|
Today in the studio, we listened to "The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi (inspired by a Vivaldi book that Lucy brought to school). Bruno and Cassius painted while listening to Vivaldi's "Winter". The video above shows how their paint strokes became fast when the music was fast, and slow when the music was slow.
Hadley and Prater found images of musical instruments and projected them on our glass drawing board. They then traced the images in black sharpie. First they traced the violin, then a harmonica. When our class met for second meeting, we showed the tracings. Lila said she could see the second tracing was a harmonica "because of the lines". Rose asked, "What is a harmonica?" We watched a video clip of a very catchy harmonica tune... Click here to listen.
Today we hosted Singalong in our classroom. We sang songs like Twinkle Twinkle, Puff the Magic Dragon, and Old MacDonald.  We ended the week with a dance party to "Wagon Wheel" and some outdoor play. Have a great weekend!
0 Comments
 The teachers have known for some time now that this particular group of children love the language of music. The Tucker Room children are fascinated while listening to all genres of music, and many are enthusiastic singers and dancers. Since reading the book, Play, Mozart, Play, friends have been interested in talking about and listening to music at school. When Lucy brought in her symphony book the other day, friends were enthralled. Each day that Lucy has kindly shared this special book, friends have been taking turns pressing the buttons to hear various movements of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Today we reminded children that four friends put on a "music/dance" show in the theater yesterday. Teachers suggested that children perform another dance/music show on the outdoor "stage" during Backwards Day. A large group ran upstairs to collect musical instruments and quickly began practicing on the outdoor stage. Alex - No one is allowed to watch the practice rounds. Rose - But who will be the leader of the band?
Later, while making plans at morning meeting, Bruno exclaimed that he wanted to build a "disco" with a disco ball. Many children decided to join him. They built the dance club and requested music to dance to - of course the teachers selected ABBA! Bruno - We're gonna put a disco ball on the blocks. (Alex placed new styrofoam all around.) Thank you, Alex. Alex - You need you pay money for the Disco club. Can I be someone coming to the disco ball. I need to pay money. Ellee - At a real disco, they make you take your shoes off. They all dress up fancy. Alex - No backpacks allowed in the disco. They're too big and take up too much space.     In the studio, we invited friends to look closely at some instruments and then draw them from life. Top left is a bongo drum by Willa; top right is a ukulele by Hadley; bottom left is a clarinet by Jay; bottom right is a tambourine by Cassius. Each child worked with a teacher to closely observe the shapes in each instrument, for instance the triangle in the clarinet's mouthpiece and the circle-shaped bells on the tambourine.
Ellee's birthday committee (Prater, Willa, and Bruno, with carrying help from Alex) presented her with the gift they made: A rainbow pegasus unicorn wearing a diamond necklace and tiara!
Two new systems for the theater were introduced today: Magic List - encourages children who would not otherwise choose to perform to take a turn on the stage; provides opportunities for diverse groups of children to learn new strategies of problem solving, negotiation, and compromise from other children. Storyboards - increases the independence of children performing plays; they can "read" their story and perform it without teacher assistance
Lila, Prater, Rose, Grace divided their story into six parts and illustrated each "scene."
PICTURE DAY and fun with "dirty water" (Maya and Willa's concoction)
PHOTOGRAPHY... Hadley took the following pictures of her classmates enjoying the outdoors!
In the studio, we did some important work on our very first birthday committee this year. Ellee, the birthday child, had some requests for the committee that included a pegasus, a unicorn, and a tiara. Bruno began rolling long coils for the legs of the unicorn, and added smaller pieces for hooves. "You know," he said, "My mama teach me how to do this." Prater took on the job of the tiara and a diamond necklace, while Willa helped construct the body, the face, and the hair.
 Last week, the children suggested ways we could include more people in our movies and plays. Cassius said, "we need a bigger space". Prater: "So how ‘bout this. Some of the people can go on the ground, some of the people can go on the stage. Yeah, we’re gonna spread out." Alex: We could put blocks right there so more and more people - so all of us could perform at the same time. Some people could be up here, and some people could be down here on the blocks." Since it was important to our class to have more people in the plays, today we pushed the construction table over to the stage to make it bigger!
 Lucy helped us assemble all the pieces of our honeycomb project into one big shape. She said it was the shape of a dog bone.   Willa cut out dinosaurs and created scenes around them. About the Brontosaurus: "It's like 100 feet. One hundred feet into the sky." Willa is very curious about measurement - she and Melanie discussed her dad's height.
 Carl, Lila, Prater, Hadley, and Grace were excited to try new materials in the studio. They used knitting needles and other tools to draw and write on Aluminum Tooling Foil, a challenge requiring a great deal of fine motor strength. Lila narrated as she drew: "An A for Alex. A baby A. I'm gonna make a house made of an A. I'm gonna make an arrow so you know it's the top of the house. I'm making a gingerbread house. (sings) "You can't catch me . . ." When Lila realized by turning her foil over that her drawing could be seen through to the other side, she exclaimed, "Both sides! When I draw on it, it sends it to the other side. Draw, draw, draw, and then SEND! It sends to the other side to the next side. Isn't that cool?" Carl added, "I draw on one side. I don't have to draw on the other side."  A Ship in Construction
In the studio, we've been experimenting with wire and metal objects. Each child will be making a portfolio basket decoration with these materials. Each child chose a different approach to attaching the materials (each piece corresponds to the child's picture above).
 We have been continuing to explore areas of the Tucker Room such as the "small stuff" area. This area involves games, puzzles, and fine motor activities. Above you can see the interest we had in dominoes today.
 We ended our morning with some yoga. Here you can see our hands in the air for warrior pose.
Nurturing our community . . . Giacomo greets George
Ellee and Lou Lou enjoy singalong together. As the theatre production continued today, a group of partner-painters made some decoration for the background of the stage. Prater and Maya printed a picture of a witch's house to be their inspiration for their painting.     Basket sewing continued today, as well. Bruno said his work would be done, "When it's done with school. When it runs out of string." Then he said, "It's a sandwich and mommy's gonna love it."
|
Tucker RoomWelcome families! Archives
May 2018
Print Page |
RSS Feed