Happy Birthday, Harry!Last week, in preparation for his birthday, Harry shared with us that his favorite color is brown. We posed the question, What can you think of that's brown? Harry: Brown like some trees. Noah: Brown like roots. Van: Tree branches are brown. Benji: And I just saw a big stick and I held it in my hand. Noah: Big tree out there. Graham: An owl is brown. Thomas: Our clay is brown. Harry: Birds can be brown. Dahlia: A brown bear! Van: And also reindeers. Acorns! With brown in mind, Betsy and Benji, Harry's birthday committee, set out to weave. First, Benji and Betsy spent some time familiarizing themselves with the new, horizontal loom that Sam and Victor made for us (thanks, guys!). We noticed that the children wove so smoothly while using the large loom for our winter weaving, and hypothesized that it was because they could easily access both sides of the weaving and therefore both hands could work in tandem. With that in mind, we decided to create this specialized tool. To make Harry's message, we wondered, what colors could we mix together to create brown? We need the brown all around. - Betsy Let's Celebrate!
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Over the past couple months we have had a few family visitors join us in the Brown Room for family tradition sharing! Particularly throughout our Brown Room year, we (the teachers), the children, and their families are continually learning more about each other. We love discovering what makes each child and family unique and observing the children's connections with each other grow stronger as they learn more about their peers. Sharing these "traditions" or routines that have been established in your home to help bring your family closer together while making memories with one another is such a special way for the children to discover new and exciting things about their friends! Today, we'd like to share a bit more about the traditions that our friends Dahlia, Noah, William, Elizabeth, Nadia, and Cece brought into the Brown Room for everyone to experience together. Every year, Dahlia's family bakes and decorates cookies for Christmas! The recipe has been passed down on Sunny's side of the family and she shared a little bit more about the special history behind these delicious cookies: The recipe for the Danish Butter Shape Cookies comes from Silkeborg, Denmark, from Dahlia’s maternal great, great grandmother, Johanne Mikkelsen, who emigrated to the United States in 1915. Dahlia’s middle name is Johanne, after her. Making these cookies each Christmas is part of our family tradition passed down from Dahlia’s mother’s side of the family, who are Danish. They were dairy farmers in Wisconsin and made these cookies with fresh milk and cream from their cows. Every year we make these cookies in fun Christmas shapes, ice them with buttercream frosting, and decorate them with colorful sprinkles. It’s not Christmas without these special cookies! To celebrate the New Year, Noah and his family cook and eat traditional Japanese New Year foods called Osechi. Noah shared with everyone that, "Japan is Japanese" and "I go to the airport when I was two" when he traveled to Japan. Shigeno (Noah's mom) explained that Osechi are typically eaten for the first three days of the new year. The foods have special boxes and all have different meanings to wish a Happy New Year for family and friends. What are those? Vegetables? - Lily asks Shigeno about the food inside of the boxes. Noah responds that some are healthy foods. Some things can be healthy for you. - Lily Healthy foods to feel good. - Elizabeth
Growing up in New Orleans, Cece celebrates Mardi Gras with her family every year! She brought in photos to show the children and shared some of her favorite memories of celebrating as a child.
To help the children celebrate the always exciting Valentine's Day, William and his mom, Lauren, shared a very festive craft with all of our friends! Elizabeth's mom, Nancy, explained to the children that Elizabeth was born in Singapore! In Singapore, Elizabeth and her family would celebrate Lunar New Year together. Elizabeth was born during the Year of the Rat, but each year brings a new zodiac symbol. 2024 is the Year of the Dragon! Nancy shared that some ways people celebrate are by decorating with special red colored lanterns and watching performances like dragon dances! Elizabeth and her mom LOVE to dance together, so the children joined in a dance party with their new year decorations during her visit. Nadia, her mom (Roxane), and her brother (Jack) helped us understand, what is a lei? It's made with materials. - Nadia While living in Hawaii, Nadia and her family celebrated many special moments with leis. Receiving a lei is a way to celebrate a birthday, a marriage, to welcome someone, to say goodbye, and to share that you love somebody. Nadia was gifted her first lei when she was just a very tiny baby! Nadia shared materials with all of us so that each child could thread their own special lei! Thank you to everyone who shared your special family traditions with us. These were such fun and memorable experiences for the children!
Please know that if you are interested in coming to the classroom to share something with the children or are looking for other opportunities to visit (such as mystery reader) you are always welcome to reach out to us and we can plan a time together. Research for Our Coat of LeavesA microscope makes things bigger - Lily In order to better understand the structure, texture, and appearance of leaves, Brown Room children have been using the digital microscope to get a closer look at a variety of familiar leaves.. When children found an area of interest, many chose to capture it by taking a snapshot. What Color Should our Coat of Leaves Be?This was the question we posed to a small group, as we continue our journey towards building our coat. The children paged through blogs and documentation in order to reflect on past dialogue around leaf colors. Children also handled the "grey" leaves, the paper we produced earlier this month. Children select colors using materials in the studio, then swatch their chosen color(Re)-Introducing Jen It's been brought to our attention that, although we often mention Jen in our blog, documentation and conversation, we've never officially introduced her. Jen Azzariti is our Pedagogical Director here at school. She has been working at St. John's for over 20 years, and has a rich professional history of working with materials. She works alongside both us and the children as we project our work, plan materials experiences and organize our environment to reflect and support our journey. She generally joins us in the classroom once a week, and is known and loved by the Brown Room children,
I make banana bread at Hana. - NadiaAt home, I put chocolate in my banana bread. - VanWe hope that everyone enjoyed their long weekend! Today, the children had the opportunity to help with a special baking project in the classroom. Earlier this school year while gathered together for snack, Van mentioned to his friends that "when the bananas are brown, we make banana bread." This led to an exciting conversation about what the children enjoy baking at home with their families. We knew that eventually, we would revisit Van's idea and make some banana bread ourselves. Knowing that this week some of our SJP community members would be helping to both prepare and serve dinner for unhoused guests of St. John's Church, we felt that this would be the perfect opportunity to have the children contribute in some way. Today at morning meeting we shared with the children that St. John's Church tries to figure out different ways to help people in our neighborhood. This month, the church is helping to make food for visitors who might be hungry in the evenings and need a place to have a meal. The children were excited to make a new recipe and to help contribute to the meal planning! Of course, they understood that they too would benefit from the experience. We can make it for the grown-ups at the church! - Thomas And then we can have some for us! - Lily Banana Bread
We have to put some eggs in the bowl. - Betsy I cracked it with the bowl. - Van Then we mixed it with the special tool. - Thomas The mixer! - Betsy
This afternoon, teachers spent time with a great group of visiting educators! It's always so interesting and valuable to hear other teachers perspectives and to be able to engage in dialogue with others who share a passion for and dedication to early childhood education. Because of our shortened work time this afternoon, we just wanted to share a quick post to say THANK YOU for joining us this week for two special morning meetings. Although we didn't have any baby siblings present on Tuesday, we were able to ask an expert panel of moms many of our questions related to taking care of babies. Today, we had three younger siblings join us in the Brown Room and both moms and dads present to hear our questions and provide us with some new information! Thank you again for supporting your children's interest in caretaking. It's been a great learning experience so far and we're certain that the children will bring some of the new things they've learned into the classroom when caring for our Brown Room babies!
Shadow hunting? That's cool! - Betsy As we continue to explore nighttime, the qualities of light versus dark, and the sights and sounds particular to nighttime, children have continuously brought up shadows as something that is associated with nighttime. We wondered, what is a shadow? A shadow is in the dark. - Lily Maybe in the light. - Dahlia I see it on the way to the park. - Benji To give the children an opportunity to discover and identify shadows, we embarked, in partner pairs, on shadow hunts. While one partner hunted for shadows using a flashlight, the other captured the shadow on camera. If you and your child would be willing to share any special light sources (flashlights, nightlights, etc.) that you have at home with us here at school, we would be thrilled! I made paper! - NadiaOver the past couple of weeks, we (the teachers) have been working with Jen to come up with a set of materials and tools that will allow the Brown Room's vision of a coat of leaves to come to life. Leaves come in many shapes and textures (spiky, curvy, round, bumpy, soft), are light enough to dance in the wind but dense enough to cloak a tree. What could we use to represent them? We decided to try making and shaping our own paper in order to embody these very particular characteristics. We're looking forward to continued experimentation and conversation around our coat of leaves!
In order to give the children a chance to both further reflect and continue to hone their drawing skills, we introduced a new drawing opportunity with a twist. At morning meeting, we observed the provocation, and children shared their thoughts... Dahlia: White doesn't show on paper. Lily: I don't know what black and white turn into. Elizabeth: It gets snowy. Benji: We'll have to mix it up. As children drew, some made a connection between the black paper and nighttime. This was not the first time that the topic of feeling scared versus safe and protected has come up in the classroom. As we've begun to put our baby blankets to use in our baby doll area, we've heard children chat about blankets as something to help our babies feel "safe". This, in turn, has brought thoughts around nighttime at their own homes.
Elizabeth: Sometimes we hear noises and we hide. Betsy: A lion with big big paws! Van: You can see the sounds out your windows. Thomas: Or a Paw Patrol friend could be nice to come into your bedroom! Eloise: I hide from my mama when she wakes me up. Hide in my blankie. Gus: I have a Father Bear stuffy. Nadia: I sleep with a stuffy and I feel it at night. Yaya! Yaya is like a present. Van: I have a baby beluga. It’s blue and white. William: My teddy is very big. Gus: My mom only makes me happy. Noah: If you hide under a blankie, you don’t see any noise. Over the past few days, we've been contemplating how to support this thread of inquiry in a way that feels safe and comfortable for all of our friends. Children naturally gravitate towards exploration and expression of the things that frighten them. The more they ponder them and play with them (in a safe environment), the more ownership they gain over both the object of their fear and the emotion itself. As of now, we've added new fabrics, and the overhead projector, to our construction area to encourage nighttime scenarios - and begun "shadow hunting" around St. John's. More on that later! The leaves go down, down. The wind blows it down. |
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I made tree branches. I just rolling it to make like a rainbow tree. Making little rainbows like little branches. Put the branches all the ways to the ends. - Noah Noah described his process while connecting separate coils together to build his branches. Noah compared the shape of his branches to rainbows. |
While reflecting on her work later in the day, Lily made an insightful observation. Pointing to the persimmon tree in the outdoor classroom, she explained what she was seeing - the tree branches were all "touching each other". This gave even more meaning to her decision making when adding clay branches to model tree. I putted that branch there to get it so wonderful. Because it has to be all together and touching each other. See? - Lily |
Brown Room children continue to practice planning and intentionality when approaching their work. With this in mind, we decided to introduce the concept of tiny collections, using jar lids as a base. Offering a smaller canvas than they have encountered in the past encouraged them to be thoughtful about which materials they chose. We also shared that these collections would be placed underneath our school portraits atop the mailboxes, so children could consider how the materials, and their placement, would represent them. |
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