Dear Brown Room Families,
The work in the Brown Room is rich and exciting at the moment, and we encourage you to read our most recent blogs, take a peek at the gray board in the classroom, and chat with your child (and us) at drop-off for additional information. We are, however, going to pause the blog for this week so that we can dedicate our time to preparing each child's written narrative. We appreciate your understanding, and please know that we will be certain to document all of the wonderful work that is happening. All our best, Elyse and Melanie P.S. Don't forget to save the date for Thursday, May 18th for classroom stories night!
0 Comments
Who doesn't love a good game of peek-a-boo?! Supporting our current work around the concepts of mystery, hiding, and seeking, we began making messages that incorporate positive and negative space with punched holes for revealing what is hidden and adding the image or decorations that are would be covered, concealed, or hidden. This provides opportunities to hide images or decorations partially visible or partly covered, concealed, or hidden behind or under the top layer. Guiding questions such us, How much is hidden? How much is visible? are furthering our understanding of the concept of hiding. We may not see what is hidden at all or we may see just a portion of what is hiding peeking through the punched hole or behind the flap of paper. Peek... ...a Boo! Message making materials The table is set with a variety of materials ready to punch out shapes, glue decorations, and add "decorations" to our peek-a -boo messages. Punching out circles and other shapes was most exciting during our first few days of message making. There is a physical challenge and cognitive satisfaction with the process. Now, the concepts and layering-adding detail-are also an exciting part of the process. "They're flap messages." -George The new and incoming 2023-2024 Brown Room children The beginning of making Peek-a-boo Messages for the new children More peek-a-boo messages to come!
Work on these messages and the making of additional messages will continue into next week! As you know, we have been exploring some big concepts in Brown Room: Mystery, Hiding, Seeking, Concealing, Revealing, Finding, Missing, Lost, etc. (please take some time to look at the gray documentation board in the classroom if you haven't had a chance). And while we have been having some really great discussions and games of hide-and-seek, we have been brainstorming ways to explore these concepts through other materials and languages.
As part of our process (the teachers), we make notes for observations. Sometimes, this includes making a more formal "chart" ahead of time. We think about why we are offering this specific provocation, what are we looking to observe, questions we might ask, questions we have in our own minds that the children might answer (in some capacity) during the work, etc. For this provocation, we were, of course, looking to observe the connections they might make between the materials/process and the concepts of hiding, concealing, finding, lost, and/or hidden. We also knew that this would potentially be a fine motor challenge for some children. Finally, we were only providing two "large" pieces of cardboard, so it would be a collaborative process. So often the children have their own "base" to work on, so we anticipated that this process would require additional collaboration, negotiation, and communication. Introducing it at Morning MeetingWe introduced the cardboard at morning meeting, and the enthusiasm was high (see video). Group #1 - Henri, Caroline, Christopher, and Win"I don't see anything under it." - Henri, 3.8 years"I wanna get more materials because there's more holes." - Henri, 3.8 years "We need more stuff." - Caroline, 2.11 years "I'm going to put the red one on top of the blue one." - Henri Can you still see it? "No." - Henri
Henri, Caroline [top cardboard piece], Win, and Christopher [bottom cardboard piece]'s work. When they were feeling ready for a next plan I asked what they thought a second group of children would add to the cardboard: "I can't see the stuff under, but I think they're not going to put things there [pointing to holes]." - Henri, 3.8 years Group #2: - Lillian, Lou Lou, George, and Zoe"It's hiding!" - Zoe, 3.3 years Lou Lou and Lillian moved around each other, watching the other one work. Lou Lou was commenting on the materials, and Lillian was watching and following Lou Lou's lead. "I'm pushing it all the way in. I can't see it anymore." - Lou Lou, 3.7 years "I can't see it!" - Lillian, 3.0 years "I'm making a collage out of buttons." - George, 3.6 years
Contamination of ideas: George started layering large pieces of cellophane on top. Zoe observed and then joined in. Across the table, Lou Lou noticed what they were doing and chose sparkly tissue paper to use the same hiding technique. Groups #3 and #4 - Cully, Gracie, Lou Lou, Eliza, Henri, Adaline, and WillThe third group started by looking around at all of the materials that were on the tables. They were asked to consider the possibilities. "Silly rubber bands". - Lou Lou, 3.7 years "Glass." - Eliza, 3.5 years "I have glass too!" - Gracie, 3.5 years "This [cellophane]!" - Lou Lou "I can see through you!" - Gracie "You're red!" - Cully, 3.6 years "Umm...corks." - Eliza "Fabric! More fabric!" - Gracie "How are we going to fit this?" - Eliza "I think it's too big. You're not putting it in the holes." - Henri "Crumple, crumple, crumple. It's too big." - Eliza How can we make it smaller? "Rip it!" - Lou Lou How do you make it fit? "I can rip it [fabric] in half! Nope. I can only rip this [cellophane]." - Gracie The fourth group was very focused on the cellophane, hiding, seeking, and transparency. "I'm going to hide the star tissue [paper] and the lobsters [tissue paper]." - Adaline, 3.6 years "Can you see what I hid under it?" - Will, 3.7 years [they all begin hiding their faces behind the tissue paper and cellophane pieces] "Can you see me anymore?" - Gracie and Adaline [with their faces behind tissue paper] "No!!!" - other children "I added so many colors [of transparent cellophane pieces] you can't even see me anymore!" - Adaline "Can you even see me through this?" - Eliza "Can you see what is hiding?" - Will Observational Notes: These are on display in the classroom. They are placed in the windows between the classroom and studio. Please take a few minutes to look at them. Warning: if you move them too much things will fall out! But, perhaps it is a challenge for you to hide them again!
Happy 3rd Birthday, Lillian!"She likes squares and polka dots." -Will Committee Work: Lillian's birthday collages were created and assembled by many enthusiastic minds and active hands! The Gift: The collage emphasized Lillian's preferred colors of pink and yellow and included many squares and circles. The Celebration A Big Wooden Spool Offers a New Construction Opportunities Cubby Bags are now Cubby Backpacks
Observational DrawingAs we have mentioned before, drawing is a wonderful language for expression, observation/still-life, story telling, planning, brainstorming, communication, reflecting, and more. We set an intention early in the year to include drawing in our processes (of larger projects/threads) and to regularly invite the children to small groups for drawing (still-life, reflections, imaginative, etc.). GiraffesWin's ProcessWin loves the giraffes here at school, so Joci invited Win and her friend Zoe to the atelier to spend some time observing and drawing some of the giraffes. Win was excited to see the giraffes and eager to get to work. As we noted on the copy of Win's drawing [right image], there are some wonderful emergent writing and literacy skills demonstrated in her work: controlled shapes, closed circles/shapes, and a variety of line shapes and lengths. Zoe's ProcessZoe focused on the three different giraffes that were on the table - "The daddy, the mommy, and the baby giraffe." Zoe moved methodically from one giraffe to the next focusing on the details of position (profile vs. straight on), leg placement, length of the neck, and the position of the "fluffy" tail between the legs. Zoe's three giraffe drawings Still-life FlowersBlack felt tip pen, alcohol markers Adaline, 3.5 years Memories of Easter baskets and bunniesMorning meeting yesterday (4/11) was all about the easter baskets that the children received on Sunday! They were so excited to share their easter bunny experiences and talk about what they had received in their baskets. With such high enthusiasm, we invited to draw what they remembered; we asked them to draw so that we could better understand their stories of eggs, bunnies, chocolates, jelly beans, etc. "I saw the easter bunny in the Bahamas." - Adaline, 3.5 years "I had an easter basket." - Eliza, 3.5 years Parents and educators alike consistently ask us how we prepare children for kindergarten with regards to handwriting skills. So much of the work/play we do here at St. John's benefits the children's future handwriting skills - drawing, clay/clay tools, wire/wire cutters, scissors, tearing/crumpling paper, painting, small materials for collage/arrangements, sewing, etc. All of these develop hand strength and coordination.
"I was happy when I painted with Mommy." -Lillian
GOOD MORNING! LET'S MAKE PRINTS! "Are you doing a lot of colors? (to Henri)" -Lillian
AN ABBREVIATED GALLERY OF PRINTS What a delightful, expressive, and colorful morning!
"Aww...it's just a little slot." - Lou Lou, 3.6 years Inspired by the children's love for construction and their clay slab work (shown below), we became curious to see how they interpreted the invitation to build structures/sculptures out of small cardboard/mat-board. After we researched and experimented with the materials ourselves, we discovered that the most successful strategy would be to cut slits in the cardboard so that pieces could slide together. This is how we prepared the majority of the materials, leaving some without slits so that the children could make design choices for themselves. The set upWhen the first small group approached the table, they made a connection between the cardboard and our birthday gifts (collage) and our recent thread about mystery and our mystery boxes: What do you see? "Bases [for a collage]!!!" - Eliza, 3.5 years "Boxes!" - Gracie, 3.5 years "To make..." - Cully, 3.6 years "To make..." - Gracie "Mysteries!" - Cully A peek into the work:"I can't do this one." - Christopher, 3.1 years "It's really hard." - Zoe, 3.2 years The first group quickly realized that this was a tricky process, but they persevered and worked to figure out how to slide the pieces together or decided to take a different approach. As they worked through their difficulties, we began to play a game of "What if?" e.g. "What if you add one more piece?" "What if you add a triangle?" "What if you make your pieces go up?" "What if you turn it around?" This seemed to offer encouragement and suggestions that the children could choose to incorporate or not. Lou Lou, Eliza, and Zoe responded enthusiastically to this "game". Win's three pieces become one
Gracie chooses to arrange her pieces - as seen in the video aboveAs you can see, she has chosen to focus on arrangement and symmetry. It feels important to note that this was unprompted and she was working independently. When Elyse asked, "What does the word symmetry mean to you?" Gracie replied, "I don't know that word now." We imagine that she was holding in her mind some images of butterflies she has seen and using the materials available to design her own. "Does this go in the kiln? [laughing]" - Caroline , 2.11 yearsOther thoughts on this "tricky" technique"I'm trying to put these together." - George, 3.7 years "I want this to stand up." - Cully, 3.6 years "It's still stabling. [making it stable]" - Adaline, 3.6 years "I'm connecting it." - Cully "Maybe this piece will work." - Eliza, 3.5 years What if we add a triangle? - Elyse "That's a good idea if the triangle has a slot." - Eliza Reviewing our work together at morning meeting"You know what it reminds me of?" - George, 3.7 years Each day this week we have taken a moment (a lot of them actually) to revisit the children's work from the day before. They have asked interesting questions about each other's work. We have also encouraged them to imagine what the sculpture might look like to them -- how can we interpret it? As you can see above, we have turned Henri's upside down to imagine what it might transform into if we look at it from this perspective. Below are images of their documented conversations alongside the piece they are discussing. These pieces and the children's words can be found in the windows between the classroom and studio. We encourage you to take some time to look at the complexity of the children's work and words. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2024
Categories |