"I already did it, but I want to do to watercolor for my plan today." -Georgia
Have a great weekend and welcome October!
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As you will remember, our Brown Room Birthday Gifts were collages. Towards the end of the year, the children began participating in preparing the materials - cutting the paper, finding the tools, and setting up the materials for the committee to use the next day. When we began to think about a birthday gift for our Rainey Room year, we reflected on the children's interest and skills with choosing and preparing materials. Our reflection and brainstorming led us to the idea of a kit. Our goal was to create opportunities for the children to brainstorm (about the birthday child; known languages/approaches/techniques/materials), collect and prepare materials, and think creatively and openly about the use of materials (languages). We also anticipate that it will provide opportunities for introducing new languages/materials. Rainey Room Birthday Gifts - Kits!We encourage you to take a few minutes at drop-off to read through some of the children's ideas about kits. This has been a great opportunity for divergent thinking, problem solving, mathematical concepts, creative expression, community building, getting to know each other, etc. It is a challenging concept, and the children are certainly rising to the occasion -- as we knew they would. "This is hard. It's a lot of thinking." - Henri, 4.1 years Exploring Materials and PossibilitiesPierce's Wire Kit and Celebration“I think Pierce would like a wire kit. What colors does he like?” - Gracie, 3.11 years What goes in a wire kit? - Elyse “We can put wire and fabric.” - Gracie “We can put rubber bands.” - Will, 3.11 years “We can put tissue paper.” - Caroline, 3.4 years “We can put some examples [of wire and fabric together].” - Caroline “It [the instructions] would be about what you can make with wire. ” - Will What do you think he will make with his wire kit? - Elyse “Something he likes. Maybe a truck.” - Will
Collecting and Preparing Materials Celebrating Pierce
"It's fall!" -Georgia (As said with elation while jumping at the sight of a falling leaf.) "It's different (dancing) out here. The mulch kicks under your feet," Eliza commented, following our first outdoor morning meeting. We have thoroughly been enjoying the weather outside during our outdoor times, offering opportunities to work with additional, specific materials especially on our Tuesday and Thursday backwards days.
Pictured below, was a table with wire and materials to add to the wire such as beads and cloth with the challenge to create a space between each added material by twisting or turning the wire so that they didn't touch. "How about I twist it together to make it longer." -Adaline Familiar techniques were practiced while some new techniques were discovered such as using a pointed object to perforate the cloth to allow the wire to thread through the finer weave of the fabric. "So first, let me show you, I have to poke it in..." explained Gracie, followed by inserting a piece of wire. Some more observation, exploration, and discoveries occurred when some of the children, together, they turned over a tree stump. "There's a worm!" they exclaimed. "I want to hold it," Win and other children said, gradually taking turns passing off the small earth worm or millipede. "What's that yellow stuff?" Georgia asked pointing and referring to the lichen like matter. Along with the earth worm and millipedes there were many, tiny white aphid like insects and eventually a teeny tiny snail was spotted. "Can we keep it?!" Caroline asked with a tenderly persuasive plea. Turns then were taken to carefully hold the small piece of mulch hosting the tiny snail with information to hold only the wood so as not to harm or disturb the delicate structure of the snail, which is different than the worm. About the worm or possibly the snail too, Georgia said, "They're even more gentle. They're even more gentle than I thought."
Happy Autumnal Equinox and Enjoy Your Weekend!
"I did math!" - Eliza, 3.10 years
Creating a three-step color with Win
[R to L]: Eliza's "Dark Pink"; Win's "Darker green"; Pierce's "Butter"; Eliza's "Light orange"; Pierce's "Spiderman Blue" and "Race car blue"; Christopher's "Blueberry blue" and "Crab yellow" Expanding our concept of Color Mixing"What's happening in the studio?" - multiple children What do you see? What do you think could be happening there today? "I see a light table." - Eliza, 3.10 years "Maybe we can mix colors in light." - Henri, 4.1 years **we anticipate much more work around Henri's suggestion that we were "mixing colors in light". In fact, today's work in the studio was set up to offer a broader context for color mixing. There was a light table with trays of colorful, transparent materials in the primary colors as well as some secondary colors (pink, orange, green, purple, etc.). On a second table, there were materials for "tray mixing" with tempera paint. Pierce's GreenPierce paid very close attention to the effect that his layers were having on the color. He observed the green floppy disk and then layered red and blue on top of the yellow transparency. Upon closer examination, he noticed that it had made a shade of green. Pierce was thoughtful and intentional about the placement of his materials and then moved to the trays to experiment with the tempera paint. Tray Mixing - Tempera Paint
"I like the room, it got organized." -Pierce
The studio was thoughtfully set up to accommodate active minds and bodies. The studio has three established areas: the easel, the studio tables for small groups and of course snack ("We're having snack in the studio!" -Gracie), and a smaller versatile work space to eventually support ongoing, independent clay work, while still being versatile enough to provide other experiences such as drawing or watercolor.
"It's pretend clay!" -Eliza "We connected all the pieces. We connected the brads to all the pieces so they connect ... stay together." -Caroline Creating movable collages with sparkly, shiny papers & shiny brads
Brown Room
"Remember that I wanted to make a clay butterfly?" - Will, 3.11 yearsn (RR) These drawings below are from the last day of Brown Room when the children were asked to imagine anything what they might want to make out of clay. Adaline, Will, and Gracie all drew butterflies. Lillian also joined this group and was enthusiastic to think about a clay butterfly. Gracie, 3.7 years (BR) Researching butterflies
There were some things we already knew about butterflies, and other things we had to learn through exploration and research. "It's got wings." - Will, 3.11 years "Butterflies have eyes." - Adaline, 3.11 years "They all have them (antennae). Every single one, and there's something holding them up [head]." - Will, 3.11 years
Designing their own butterflies "I want to design a pretty pink one. I found a dark pink! Mine will be closed. It will be asleep." - Gracie, 3.11 years **We learned that butterflies at rest have their wings closed together. The children decided that this meant that they were sleeping and when their wings are open, they are awake.** "I want to design one like this (blue). Mine is going to have lines." - Will, 3.11 years "I'm doing a rainbow one. Patterns are dots, right? - Adaline, - 3.11 years How do you think you will make dots in the clay? - Elyse "Remember the holes in my [clay] banana?" - Adaline, 3.11 years "I'm thinking about purple. It's dark purple." - Lillian, 3.5 years In each of their drawings, you can see symmetry of lines, color, and shapes. They incorporated our new information about eyes and antennae, and each followed through with their stated design choices. "Clay with Jen." - Eliza (when reading the visual projections)Today, the children began their work by sharing their designs with Jen. Next, we began to get our hands busy with the clay. The children all took slightly different approaches to their work, but in the end, they each had a butterfly or two. Jen also introduced us to a new type of wire today which can be fired in the kiln (most wire cannot be fired). This offered a different approach to creating antennae and legs for the butterflies. The children are going to continue working tomorrow, and even invite others to join them in this work. In the coming weeks, we will also invite the other children who drew designs in Brown Room to make their own clay ideas.
Below are their current butterflies. Top (L to R): Adaline's flying butterfly (holes in the wings); Will's butterfly with lines (as seen in his drawing); Lillian's 3D butterfly with wire legs Bottom (L to R): Gracie's sleeping butterfly; Gracie's awake butterfly; Adaline's 1st butterfly; Will's 2nd butterfly "I can't believe we're in the wrong room!" - Georgia, 3.9 years Welcome to the Rainey Room! We have had a fantastic week, and it is so much fun to see how much everyone has grown. They have been so excited to explore our new space and be back together again -- it's as though they never had a staggered schedule in Brown Room. We have been exploring our new classroom, settling into our routine, discussing our visual projections and new birthday calendar, starting some work for our upcoming birthday committees (spoiler alert: it is not a collage), and created our portfolio drawer decorations. Please be sure to look for our blogs twice a week! We look forward to sharing all of the work with you via the blog, visual projections, and other documentation in the classroom. We will also have a binder near the sign-in sheet that will archive the blog. Feel free to take a look with your child during drop-off.
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April 2024
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