading, and shows the group how to "crack them" by hitting one on the other; V follows this theme, but instead instructs the group in a sorting nuts exercise: "Find two (which) are the same". And they do. (It's always a little odd to have to interrupt the 'teacher' to move on to our next transition, so this is done respectfully, of course!)
The Housekeeping area is also one where roles of adult/child are explored. In the little restaurant, everyone played together. T sat down at the table-- he was "a customer and a daddy", V was 'the kid' and also sitting with her 'father' while B was 'the kid and the cooker'. Daily, V and B play "being the mama and the girl", dressing up in scarves and necklaces, usually making something interesting to eat in the little kitchen or walking through the kitchen to some imaginary adventure.
Collaborative work goes on too. Outdoors, the children take turns being the snapping crocodile for their "Crocodile Chase". Our big piece of convex driftwood has curves perfect for using it as a catapult: the children regularly help each other situate the board on just the right part of the grass so it's at its most tippy, and then pine cones are placed on it--some have soared as high as the top of the children's house. We had a group discussion about why pine cones were the best materials for this instead of rocks or sticks and all agreed that no one wants to be hit with by a flying rock or stick, but the pine cones were light and soft enough that they were safe. We also went on a Collection Collage walk around the neighborhood: anything from nature that was on the ground was allowed for collection. We found some hyacinth flowers another child had discarded and gathered those up, a mass of pine cones big and small, some sticks, fallen mosses and lichens, and of course dandelions were allowed for picking. Then we went back to school, where an artistic assemblage was made; sticks framed the top borders of the collage, rocks from school and the collection bag were added in too. Borders for the collage were made by placing pine cones in a line at the bottom of the work and it was done.
As mentioned earlier, we are also talking a bit about feelings. Everyone has them and it's important to name them well: one parent recently pointed out to me that sometimes kids label their sad feelings as being 'mad', and this is true. These discussions were kept very light and grounded in "If You're Happy and You Know It", with some verses added. "If you're sad and you know it, you can cry-- Boo hoo" "If you're frustrated and you know it, ask for help--Help please!" "If you're mad and you know it you can growl--Grrrr Grrr" (not what we suggest when we're really upset, but this was more about the feeling of being upset). Later, I sat with each of the children to work on a page for their books. "I feel X when...." and they filled in the rest. Here are a few of their answers:
"I feel happy when I go to a swimming pool. I feel proud when I go to school." --V
"I feel proud when I run around and skateboard (I love to skateboard!); maybe when the wind is out and I can fly a kite but I don't have one. I feel happy when I have some milk; mommy snuggles me; somebody plays with me."--T
"I feel happy when I go to the bee's castle. I feel sad when I go to get my glasses fixed and my daddy comes. Because I don't want to wear my glasses."--B
We are also working on paper dolls. The template for the body is a little cartoony, but the faces were drawn under each child's direction, and the rest is their own creation. We'll be working on clothes for their little dolls over the next weeks. I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of dresses and skate park clothes!
We hope you Moms enjoyed your Mother's Day gifts! The children each scented the foot soak salts themselves, and the stencils were something new for our group. I really enjoyed writing down each child's appreciation for their mothers. You all do a wonderful job as parents in supporting your children, and I so appreciate it too!
On the big rug, the squashes, nuts, rocks and shells were brought out again to make a simple park for the wooden animals. V and T immediately brought blocks into the play to make gates "so the animals can't run away" (T). V then was concerned that the animals will 'jump over' so higher gates are added. J was visiting and commented "So animals can't jump over the moons", to which T replied "But cows can jump over the moon. Just kidding!" Later, T added ramps to the park so that nuts could be rolled down into it.
Some more moments from our time together:
At Morning Gathering, while we waited for friends, each child was given a die. We all rolled them, then counted to see which dice showed the "most" and the "least". More and Less are newer concepts, so we are beginning to give language and concrete examples for this.
An Inside/Outside collage was created this week, and hangs in the window of the school door. A yarn rectangle was placed on the sticky paper first and the children were given scissors and materials for filling in the space "inside" the yard. Then, they were given sequins to place "outside" that yarn border. (By the way, 'sequins' sounds a lot like the game "Sequence" and there was much discussion about this. Ah, homonyms!)
V used pattern blocks to make another "all around" pattern, and is beginning to count out how many of each she will need from the basket of blocks before assembling them into her work.
We are now playing our Animal Babies game as a Memory type game. Big fun!
We constructed boats out of foil and filled these up with stones too, to see if the long broad boats would sink slower or faster than the container boats. They sank at the same rate, but we did notice that the broad boats tended to list to one side, being sunk more my taking on water at one side than the weight itself.
Straws were brought out for some scissors work; straw-piece necklaces and bracelets went home.
An interesting conversation was sparked by T's question "How does the food make our body strong?" This was a perfect invitation to talk about villi, "They are part of your small intestine, and they're like little fingers, grabbing all the good parts of the food and they help it to go into your blood.The rest is waste and comes out the other end, because your body doesn't need it." After a quick sketch of villi, we looked at a picture of the digestive system from a reference book.
Silly marble run play: T and V each built a marble run and after using their own creation, traded runs. Their marbles began to compete with the other marbles of their own 'teams'. (Each child had three marbles, so there were parallel competitions going on.) The children cheered their own marbles on, then each child's marble talked about winning, using silly voices. "We are faster than you guys!" "No you're not, I'm gonna block you!" (One child's marbles talking to each other. ) V tells T "Say 'no fair!'"
And one lovely idea: "We could go to the Milky Way and drink milk!"
Have a great weekend!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Imagination, Construction, Reflection...
Sometimes a few new ideas and props make all the difference in the play.
Last week, as the children were busy working some puzzles at the big table, I brought two large orange acorn squashes, a bowl of nuts, some cockle shells that V's family gifted us with last year, some pine cones and our wooden animals to the big rug and began creating a little scene: the squashes were placed upside-down like houses, the nuts were lined up to become the borders of paths, the animals situated randomly amongst these items. The children finished their work and came close. "What do you think you could do with these things?" I asked them. Here's what unfolded:
V decided to make a 'river' with some rectangular blue blocks.
V: Ducks are eating a pine cone.
T: Ducks can go underwater and get things out of the ground too.
V: And they're eating in the water.. They're dunking their heads down in the water. I'm pretending they are.
B placed some almonds near the squirrel. The materials were rearranged to suit the children's vision. V uses a pine cone to "play catch" with the dog. Dollhouse people are brought into the story. T's boy doll is "Watching the ducks--just like the football game--that's the name of our football (team)."
V tells us that "when it's nighttime, people can eat out of these pumpkins (the squashes)." There is some discussion if the squashes should be eaten.
At this point, the play turned to using the cone puzzle for 'ice cream' play, and they used the nuts for 'money' to pay the ice cream seller.
This Tuesday and Thursday, construction was a big focus. We read "Truck Driver Tom" and I brought out two large pieces of cardboard, with the suggestion that these pieces might be used to build bridges or ramps for our cars. V and T jumped right into experimenting: T with a ramp, V with a bridge. First, the smaller colored blocks were used to support and modify the bridge and ramp, but the children noticed that they were moving around too much. I suggested they try using the heavier wooden blocks instead, and once this switch in materials was made, their work began to see some success. "These blocks are much stronger' observed V. She built a bridge with support on both ends (stacks of blocks, like legs of a table, plus large round cylinder blocks for central support) and ramps on both sides. T built a ramp with a little "jump" at the bottom. The children also did a lot of trial-and-error work to see how to get the slightly wider cars to go down the narrow ramps on V's bridge. (During this time, B was happy cooking up food in the little kitchen and brought V some toast while she worked.) When the children revisited this activity on Thursday, the bridge construction went more quickly and blocks were placed on the ends of the bridge, near the ramp, as "gates", V told me. T chimed in-"Yeah, so you don't just fall off the sides." During this time, B built a "house for the people", and situated a dollhouse mom and girl on a few of the blocks.
We also created sailboats on Thursday, with plastic containers, plasticine, paper and a chopstick for a mast. We took turns floating each of them in our large tub of water, and we sat around the tub, blowing on the sail to make the boat go where we wanted it to. Then, we stuck some plasticine (that's modeling clay, which is great because it doesn't fall apart in water) to the bottom of some apple juice containers to keep them floating upright, and marked the water line when the containers were empty. After this began the fun task of 'loading' our bobbing boats up with marbles, glass 'gems', and beach stones, all the while observing the gradually-sinking water mark. Finally, our boats were so loaded up that they sank, sending up big air bubbles which really excited the children.
Last Thursday, we had a fun time re-reading "All the Colors We Are" by Katie Kissinger. This book discusses how our skin gets its color: from our parents and ancestors, from whether they lived in warm and sunny or cooler and less sunny places, and from melanin. (This is one of those fantastic teacher resource books and is a great way to teach simple facts about differences in skin color in a positive way.) Then we created a new page for our books: we used paint samples and a mirror to help each child find colors that matched their skin, lips and eyes. We noticed that all the skin tones were shades of brown, too, and after we selected the colors which best matched, I read the name of each color printed on the back of the sample: "Cave Painting", "Fortune's Prize" and "Antoinette Pink" were the titles of the 'skin' colors they'd chosen. Other fun names were enjoyed, and the children came up with some of their own names: V liked "ice cream cupcake" to describe her brown eyes; T liked "construction paper blue" for his. This Wednesday, we read Lois Ehlert's "Hands" and then traced our own hands, coloring them in, and I asked the children what they liked to do with their hands and wrote these short answers down.
Some other things we've been doing:
Fingerpainting in trays, with fingers and wooden popsicle sticks; we made some 'prints' of their work for fun, and had the big tub full of soapy water for washing hands and trays.
Car track painting this Tuesday, which morphed into some fingerpainting.
Digging out a 'river' in the sandbox, using a piece of wood for a 'bridge', and sailing our little boat in the sandy water.
Pattern blocks: B declares a trapezoid to be a 'slide', then balances a skinny white diamond block onto a blue diamond block. "and I make two slides". B uses all of the pattern blocks vertically, standing them up and placing them as she liked. T created his "houses" again, using trapezoids for roofs and squares for the lower parts. "Like my four houses?" he asked. V worked a pattern all by herself, starting in the middle and finding places for pieces to fit in the negative spaces of what she's already created.
Body Play: Singing the "Hokey Pokey"; we are talking about our hips, elbows, knees, and some of those trickier parts: thighs and calves, ankles and wrists. I drew a huge person and the children were happy to "run to the ears! Run to the tummy!" Taking turns to call out the directions or run, either way it was fun and we've learned a few more words to describe places on our body.
Our neighbor's eaves are home to a robin's nest. We took a peek at it one morning, and when we only spied a tail, re-read Lois Ehlert's "Pie in the Sky" to see that just like in the book, there are eggs in the nest and sometimes, the tail is all we see of Mama Robin.
B and V dancing together, first on the rug, then in the kitchen so that the rug can be used for block play. Then they join T and become engaged in helping to build a 'skatepark'. B sets up a little 'picnic' nearby on the floor, and V bridges the two activities by telling us "I'm a park dog".
"Oh, what would you like to ask me?" Preschool is a lovely place to keep practicing the good manners we will need throughout our lifetime. More and more often, as our growing children feel more confident in asserting themselves and their needs, they forget that there's a difference between asking for something and demanding it. I noticed that we were a little out of balance in this area when at snack time, a child held their hand in my face with a look of upset. "Oh, do you want to ask me for something?" I inquired; "Yes, can I have a napkin?" they answered. I am placing less emphasis on the 'please' part of this, and just focusing on helping the children think about getting from "I want" and "I need" to "May I please have" or "Could you..." I do notice, too, that their tone of voice changes when they move from demanding to requesting. If their request is made in a whining voice, I have them try it again in a "Friendly Voice". You can help your little ones at home develop these important habits by modeling this as much as possible and by giving them positive feedback when you like what you hear: "I really liked the friendly way you asked me for that glass of water"; or take a moment to help them: "Use your friendly voice, please", or "Let's try that again. What would you like to ask me?" Our children need our support and guidance as they learn to navigate social interaction in their world, and as parents it's often easier to just get them what they want instead of asking them to rephrase. So pick and choose your times for this practice, and do keep it up. When your child is readily asking for what they need in a friendly way, this will ease their upcoming transitions to new schools, teachers and friends in September.
Have a great weekend!
Last week, as the children were busy working some puzzles at the big table, I brought two large orange acorn squashes, a bowl of nuts, some cockle shells that V's family gifted us with last year, some pine cones and our wooden animals to the big rug and began creating a little scene: the squashes were placed upside-down like houses, the nuts were lined up to become the borders of paths, the animals situated randomly amongst these items. The children finished their work and came close. "What do you think you could do with these things?" I asked them. Here's what unfolded:
V decided to make a 'river' with some rectangular blue blocks.
V: Ducks are eating a pine cone.
T: Ducks can go underwater and get things out of the ground too.
V: And they're eating in the water.. They're dunking their heads down in the water. I'm pretending they are.
B placed some almonds near the squirrel. The materials were rearranged to suit the children's vision. V uses a pine cone to "play catch" with the dog. Dollhouse people are brought into the story. T's boy doll is "Watching the ducks--just like the football game--that's the name of our football (team)."
V tells us that "when it's nighttime, people can eat out of these pumpkins (the squashes)." There is some discussion if the squashes should be eaten.
At this point, the play turned to using the cone puzzle for 'ice cream' play, and they used the nuts for 'money' to pay the ice cream seller.
This Tuesday and Thursday, construction was a big focus. We read "Truck Driver Tom" and I brought out two large pieces of cardboard, with the suggestion that these pieces might be used to build bridges or ramps for our cars. V and T jumped right into experimenting: T with a ramp, V with a bridge. First, the smaller colored blocks were used to support and modify the bridge and ramp, but the children noticed that they were moving around too much. I suggested they try using the heavier wooden blocks instead, and once this switch in materials was made, their work began to see some success. "These blocks are much stronger' observed V. She built a bridge with support on both ends (stacks of blocks, like legs of a table, plus large round cylinder blocks for central support) and ramps on both sides. T built a ramp with a little "jump" at the bottom. The children also did a lot of trial-and-error work to see how to get the slightly wider cars to go down the narrow ramps on V's bridge. (During this time, B was happy cooking up food in the little kitchen and brought V some toast while she worked.) When the children revisited this activity on Thursday, the bridge construction went more quickly and blocks were placed on the ends of the bridge, near the ramp, as "gates", V told me. T chimed in-"Yeah, so you don't just fall off the sides." During this time, B built a "house for the people", and situated a dollhouse mom and girl on a few of the blocks.
We also created sailboats on Thursday, with plastic containers, plasticine, paper and a chopstick for a mast. We took turns floating each of them in our large tub of water, and we sat around the tub, blowing on the sail to make the boat go where we wanted it to. Then, we stuck some plasticine (that's modeling clay, which is great because it doesn't fall apart in water) to the bottom of some apple juice containers to keep them floating upright, and marked the water line when the containers were empty. After this began the fun task of 'loading' our bobbing boats up with marbles, glass 'gems', and beach stones, all the while observing the gradually-sinking water mark. Finally, our boats were so loaded up that they sank, sending up big air bubbles which really excited the children.
Last Thursday, we had a fun time re-reading "All the Colors We Are" by Katie Kissinger. This book discusses how our skin gets its color: from our parents and ancestors, from whether they lived in warm and sunny or cooler and less sunny places, and from melanin. (This is one of those fantastic teacher resource books and is a great way to teach simple facts about differences in skin color in a positive way.) Then we created a new page for our books: we used paint samples and a mirror to help each child find colors that matched their skin, lips and eyes. We noticed that all the skin tones were shades of brown, too, and after we selected the colors which best matched, I read the name of each color printed on the back of the sample: "Cave Painting", "Fortune's Prize" and "Antoinette Pink" were the titles of the 'skin' colors they'd chosen. Other fun names were enjoyed, and the children came up with some of their own names: V liked "ice cream cupcake" to describe her brown eyes; T liked "construction paper blue" for his. This Wednesday, we read Lois Ehlert's "Hands" and then traced our own hands, coloring them in, and I asked the children what they liked to do with their hands and wrote these short answers down.
Some other things we've been doing:
Fingerpainting in trays, with fingers and wooden popsicle sticks; we made some 'prints' of their work for fun, and had the big tub full of soapy water for washing hands and trays.
Car track painting this Tuesday, which morphed into some fingerpainting.
Digging out a 'river' in the sandbox, using a piece of wood for a 'bridge', and sailing our little boat in the sandy water.
Pattern blocks: B declares a trapezoid to be a 'slide', then balances a skinny white diamond block onto a blue diamond block. "and I make two slides". B uses all of the pattern blocks vertically, standing them up and placing them as she liked. T created his "houses" again, using trapezoids for roofs and squares for the lower parts. "Like my four houses?" he asked. V worked a pattern all by herself, starting in the middle and finding places for pieces to fit in the negative spaces of what she's already created.
Body Play: Singing the "Hokey Pokey"; we are talking about our hips, elbows, knees, and some of those trickier parts: thighs and calves, ankles and wrists. I drew a huge person and the children were happy to "run to the ears! Run to the tummy!" Taking turns to call out the directions or run, either way it was fun and we've learned a few more words to describe places on our body.
Our neighbor's eaves are home to a robin's nest. We took a peek at it one morning, and when we only spied a tail, re-read Lois Ehlert's "Pie in the Sky" to see that just like in the book, there are eggs in the nest and sometimes, the tail is all we see of Mama Robin.
B and V dancing together, first on the rug, then in the kitchen so that the rug can be used for block play. Then they join T and become engaged in helping to build a 'skatepark'. B sets up a little 'picnic' nearby on the floor, and V bridges the two activities by telling us "I'm a park dog".
"Oh, what would you like to ask me?" Preschool is a lovely place to keep practicing the good manners we will need throughout our lifetime. More and more often, as our growing children feel more confident in asserting themselves and their needs, they forget that there's a difference between asking for something and demanding it. I noticed that we were a little out of balance in this area when at snack time, a child held their hand in my face with a look of upset. "Oh, do you want to ask me for something?" I inquired; "Yes, can I have a napkin?" they answered. I am placing less emphasis on the 'please' part of this, and just focusing on helping the children think about getting from "I want" and "I need" to "May I please have" or "Could you..." I do notice, too, that their tone of voice changes when they move from demanding to requesting. If their request is made in a whining voice, I have them try it again in a "Friendly Voice". You can help your little ones at home develop these important habits by modeling this as much as possible and by giving them positive feedback when you like what you hear: "I really liked the friendly way you asked me for that glass of water"; or take a moment to help them: "Use your friendly voice, please", or "Let's try that again. What would you like to ask me?" Our children need our support and guidance as they learn to navigate social interaction in their world, and as parents it's often easier to just get them what they want instead of asking them to rephrase. So pick and choose your times for this practice, and do keep it up. When your child is readily asking for what they need in a friendly way, this will ease their upcoming transitions to new schools, teachers and friends in September.
Have a great weekend!
Friday, April 15, 2011
Fine Dining, Kid-Style
Over the last few weeks, we've been having fun exploring the concept of restaurants. Restaurants are often a big deal in the eyes of the children; not only are some of their favorite foods there for the asking, restaurants are one of a few places in which our adult world can overlap with the child's world. Much like a doctor's office or school, the roles of people are clearly defined: servers, cooks and customers. In this way, playing restaurant is an easier leap of imagination for the children, as they know how to be the customers, know what the servers do (take orders, bring food) and the cooks? Well, they see us cooking all the time at home.
In our housekeeping area, the furniture has been rearranged; a menu and the children's 'fine art' hang on the walls and a server's notepad has been added for their use. The children have been putting lots of orders in: pancakes, toast (which is especially popular) and eggs are big sellers here. Servers scrawl scribble-line 'orders' and an apron is donned by the cook, the customer sits on a stool at a small table and receives the food. At their insistence, forks and spoons were added for this pretend play to maintain the children's sense of legitimacy. T took a big first step in writing when he decided the restaurant needed a sign for "Closed" and "Open", and he wrote both words on paper (I spelled them out for him).
Sometimes, too, our dollhouse would come out to serve as a restaurant. Arranged to be a big dining area, a kitchen and a restroom, there was some discussion as to where to put the television "because a TV is for a house, not a restaurant", said V. "Well, some restaurants have TVs on the wall" countered T, and the block which was designated as a television was balanced upon the wall to be 'up'. V's doll was the mother, B's was the girl and then V decided to be a girl too. The dollhouse patrons watched TV, and there was again some conversation about who could watch TV, the grown ups or the kids, as well as a question about what you might see on TVs at restaurants. T and B discussed the placement of the little potty in great detail: should it be under the window, or in the corner for "privacy", which was T's concern.
As you can see, there is a great deal of social play and problem-solving that goes into this sort of exploration.
We sang a song (based on "Mary Wore a Red Dress") to tell about what we liked to order at restaurants. V and B both love to order mac-n-cheese, T really likes sushi. Then, a question which sparked a discussion at Gathering:
Hazel: What happens when we go to a restaurant?
T: Sometimes a mommy and daddy go to a restaurant with me to get sushi too.
V: Well, it's loud and has lots of people there. They cook food, they make all kinds of stuff.
B: I eat mac-n-cheese there.
T: One time I go to Hopworks and there's a train set and pinball but now it's gone.
V: Really?
What do the grown-ups do?
V: The grown ups order, but sometimes I order when girls are there. (if the server is a woman)
B: We have dessert for me. And mommy gets dinner.
V: What dessert do you get?
B: Vanilla ice cream.
T: Sometimes I go to the store and get some ice cream.
One of the books we've been enjoying as a group is Monica Wellington's "Pizza At Sally's". From growing her tomatoes in her community garden to making the sauce in her pizzaria to finally enjoying a slice of her own at the end of the day, Sally's little pizzaria inspired us. On this last Thursday, we walked up to our neighborhood pizza place at snack time for breadsticks with plenty of Parmesan. Most of these were devoured.. Returning to school, we then spent some time making 'pretend pizzas'. First, we mixed the "sauce", which was really glue and red paint, then the children spread it onto the 'dough' (paper circles) and added toppings of paper cheese, pepperoni and olives. Remembering the illustrations from the book, V and T decided to put some more sauce on the top of the toppings, because 'sometimes you see the sauce through the cheese'. Don't forget, too, if you're in a pizza mood, the book "Pete's a Pizza" by William Steig. This sweet story reminds us that our kids can pretend to 'be' food any day, if we're game too.
As I have mentioned before, two of our preschool families have new babies and when significant transitions like this happen, it's even more important for school to stay just the same. Be assured that we are keeping to our routines and that I am aware that sometimes, the children use the school space to have some 'down time'. Each morning, we've been reviewing our options for single player areas as well as reminding the group where the more social play is expected to be accommodated. Our Cozy Corner has a few more toys to add appeal for children needing to take a little break, and we have a total of four independent play areas and three group play areas. The four single player areas mean that there's always a choice, and when there are big things happening at home, having choices can become more important in the eyes of our little ones.
We are also moving on in our exploration of our selves, and doing a few activities to explore our 'selves', some of which will become pages in the children's books. Last week, we spent time at Morning Gathering focused on measuring with length and weight with rulers and scales. First, we used a ruler to measure lines of nuts by inches and made predictions as to which lines of nuts would be longer: hazelnuts, Brazil nuts or walnuts. We learned to our surprise that the same number of Brazil nuts and walnuts measured an equal length, and the hazelnuts were correctly predicted to be obviously smaller. (We charted this using both numerals and corresponding amounts of dots.) Then, we used a scale to measure blocks and books, also asking a question at the start: which would be heavier, the blocks or books? We also discovered that they seem to have evened out poundwise. Lastly, we measured each child's height in inches with a tape measure (which they thought was really neat, especially as it self-retracts very quickly!) and their weight in pounds on a scale and recorded these. Next week, we'll be thinking about the colors of our skin, eyes and hair, and working on a project around this topic.
Several more glimpses into our past two weeks:
Name Pictures: the children were each given cut-out letters of their names, some simple shapes and glue with swabs for spreading. Each child put their name onto their paper in their own way, orienting the letters as they chose. We have one name running in a counter-clockwise circle, one name running left-to-right with a few letters upside down letters and one in a jumble with lots of other shapes worked in to create a burst of letters. These hang on the wall of our puzzle and games area.
Silly, silly play: The children have some 'scaring each other' games going in the most benign, funny way. Two of them will walk by the sharing table and their 'line' is "What a beautiful day" and then another child hides on the other side, jumps out and 'scares' them with a big "BOO!" This elicits shrieks of pretend fear and much laughter. This play was continued in the dollhouse, when T's doll boy began 'skateboarding' on the top of the dollhouse frame and then falling down, saying "What a nice day....OWW!" which was very entertaining to his friends. The safety of the little doll was sacrificed for laughs. Then the other children began to imitate this, with giggles and gales of laughter, dolls tossed into the air with cries of "Hot Lava!" and "Hot Water!" and "What a nice day!" in silly voices.
Lots of opportunities for water play with funnels and beach stones. Scoops were loaded with colorful rocks; some were successfully used to plug up the water mill.
Painting at the big easel with 'daffodil colors'. V tells me her picture is "a big big outer space with all kinds of nice creatures". (With an open mind like that, she's the first one I'm nominating for intergalactic ambassador!) T tells me "I don't know what it is. I mixed all the colors up."
Complicated skate park designs are requiring the children to do more planning, thinking about the traffic flow of the skate park before they use the their cars to 'play' it. Everyone is in on the skate park play these days, and this means that we are learning how to leave the built-in areas as they are and find other areas to build onto it. When a builder leaves, their work may be rearranged to suit the remaining players.
We've been continuing our work with droppers of color. This time, we dripped color onto paper in a pan, then added marbles for a new sort of marble-track picture.The children especially enjoyed tipping the pan to watch the colors swirl and blend.
Paper work: we've had markers and scissors available lately. Some pictures have been going into the mailboxes of friends. T drew a straight line, and then chose cut on it, following the line with scissors. B cut out a triangle shape, so we talked about that as well.
Playdough was another reflection of our restaurant theme: T was "spreading butter on this toast". B had a popsicle stick standing up from the center of her ball of playdough. "I'm making a tall building" she stated. V jumped in on the food play "I'm making toast too" and then B made me a "breakfast of cereal". At the table, I heard a lot of polite questions as the children asked each other for tools.
Outdoors, our sweet planters have gone home to make room for containers of carrots. Last year's Forget-Me-Not plant had set out enough seed to start some more of these small plants with little blue flowers, and we are counting them as they emerge, as well as noticing where they are popping up. How did some of those seeds travel so far? Our peas are thriving, and we are observing where 'more' and 'less' have come up. We've a children's fact book about composting, and one day we walked up to the local coffee shop for their coffee grounds; some of the kids really enjoyed scooping them out of the big bag and throwing them into the heap! (Dirty work is the best fun.) Chasing games have ensued, and we took a lovely scent tour through the garden. The winter daphne is beginning to fade, but the rosemary, pieris, spicy yellow currant, lavender and lemon balm all have their own perfume in this season. And we're observing the plum tree, sporting a few white blossoms, and the cherry tree with its fat buds just waiting for a bit more sun. Books like Lois Ehlert's "Pie in the Sky" help them to understand the cycle of the fruiting trees, and "The Good Brown Earth" by Kathy Henderson reminds us that while we might plant, weed, water and marvel at our gardens, the soil has it's seasons for rest and growth, and it's own magic and mystery: "And the good brown earth got on with doing what the good brown earth does best."
Have a beautiful weekend, rain or shine. I am looking forward to Tuesday with your special little persons!
In our housekeeping area, the furniture has been rearranged; a menu and the children's 'fine art' hang on the walls and a server's notepad has been added for their use. The children have been putting lots of orders in: pancakes, toast (which is especially popular) and eggs are big sellers here. Servers scrawl scribble-line 'orders' and an apron is donned by the cook, the customer sits on a stool at a small table and receives the food. At their insistence, forks and spoons were added for this pretend play to maintain the children's sense of legitimacy. T took a big first step in writing when he decided the restaurant needed a sign for "Closed" and "Open", and he wrote both words on paper (I spelled them out for him).
Sometimes, too, our dollhouse would come out to serve as a restaurant. Arranged to be a big dining area, a kitchen and a restroom, there was some discussion as to where to put the television "because a TV is for a house, not a restaurant", said V. "Well, some restaurants have TVs on the wall" countered T, and the block which was designated as a television was balanced upon the wall to be 'up'. V's doll was the mother, B's was the girl and then V decided to be a girl too. The dollhouse patrons watched TV, and there was again some conversation about who could watch TV, the grown ups or the kids, as well as a question about what you might see on TVs at restaurants. T and B discussed the placement of the little potty in great detail: should it be under the window, or in the corner for "privacy", which was T's concern.
As you can see, there is a great deal of social play and problem-solving that goes into this sort of exploration.
We sang a song (based on "Mary Wore a Red Dress") to tell about what we liked to order at restaurants. V and B both love to order mac-n-cheese, T really likes sushi. Then, a question which sparked a discussion at Gathering:
Hazel: What happens when we go to a restaurant?
T: Sometimes a mommy and daddy go to a restaurant with me to get sushi too.
V: Well, it's loud and has lots of people there. They cook food, they make all kinds of stuff.
B: I eat mac-n-cheese there.
T: One time I go to Hopworks and there's a train set and pinball but now it's gone.
V: Really?
What do the grown-ups do?
V: The grown ups order, but sometimes I order when girls are there. (if the server is a woman)
B: We have dessert for me. And mommy gets dinner.
V: What dessert do you get?
B: Vanilla ice cream.
T: Sometimes I go to the store and get some ice cream.
One of the books we've been enjoying as a group is Monica Wellington's "Pizza At Sally's". From growing her tomatoes in her community garden to making the sauce in her pizzaria to finally enjoying a slice of her own at the end of the day, Sally's little pizzaria inspired us. On this last Thursday, we walked up to our neighborhood pizza place at snack time for breadsticks with plenty of Parmesan. Most of these were devoured.. Returning to school, we then spent some time making 'pretend pizzas'. First, we mixed the "sauce", which was really glue and red paint, then the children spread it onto the 'dough' (paper circles) and added toppings of paper cheese, pepperoni and olives. Remembering the illustrations from the book, V and T decided to put some more sauce on the top of the toppings, because 'sometimes you see the sauce through the cheese'. Don't forget, too, if you're in a pizza mood, the book "Pete's a Pizza" by William Steig. This sweet story reminds us that our kids can pretend to 'be' food any day, if we're game too.
As I have mentioned before, two of our preschool families have new babies and when significant transitions like this happen, it's even more important for school to stay just the same. Be assured that we are keeping to our routines and that I am aware that sometimes, the children use the school space to have some 'down time'. Each morning, we've been reviewing our options for single player areas as well as reminding the group where the more social play is expected to be accommodated. Our Cozy Corner has a few more toys to add appeal for children needing to take a little break, and we have a total of four independent play areas and three group play areas. The four single player areas mean that there's always a choice, and when there are big things happening at home, having choices can become more important in the eyes of our little ones.
We are also moving on in our exploration of our selves, and doing a few activities to explore our 'selves', some of which will become pages in the children's books. Last week, we spent time at Morning Gathering focused on measuring with length and weight with rulers and scales. First, we used a ruler to measure lines of nuts by inches and made predictions as to which lines of nuts would be longer: hazelnuts, Brazil nuts or walnuts. We learned to our surprise that the same number of Brazil nuts and walnuts measured an equal length, and the hazelnuts were correctly predicted to be obviously smaller. (We charted this using both numerals and corresponding amounts of dots.) Then, we used a scale to measure blocks and books, also asking a question at the start: which would be heavier, the blocks or books? We also discovered that they seem to have evened out poundwise. Lastly, we measured each child's height in inches with a tape measure (which they thought was really neat, especially as it self-retracts very quickly!) and their weight in pounds on a scale and recorded these. Next week, we'll be thinking about the colors of our skin, eyes and hair, and working on a project around this topic.
Several more glimpses into our past two weeks:
Name Pictures: the children were each given cut-out letters of their names, some simple shapes and glue with swabs for spreading. Each child put their name onto their paper in their own way, orienting the letters as they chose. We have one name running in a counter-clockwise circle, one name running left-to-right with a few letters upside down letters and one in a jumble with lots of other shapes worked in to create a burst of letters. These hang on the wall of our puzzle and games area.
Silly, silly play: The children have some 'scaring each other' games going in the most benign, funny way. Two of them will walk by the sharing table and their 'line' is "What a beautiful day" and then another child hides on the other side, jumps out and 'scares' them with a big "BOO!" This elicits shrieks of pretend fear and much laughter. This play was continued in the dollhouse, when T's doll boy began 'skateboarding' on the top of the dollhouse frame and then falling down, saying "What a nice day....OWW!" which was very entertaining to his friends. The safety of the little doll was sacrificed for laughs. Then the other children began to imitate this, with giggles and gales of laughter, dolls tossed into the air with cries of "Hot Lava!" and "Hot Water!" and "What a nice day!" in silly voices.
Lots of opportunities for water play with funnels and beach stones. Scoops were loaded with colorful rocks; some were successfully used to plug up the water mill.
Painting at the big easel with 'daffodil colors'. V tells me her picture is "a big big outer space with all kinds of nice creatures". (With an open mind like that, she's the first one I'm nominating for intergalactic ambassador!) T tells me "I don't know what it is. I mixed all the colors up."
Complicated skate park designs are requiring the children to do more planning, thinking about the traffic flow of the skate park before they use the their cars to 'play' it. Everyone is in on the skate park play these days, and this means that we are learning how to leave the built-in areas as they are and find other areas to build onto it. When a builder leaves, their work may be rearranged to suit the remaining players.
We've been continuing our work with droppers of color. This time, we dripped color onto paper in a pan, then added marbles for a new sort of marble-track picture.The children especially enjoyed tipping the pan to watch the colors swirl and blend.
Paper work: we've had markers and scissors available lately. Some pictures have been going into the mailboxes of friends. T drew a straight line, and then chose cut on it, following the line with scissors. B cut out a triangle shape, so we talked about that as well.
Playdough was another reflection of our restaurant theme: T was "spreading butter on this toast". B had a popsicle stick standing up from the center of her ball of playdough. "I'm making a tall building" she stated. V jumped in on the food play "I'm making toast too" and then B made me a "breakfast of cereal". At the table, I heard a lot of polite questions as the children asked each other for tools.
Outdoors, our sweet planters have gone home to make room for containers of carrots. Last year's Forget-Me-Not plant had set out enough seed to start some more of these small plants with little blue flowers, and we are counting them as they emerge, as well as noticing where they are popping up. How did some of those seeds travel so far? Our peas are thriving, and we are observing where 'more' and 'less' have come up. We've a children's fact book about composting, and one day we walked up to the local coffee shop for their coffee grounds; some of the kids really enjoyed scooping them out of the big bag and throwing them into the heap! (Dirty work is the best fun.) Chasing games have ensued, and we took a lovely scent tour through the garden. The winter daphne is beginning to fade, but the rosemary, pieris, spicy yellow currant, lavender and lemon balm all have their own perfume in this season. And we're observing the plum tree, sporting a few white blossoms, and the cherry tree with its fat buds just waiting for a bit more sun. Books like Lois Ehlert's "Pie in the Sky" help them to understand the cycle of the fruiting trees, and "The Good Brown Earth" by Kathy Henderson reminds us that while we might plant, weed, water and marvel at our gardens, the soil has it's seasons for rest and growth, and it's own magic and mystery: "And the good brown earth got on with doing what the good brown earth does best."
Have a beautiful weekend, rain or shine. I am looking forward to Tuesday with your special little persons!
Friday, April 8, 2011
A Slight Change
As two of our families have new babies, and as I find myself becoming more interested in providing a richer, more concise account of our days together, I've decided to update this blog once every two weeks. Please enjoy your weekend and do look for the next post around April 16th.
Hazel
Hazel
Friday, April 1, 2011
Fun and Family
This week for our group has been a quieter one indoors, and a very busy one out in the backyard. Our hyacinths are blooming, thick blue spikes of color in our pots of pansies. Our peas are beginning to sprout too; we can just barely see the green bits emerging from the soil. On Tuesday, both V and T helped me crush washed eggshells with a mortar and pestle, and then scattered the pieces over the sprouts. This will give the peas some protection against slugs and cutworms.
Now that the we have the trellis for the peas to grow on, chasing games are a big hit. Having a longer shape to run around (the children's house and the peas) is making these games more challenging. What else is happening outside? We're noticing the different colors and variety of daffodils. B has been 'making food' over by the rain garden with rocks, pine cones and sweet gum pods. Yesterday, she gave me a "breakfast" of two rocks! Our new rainbow wind spinner tells us the direction of the wind, and the children are noticing this and calling out, pointing "The wind is blowing from that way!" Our "Hide the Shoe" game is starting to involve clues and hot/cold directions from the children. After a story time book on composting and compost piles, we turned over the compost to find impressive masses of very healthy-looking worms, which astonished the children. I think V wanted to hold each of them in turn; she loves to examine the worms and bugs. On Wednesday, after a shorter Trail Walk, we dug out "a lake and a channel" for water in the sandbox, and unearthed some long-buried treasures as well, then brought buckets of water over to fill up our waterways. We've also decided as a group that it was time for the 'nest' of old grapevine trimmings to go, so that we can make a permanent site for fairy house play.
Family, food, and growing things have been topics of conversations and story time this week. On Tuesday, we finished working on a group collage of "Foods We Like" and our individual pages for our books. Thursday also found us working on book pages, this time pasting pictures of our family onto the paper and naming the members of our family. There have been a Prince and Princess keeping busy in the housekeeping this week; V and B have made many Stone Soups as they play these characters. One of their conversations when this all started:
B: You're going to be the princess and I'm going to be the guy.
V: Who? The guard or the guy?
B: The guy.
V: Oh, the prince.
They've been switching off playing these roles, with lots of dress-up play. T has been enjoying these moments for himself, building with magnet blocks, and bristle blocks. On Wednesday, he made a bristle block camera and took pictures of V.
Our block area has been busy. B and V loaded trains and trucks with nuts and stones and ran them round the 'track' of the carpet. T joined them, bringing the house puzzle down and stating "I think we need a station." Wednesday found a colorful skateboard park of both the smaller colored blocks and long unit blocks, created by T and V, who are obviously working toward creating the best skate park ever! Their cars were the 'skateboards', which did tremendous tricks and flips. Very daring!
We are moving into a time of working with eye-droppers, and will have more art opportunities for this as the weather warms up and we can move the big paper easel outside. This is a challenge of both fine motor skill and learning a sequence of actions, which we sang: "Squeeze, Let Go, Pull it Out, Squeeze Again". Sounds a bit silly from an adult perspective, but keeping these steps in order is essential to actually getting the watercolor paint from bottle to paper. It's always neat to observe each child's techniques. B used her dropper to draw out the color from the bottle, then made lines of paint with the tip of the dropper, using it almost like a pencil to move the color. T has been talking a lot lately about the story of "Little Blue and Little Yellow", and had fun dropping yellow paint onto blue dots he'd first put onto the paper, watching at how they turned green. V dripped different colors onto each other. "Look, I'm making a river!" exclaimed T, noticing the color becoming a stream of sorts. "Look at my river right here!" invited V. The children worked on trays, so they could tip and manipulate the paint once it had been dropped on. And we discovered that all those colors together (red, blue, green) make some interesting browns.
A few more moments from our week:
T and V using reinforcement ring stickers and markers on paper. T draws a 'giraffe-- there's the eye'. ( a reinforcement ring was used. V makes 'boats going around', a series of circles. "Like my 1?" asks T, drawing a numeral 'one' onto his paper. V writes her entire name on her picture, with a little help ( I drew out the letters she couldn't immediately recall onto a separate piece of paper). Quite a proud girl!
Play dough: lots of scissors play on Tuesday (cutting up food circulars), and play dough time was no exception. V asked B " can I do what you're doing?" and both cut away at the chunks of dough for a time. T makes 'a cake with a candle' and then builds a 'teeter-totter' with the dough. V creates a teeter-totter too.
V and T sort through the colored rice bin for beads and buttons. They are very interested in their discoveries.
We continue to explore puzzles. Our dinosaur puzzle is a huge hit, the mouse puzzle also a challenge. We are working on referring to the picture on the box for the latter; for the former, much of this is looking for clusters of color (the dinosaurs are very colorful) and textures and matching those up. When they're stumped, I'm asking them to look at the shapes of the pieces, to remind them about distinguishing between edge and center pieces. This will take a lot of practice before it becomes automatic.
We changed up our Animal Mothers and Their Babies matching game to include making the sounds each animal makes. Quite a cacophony of noises!
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you Tuesday!
Now that the we have the trellis for the peas to grow on, chasing games are a big hit. Having a longer shape to run around (the children's house and the peas) is making these games more challenging. What else is happening outside? We're noticing the different colors and variety of daffodils. B has been 'making food' over by the rain garden with rocks, pine cones and sweet gum pods. Yesterday, she gave me a "breakfast" of two rocks! Our new rainbow wind spinner tells us the direction of the wind, and the children are noticing this and calling out, pointing "The wind is blowing from that way!" Our "Hide the Shoe" game is starting to involve clues and hot/cold directions from the children. After a story time book on composting and compost piles, we turned over the compost to find impressive masses of very healthy-looking worms, which astonished the children. I think V wanted to hold each of them in turn; she loves to examine the worms and bugs. On Wednesday, after a shorter Trail Walk, we dug out "a lake and a channel" for water in the sandbox, and unearthed some long-buried treasures as well, then brought buckets of water over to fill up our waterways. We've also decided as a group that it was time for the 'nest' of old grapevine trimmings to go, so that we can make a permanent site for fairy house play.
Family, food, and growing things have been topics of conversations and story time this week. On Tuesday, we finished working on a group collage of "Foods We Like" and our individual pages for our books. Thursday also found us working on book pages, this time pasting pictures of our family onto the paper and naming the members of our family. There have been a Prince and Princess keeping busy in the housekeeping this week; V and B have made many Stone Soups as they play these characters. One of their conversations when this all started:
B: You're going to be the princess and I'm going to be the guy.
V: Who? The guard or the guy?
B: The guy.
V: Oh, the prince.
They've been switching off playing these roles, with lots of dress-up play. T has been enjoying these moments for himself, building with magnet blocks, and bristle blocks. On Wednesday, he made a bristle block camera and took pictures of V.
Our block area has been busy. B and V loaded trains and trucks with nuts and stones and ran them round the 'track' of the carpet. T joined them, bringing the house puzzle down and stating "I think we need a station." Wednesday found a colorful skateboard park of both the smaller colored blocks and long unit blocks, created by T and V, who are obviously working toward creating the best skate park ever! Their cars were the 'skateboards', which did tremendous tricks and flips. Very daring!
We are moving into a time of working with eye-droppers, and will have more art opportunities for this as the weather warms up and we can move the big paper easel outside. This is a challenge of both fine motor skill and learning a sequence of actions, which we sang: "Squeeze, Let Go, Pull it Out, Squeeze Again". Sounds a bit silly from an adult perspective, but keeping these steps in order is essential to actually getting the watercolor paint from bottle to paper. It's always neat to observe each child's techniques. B used her dropper to draw out the color from the bottle, then made lines of paint with the tip of the dropper, using it almost like a pencil to move the color. T has been talking a lot lately about the story of "Little Blue and Little Yellow", and had fun dropping yellow paint onto blue dots he'd first put onto the paper, watching at how they turned green. V dripped different colors onto each other. "Look, I'm making a river!" exclaimed T, noticing the color becoming a stream of sorts. "Look at my river right here!" invited V. The children worked on trays, so they could tip and manipulate the paint once it had been dropped on. And we discovered that all those colors together (red, blue, green) make some interesting browns.
A few more moments from our week:
T and V using reinforcement ring stickers and markers on paper. T draws a 'giraffe-- there's the eye'. ( a reinforcement ring was used. V makes 'boats going around', a series of circles. "Like my 1?" asks T, drawing a numeral 'one' onto his paper. V writes her entire name on her picture, with a little help ( I drew out the letters she couldn't immediately recall onto a separate piece of paper). Quite a proud girl!
Play dough: lots of scissors play on Tuesday (cutting up food circulars), and play dough time was no exception. V asked B " can I do what you're doing?" and both cut away at the chunks of dough for a time. T makes 'a cake with a candle' and then builds a 'teeter-totter' with the dough. V creates a teeter-totter too.
V and T sort through the colored rice bin for beads and buttons. They are very interested in their discoveries.
We continue to explore puzzles. Our dinosaur puzzle is a huge hit, the mouse puzzle also a challenge. We are working on referring to the picture on the box for the latter; for the former, much of this is looking for clusters of color (the dinosaurs are very colorful) and textures and matching those up. When they're stumped, I'm asking them to look at the shapes of the pieces, to remind them about distinguishing between edge and center pieces. This will take a lot of practice before it becomes automatic.
We changed up our Animal Mothers and Their Babies matching game to include making the sounds each animal makes. Quite a cacophony of noises!
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you Tuesday!
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