"This way, we'll always remember Thanksgiving." SeonOn Tuesday, Seon was working with clay to create vegetable shapes and other forms.. She had previously been in the atelier drawing important elements of our Thanksgiving celebration (drawings will be featured in Friday's blog). She understood the connection between working with her hands and creating memories of this festive occasion. Here's a closer look at the clay experience.
Children drew on previous experience with clay and made a lot of pinch pots!
Outdoor Fun!It's been quite cold these past two days! The children discovered that one way to keep warm was to return to our group games, most of which require running around. Yesterday, they played "Mr. Fox" and "Stuck in the Mud." Today children played a group game that they had not played since last year: "Clean Your Room."
0 Comments
Sequencing our CW Day, Continued.... The CW children are very excited to help us make CW understandable and transparent to anyone who might be visiting St John's. Being a table-setter and eating lunch with friends seams to be the CW children's most favorite part of their day. So, this week, we challenged the children to draw their table-center piece and the content of their lunch box and add it to new our hallway documentation.                Another favorite thing we do in CW is "Raise your hand if..." game during lunch time. Ellie - Raise your hand if you have strawberries in your lunch box! Fay - Raise your hand if you know my sister Bailee - Raise your hand if you know my sisters Ellie & Fay - I know your sister Bailee - Which one? Ellie & Fay - I know CeCe! Ellie - Raise your hand if you know my brother Charlton - Raise your hand if you think my brother is annoying ! Ellie - Raise your hand if you have carrots in your lunch box Ford - I have carrots in my lunch box Ellie - Raise your hand if you have a cheese stick Ford - Raise your hand if you have a sandwich Cal - Raise your hand if you have Oreos in your lunch box Gracie - Raise your hand if you have candies! Rawls - Raise you hand if you have something green Construction Area The children have moved on from building haunted houses to building animals houses or zoo. Our table- setters this week were Bailee and Seon, Rawls and lillian, Zari and Charlton, Ellie and Ford.          Drawing seams to be the CW children's favorite activity lately, so we make sure that it is also available in our outdoor classroom. And... what an amazing weather we had this week! Message Center and Small World are always popular! Have a wonderful weekend! (No CW next week)
What is CW?The Children's Workshop program is different from the morning program. This is well-understood by the children in the program. However, with prospective parents and visiting educators scheduled to come through the school, we decided to use our documentation space to use children's drawings to represent our afternoon program.
Images from today and TuesdayYou'll notice in the above schedule that "play time" is the agreed upon name for our daily experiences: small world, messages, construction, games, puzzles and work in the atelier. Jill - Is it really "play time?" Bailee - Yeah. Duh. Charlton - And building time. Children worked on messages, created animal environments the light table and with blocks, enjoyed the time spent in the outdoor classroom, and set up small world. This Week We are in the process of changing our hallway documentation. Our intention is to represent the sequence of the CW day through conversations, drawings, paintings, and photos. This week, we will visit the documentation and listen to children's ideas about the key elements of their afternoon. These ideas will be translated to work with a variety of materials. We can't wait to see how this develops. Note: Jill will be off on Thursday and Friday this week to attend her nephew's wedding. Maggie will work with Brigitte on those two days.Happy Birthday, Molly!
Using materials and drawings, children found several ways to represent 60!A New Approach to DrawingThe CW children have enjoyed exploring the drawing materials in the atelier. As we reflected on their work, we realized that coloring in objects with markers can present challenges. This week, we started drawing or tracing leaf shapes, and using watercolors to complete the leaves. The children reflected on their work: Fay -It's much easier to fill in (the leaves) with watercolors. Ellie - I want to put them on the window so the light shines through. Zari - My rainbow leaf is a pattern. Isabelle - I did a pattern: red, yellow, red, yellow. I did a lot of little ones (leaves) and one big one. TablesettingThe table setters for our short week were Fay, Ava, Will, and Ford. Ava and Fay collaborated on their table arrangements. Will used a lot of orange in his table setting. At lunch he said, "This would be perfect for an orange day."
This and that....Of course, there was time for building, small world, and messages. "Drawing thrives when children can draw regularly and for as long as they like" - Ursula Kolbe, It's not a bird yet. 
                     Children have wonderful conversations with each other as they draw or when they discover a new kind of drawing material. When Brigitte asked the children to tell her about their drawings, here is what they say: Zari - It's a city with a magical tree and a magical whale. The whale is in the sky, because it's magical. This a magical rainbow, because if you walk on it , it takes you anywhere you want to go. Ellie to Zari - Even somewhere new, like somewhere you never be before? Zari to Ellie - Yes it can take you anywhere even you never been there. Adaline - I am drawing my imagination, look at the lines I am making Brigitte! Seon - I am drawing my imagination too, there are houses, for people on my drawing, the dots are the people, the blue part is the water, the orange part is the island, the yellow is a machine, the purple is a dragon, the pink part is a scribble of chalk, the black part is a storm. Lillian - I am making a drawing for my mommy, because I love her so much. Ava - I'm going to draw my best idea. (As she is using all kind of drawing materials) Jack- Look , I made a maze. Zari - I'm making my family at the beach, I have to draw sand. Ford - I'm drawing an hedgehog on a skate board in the street, here is a bridge, I'm going to draw lights, and a prison too. Zari - I need red. Ellie - Look I made a wave. Jack - I made the sea side, the beach. Zari - This grey is very shinny, Seon do you like my kitty? I'm going to draw a heart. I can't make a heart. Cal - I am making a book about Teddy, it's Teddy with jet packs that exploded and Teddy playing soccer on the grass, I need to draw a soccer ball. Brigitte helped Zari think about hearts, their shapes and how we could find an easy way to draw them (which can be a very difficult task.) We decided to use our whole body to jump in the air and reach up high. We practiced doing two jumps. Everyone participated, "can you jump two times in a row, jump-jump." Then we sat down and we practiced making our pencil jump two times. When we could trace two "bridges" we added a pointy tail and that makes a heart. ❤️ Ellie - Hey, this is not accepting! (wrong top on a marker) It's a terrible marker! Isabelle - I need black Brigitte - You have to find one on the shelf Isabelle - Find it, I found a black sharpie Ellie - I found a new kind of marker, It's blue Zari - (Zari is trying to draw hearts, then she thought her heart looked like bunnies so she drew a bunny family) Look Bunnies!! this bunny is a daddy bunny, he's very cool so I am going to put sunglasses on him. I'm going to draw the baby with a different color, the baby is so tiny. The kid is the same color as the family. Ellie - Me and Isabelle are looking for the perfect green Isabelle - If it's not good, you can't use it Brigitte - Why? Isabelle - That 's what I do, I tell if it's not good. Like it's dried out Pierce - I made a red pumpkin, it's growing, see (Pointing at the stem) Wait I need to put dirt under it Lillian - Look what I am making Brigitte (using paint markers) Pierce - This is a book about pumpkins Lillian - I made my favorite color, pink and purple Zari - The bunny family needs sun, the flowers need sun, and the baby needs sun too, that is why I am making so many suns Cal - I am going to make more pages for my Teddy book, here is teddy with jet packs, he's going to die because the jet packs are running out of batteries. Cal drew another Teddy playing soccer.          The light Table was covered with beautiful fall leaves. Our Table Setters this week were: Isabelle and Jack, Eliza and Ellie, Bailee and Adaline, Pierce and Cal.          What else was happening in CW? Ford and Zari invented a new game on the swing in the outdoor classroom, Charlton and Whit built an amazing and elaborate house for the dragons with magnet tiles, Isabelle and Bailee made a 4 colors patterns with manipulatives. Small world was as popular as ever! Whit, Pierce and Rawls built another dragons house with woodblocks. Molly joined us on Friday to have lunch with us, and made pinwheels with the children. We enjoyed reading some of the new books from the bookfair!                   Have a wonderful weekend!
A Virtual Gallery: TransformationsFall is a season of transitions. The weather becomes cooler and leaves change color and fall from the trees. Children also transform themselves as they dress up fro Halloween. The CW children have been exploring the idea of transformation with materials and experiences. Drawing our Halloween Costumes!For about two weeks, children have been drawing themselves in costume. Representational drawing is challenging and children sometimes hesitate to try it. Providing a photo of their faces, gave children a starting pointing made the process seem less daunting. Drawing the costumes gave children as sense of freedom. They were not as concerned about getting things "right." For example, Ava told us that her with costume "doesn't have any pink in it." She knew that she could draw it any way she wanted. Children also included important details that gave clues to the costume. For example, horns are essential for unicorns and a vampire has long, pointy teeth.
Classroom Experiences
Our Week! Halloween is in the air and we are looking forward to pajama day tomorrow! Will our interest in building haunted houses continue past Halloween? We'll see what happens! Drawing and Printing will be featured in the atelier this week. Of course, there will be plenty of opportunities for small world
and message making! Drawing" When talking of drawing, we need to replace the idea of doing something the "right" or "wrong" way with the concept of experimentation. This is the lesson that children teach us- there is no right or wrong way to draw. Drawing is essential." Peter Jenny (Drawing techniques) A couple of weeks ago, Ford wanted to learn how to draw an hedgehog, so Brigitte invited him to join her in the atelier to look at hedgehog pictures and talk about how to draw them. Everyone was welcome to come in the atelier to draw as well. Ellie was so excited when we told her she could use any materials from the shelve to draw with. Right away she told us she wanted to make a book for baby Jake using all the markers. Ellie wanted baby Jake to know that we have a lot of markers at St John's for him to use when he is going to be in the Brown Room. Ellie has been diligently coloring a page of her book every CW days using different markers. More CW Children joined us in the atelier to draw and make books.
I want to make a book too! Zari - I made a caterpillar. Brigitte - What are you drawing now? Zari - (looking at her drawing) When I woke up in the morning- I see all that! Isabelle - I drew my lunch box and I drew locks houses you can go from one to another. Pierce - I made a drawing about the night sky with the black marker, and I made stars and the sun. This is a robot, and here a pumpkin, the blue and red is Southwest Airline, this part are toad prints. Ford - I made a blue hedgehog, I call him Bluey, I made a pink one, his name cupcake because he looks like a cupcake, I made the baby red, his name is little red, the mom is brown, and there is a green one, I call him greeney. I am going to make a rainbow hedgehog, Mr. Rainbow. Tomorrow I will draw another hedgehog. Ford also drew " Big Old Furry" Cal - I am drawing a teddy bear, his name is Teddy, he has jet packs. I also drew a teddy on the grass, I have to draw a soccer ball ! Here Teddy is playing soccer. Rawls - I am drawing a teddy bear, his name is Comy. Seon - I drew a dragon. Now, I am going to make a book about CW called " What do we do in CW?" Adeline - I am using all the markers. Bailee - I am testing colors. I can write my last name, G-U-G-I-N-O, how do starts the N ? Ellie - I love the smell of sharpies, they smell like apple juice. Bailee - I drew a spider web. Brigitte - Do you want to draw spiders on your spider web? Bailee - I don't know how. Brigitte - Lets think about spiders. Spiders have a little head and a tummy and 8 legs right? Bailee - I can draw a head and a tummy and 8 legs, look I did it, how many did I draw Brigitte? Brigitte - Lets count together, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-8-10, you drew 10 spiders Bailee! Bailee - I want to draw more. how many now? Brigitte - 16 ! Zari - You know Brigitte, each one of this (Colored lines) I made it with a different marker. Lillian - I love purple. I am making a drawing for my mommy. CollagesHappy Birthday Cece!We made birthday messages for our beloved Cece whose birthday was today! Table SettersThis week our table setters were Ford and Fay, Seon and Rawls, Zari and jack, Lillian and Whit. Outdoor ClassroomThis and That...
Story Time The CW children have been enjoying LOTS of Halloween books this month.  Have a Fabulous and Beautiful Weekend!
Exploring Light and Shadow
Throughout the afternoon, several children came to this creepy collaboration. Children brought in the Halloween items and spooky projections. Whit - The skulls chomped the white knight into the trap. Ellie - There was all scary stuff and I love scary stuff.
Everything else...
|
AboutWelcome to the Kids’ Workshop blog homepage! Archives
November 2023
Print Page |
RSS Feed