Friday, February 21, 2020

Books, Books, Books, and a bit of Sewing...

Binding Books

We had another opportunity for binding books. For our Thursday/Friday crew this was their first day to begin binding books. Children made covers, added titles, and added details to covers already started previously.

"It's a different kind of sewing."
​-Lane

Vocabulary came up such as "title" and "author" and children wondered about and showed their understanding of these concepts. 
When Lane heard Margaret say, "The Whale Splashes by Margaret," Lane looked up from her work, "So Margaret is the author?"

New titles released today:

Writing Books

Most children began writing the script for their stories including Leigh and Lou Lou who had bound and titled their books earlier in the week.

Here's a look at the progress Leigh and Lou Lou made on their stories: (From left to right: Leigh's Story, Lou Lou's Story, Leigh begin's writing her story onto her pages)

Lane and Margaret began thinking about their stories as well:

Lane began to tell her story:
​"Once upon a time, there was a piggy in front of a sunset." She added to the cover illustration, "I'm putting these as birds because sometimes bees come out and get their pollen from a sunflower."

Margaret's story so far:
"It all started with baby whales and their mama." (pg. 1)
"And they all go splashing and the baby whales went splashing all by themselves." (pg. 2)

Book-Inspired Discussion

As today seemed to be mostly about books, it was only fitting that we ended up having a thoughtful interchange when Jill read a new book Sofia Valdez, Future Prez. 

The discussion began with some children noting who their parents are and are not voting for. Then it led into a discussion about whether or not a woman can be president. 

Child 1: "Girls cannot be president."
Jill: "Why not?"
​Child 2: "There's a girl who is president and she makes books."
Child 3: (After some discussion) "I agree that girls can be president."
Child 4: "Molly and Jessica (Kuhn) are president of the school."

The discussion went for some time with children going back and forth about whether they thought girls can be president. The concept of age came up, as in how old you must be to be president. Overall the children seemed to express they were unsure if a girl can be president. 

Later over lunch the thoughts continued...
Child 2: "Mostly men are presidents."
Jessica: "Could your mom be president if she wanted to be?"
Child 1: "Mmmmm...I don't think so. I saw a placement that had all the presidents...and they were all mans."
Child 2: (To Lisa when she came in the room) "We're still not sure if girls can be presidents."

It was an interesting conversation to come up on a day with all girls at KW. The children had us thinking about how, since they had not experienced the example of a female president, they were unsure of the possibility. 

Maren's Wood Sewing

In addition to all the book work, Maren continued her wood sewing piece. Maren finds connection between sewing and her family. Oftentimes, while sewing, she talks about her sister or grandmother who sew. On this occasion she said, "My grammy's a sewer. She sewed for 100 years or something."

Also today...

The children climbed the rock wall, did tricks on the bar, Lane and Maren pretended Maren was Lane's baby and Louise began a cupcake doughnut shop her peers joined in helping to run.