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Sorry about the sideways work photos! It's a glitch we have not yet figured out!
We have been wondering what about The Curious Garden and the creation of small worlds has the children fascinated. Today we set out trays and green fabric with an array of brightly colored miscellaneous objects and prompted the children to create their own gardens. Louise said, "It's (the garden) in Bethany." Grace made a garden on the table and then worked on the carpet saying, "I'm making a road." Tegan talked about her garden, "It's in Glover Park." Sam made an ocean, "This is the ocean. One day Mommy and Daddy went to the ocean and they got tiny shells like these but they were bigger." As Sam continued to work on his ocean, he added, "Pretend they (bottle caps) were tops that were thrown into the ocean." Pictured below: Top left: Grace's Garden Top right: Louise's Garden Bottom left: Sam's Ocean Bottom right: Tegan's Garden At the start of the slideshow: Grace's Road Also today, the children drew in the outdoor classroom, employed their negotiation skills in a dramatic play scenario of "Pet Store," used great fine motor control in working on collages, and enjoyed several books and stories.
As Lily and Hugh were the only children in KW today, they decided they could both set the table together. They worked together to come up with ideas for the centerpiece and it became apparent the children were designing another small world as we've seen in the recent Curious Garden and house-building play: Lily, looking through supplies in the Tucker Room closet, asked, "Hugh, do you want to get ducks?" She showed him some embroidered ducks. Hugh agreed. The children placed the ducks in one area of the centerpiece, sorting out the "baby ducks" from the "mommies." Hugh suggested, "They can go next to the train tracks." Hugh and Lily set out some decorations to be a track with an embroidered train on top and another large piece to be an airplane. As we had prompted Tegan and Lou Lou to consider working on cleaning up the Curious Garden city, we suggested the same to Hugh and Lily. The children were quite surprised to see how much the garden city had changed this week. We wondered if they would like to fix it up or perhaps start by clearing some of the clutter. Hugh and Lily agreed they would begin by putting away a lot of the pieces before beginning again. The children put away much of the city, then made some changes of their own. As they worked they asked each other about what should happen in different parts of the city and what each other's intentions are with keeping certain parts. One example was wether to keep a certain tram-type vehicle in the street, rather than where it was previously located at the dock. Lily wanted it to stay in the street. Hugh decided to add a parking lot that extends off of the table to create more space in the city. Lily and Hugh were also eager to try sewing so they worked with both machine- and hand-sewing. The Curious Garden that is set up in middle room has drawn a lot of attention. We let other classrooms know that they could visit it and make changes. This week the Brown Room has stopped by a number of times and it looks quite different than it did at the beginning of the week. We thought that Lou Lou and Tegan might want to restore some order to it, so we took them to the middle room. Once again, these children were interested in scenarios involving people, homes, and even school. Here's a little bit of their conversation: Lou Lou - The Brown Room friends, they went crazy and they messed this up. Tegan - Let's put these back in the box. When Hugh comes, he'll wonder what happened. The girls take out several people figures. Tegan - These are sisters. These (some small pots) are for cooking. Lou Lou - We need a baby. Tegan - I found a baby. Lou Lou - These (people) can take naps. Tegan - She's jumping on the baby. And the mama says, "Don't do that." Lou Lou - Here's the big brother. Tegan - He's out of the house. They're all out of the house, but not the baby. Lou Lou - Here's the babysitter. Tegan - But pretend the babysitter didn't come and the mama got mad Luckily, the mama returns to the house and finds the baby and all is well. Lou Lou - (Setting up another structure) This is the school. The big kids school. Pretend they have a carpet in their school. "Come on, sister. Come sit on the rug." Tegan - I need another rug. (She finds one and adds it.) At this point, there's some disagreement about which figure is a teacher and which figure is a mother and can a person be both a teacher and a mother. Tegan - (Solving the dispute) I guess there can be one teacher. Lou Lou - And the mom comes to pick the sister up. Ding dong, ding dong. Tegan - Can I make a door? Lou Lou - Yeah. Tegan adds a door, and the mother tries to pick up the sister again. However, she's too early, so she has to go all the way back home. Which, of course, makes her late for the actual pick-up time. Mom gets in a plane, drives it to school, and picks her daughter up in that. They circle the city several times before landing at home. Some new furniture was constructed and they all lived happily ever after, or at least until 3:00. The girls added a smaller version of their house to the curious garden. Today we took a walk to the Koi pond on the Georgetown University campus. While observing the fish, the children noted differences in color and size. Grace described the fish as a family, "That's the mommy and the daddy and those are the sisters." We asked the children if they would like to draw the fish pond and all three agreed. We took out clipboards, pens, and colored pencils; Tegan, Louise, and Grace began drawing right away. We quickly noticed the children working off of each other's ideas such as when Grace made "muddy water" by blending a few colors together, Tegan decided to try this. Louise wanted to show her drawing to the fish when she was finished working and Grace determined she would do this as well. The children were observant about the way the water looked in the waterfalls and in the lower level of the pond; they depicted the ways the fish looked inside this water as well with shades of oranges covered in the various tones of "muddy water." Grace and Louise took photos of the pond and waterfalls and spent some time observing the waterfalls close up: Grace - The filled up water is going down there. Jessica - I wonder where all the water is coming from to fill this up? (The top level above the waterfalls.) Louise - Maybe its so much rain. Photos by Grace and LouiseUpon returning to the school, we stopped to observe the new mirrors on the stairway. The children began working on some self-portraits using their reflections in the mirrors. We hope to revisit this work in the days to come. When we made pumpkin bread for Rainey and Tucker snack, Grace mentioned that we should make snack for Brown Room, too. So today, we made apple muffins that Brown Room can eat for snack tomorrow! We also made some apple mini-muffins that we will put in the freezer to serve at our Parent Coffee on Friday morning. As we prepared the batter, children worked on a variety of concepts such as counting, measuring, problem solving, and cooperation! The Curious Garden in the middle room continues to change. Yesterday and today, small groups from the Brown came to check it out and add their ideas. Needless to say, the garden looked quite different when a KW small group went to check it out. Today, we added an image from the book as a projected backdrop to our work. Children were interested in that, as well as the technology that was involved in creating it. The children were also happy to see that there were people living in the garden. This inspired Louise to add a house structure adjacent to the curious garden. Several scenarios played out in the area, including one that involved a bad guy and the police. However, there was a lot of interest in families, including this exchange: Grace - Knock, knock. Lily - Who is it? Grace - Knock, knock, it's grandma. Hugh - Okay, let's sleep on the floor tonight. Lily - No, the kids can sleep on the bunk beds. Grace - Knock, knock. Hugh - Grammy and Grandpa, come in! |
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April 2024
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