During Chapel, Ginny read a book about light and Kurt demonstrated how the new lights in the church work.   Before lunch, children shared  some of their reflections about light:
    Jill - I noticed that chapel was about light today.  What did you notice?
    Grace M. -The light was very cool.  I like the light.  Our friend (Kurt) can turn on the lights with his phone.
    Lou Lou - I said the moon rises when you sleep.  I noticed that chapel was fun.  I liked lighting the candle snd putting it out.
    Joslin - I noticed what's different about chapel was the lights on the ceiling.  The new ones are there because it was dark and hard to read.  
     Jill - So, what is light?  (The question we started our conversation with yesterday.)
    Lou Lou - Light is what you can see, you can see what you're scared of.  Light is so you can see what you're scared of.
    Grace - Light is like a candle light and like a flashlight and like a sun and like car lights.
    Joslin - Light is electricity and electricity helps lights shine on.
    Leigh - The sun is light and the sun helps people see.
    Maren - I have a nightlight .  It's Paw Patrol.  It helps with sleeping.
    Louise - I had an Elsa and Anna nightlight but it doesn't work anymore.
    Maren - The nightlight has a little light (indicating that the light is not so bright that it keeps you awake).
                                                                                                                            .........To be continued.............

Evelyn, Sam, Sally, and Jill were out today so we had a smaller group in KW. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVELYN!) Children had a few choices including watercolor painting with Fall colors, "Spooky" building in construction, and cutting shapes in paper to prepare for an upcoming light exploration. While children were initially excited about the fold-and-cut activity during our meeting discussion, spooky building and watercolor painting captivated much of our time together this afternoon.

Joslin and Lou Lou were the first to arrive for Spooky Building. Possibly inspired by the topic of light or our previous use of light and shadow in construction, Joslin immediately said, "We need light." The decision was made to add spooky twinkly lights.  A problem arose quickly when the children attempted standing the long blocks vertically as they would not remain standing. Austin joined the children and worked with Joslin and Lou Lou to devise a plan: use double sticky tape on the blocks placed horizontally on the floor and then stand the long blocks vertically on top of the tape. This didn't seem to work, however. So Joslin and Lou Lou brought over masking tape. They decided to try taping the blocks together, first standing. This proved tricky so they decided to lie the blocks down on the floor while they thoroughly taped the blocks together. After taping the one side, they began to lift the blocks but Lou Lou noticed a problem; she showed Joslin how the individual blocks still wiggled from side to side a bit. She thought the other side would need to be taped, so the girls flipped the blocks over. another problem arose: the roll of tape ran out! Jessica suggested the children try what they had done so far and see if it worked. So Louise helped Lou Lou move the blocks and the blocks were stood up. The blocks were not as stable as the children wanted (in part because one block was not taped so the ends were lined up.) The children decided to lie the blocks down in the end and continue adding spooky details. 

Water color painting was a big hit today, especially for Grace and Grace who explained to our substitute, Brigitte, that their names have the same letters. Children were free to paint what they wish and some chose to make messages including for Jill who was out today. 

We ended the day in the outdoor classroom. Children pretended to cook together and worked diligently at tricks on the bar. Grace D. asked Joslin and Lou Lou how to jump up and catch the bar from a standing position. When hearing Lou Lou had "focused" and practiced repeatedly until she figured it out, Grace tried the same, "I need to focusing...I need to practice before I go home because I want to show Brookie and Melanie. They have never seen this one." Focus was indeed a strategy by many of the children as they often began in a pose, looked up at the bar, took deep breaths and then jumped or did a trick. (See sequence of Joslin below for one example.)

While watching the Classroom Stories video, Lane observed the way two children's shadows combined into one in the video of the shadow dancing. She describes, "When two people are together they look like one big fat person."

Lou Lou and Leigh painted this afternoon. Here's some of what was said while they painted:

Lou Lou: "I'm making a person in a shadow show. Like we do." 
Lou Lou (Painting a head shape with no features): "Shadows have no eyes." 
Lou Lou: (Adds hair) "It's Sally."
Jill: "Because it has long hair?"
Lou Lou: "Yeah, and straight. The next one is going to be Leigh. She has a white sweater. There's her ponytail." 
Lou Lou (working above the figures): "That's a spider web. Once I found one in my room and my mommy took it away so the spider wouldn't bother me."
Lou Lou: "I see the shadow of my steps every morning. Almost every morning. Anytime there is sun."
Lou Lou (continuing to paint): "Shadow show. That's Leigh jumping and that's Sally's bow."
Lou Lou (adding black paint to black paper): "It shows up." 
Lou Lou (adding grey and white paint around the black): "I'm adding this so you can see where the black is. I'm making a flower. A shadow flower."

Leigh had joined the painting but said no one could look yet because it was to be a surprise. She worked quietly for some time. 
Leigh (describing her work): "I did light, dark, dark, dark. The painting's for Halloween. It might not look like Halloween to other people but it looks like Halloween to me."
Lou Lou: "It does. It looks like Halloween to me. Because it is dark and spooky."
Leigh (painting more): "That's a monster."
Leigh (after she had finished working): "This is a ghost and this goes lighter and lighter." ​(Pointing to shades of paint) "The reason it's a ghost is this is a ghost's body. That part is when the ghost is turning 'round and 'round and 'round."

In addition to concepts of body movement and shadow exploration, children were actively engaged with social learning during our time at Volta Park today. We observed many joyful moments of relationship-building in enjoying one another's company and getting to know and work together. Evelyn called out reminders of "Teamwork!" to her friends as they worked together to spin Lane. As children spun one another in groups, children gave feedback to time their movements, adjust speed and body placement, and respect one another's sense of balance and safety. 

Most spinning was was approached with speed but Maren took a different approach, spinning Evelyn slowly.

The park and outdoor spaces provide children with places of connection. Here children play in peer-groups at the slide implementing fun social games and spooky dramatic play scenarios.

When the children were asked how their bodies felt while climbing the nets, Lou Lou said, "It feels good. It feels like I can  do it." Sally described an aspect of what the physical motion of pumping on the swing feels like or possibly how it works: "Our tummies have a pump."

As we often say, being together for extended time is one of our favorite things about KW. The slower afternoons, smaller groups, mixed-age group, and quieter overall school space give many opportunities for moments of connection. One of these special times is during lunch. At times Molly and Jessica will join us for lunch and the children began thinking about who else they would like to  eat lunch with. This list has grown to include all of the teachers at school! So we've prompted the children to consider invitations for the people on their list of hopeful lunch guests and today the children began working on these invitations.

Previously the children had listed their primary teachers: Brooke, Melanie O, Lisa, and Rachael. They've also said they'd like Jen to visit again. When asked today if there is anyone else they'd like to invite they said:
Lou Lou: "I know, the other Melanie."
Leigh: "Melanie and Elyse!"
Lane: "Remember the other teacher, Allison?"
Lou Lou: "Maybe someone who works downstairs...at dismissal."
Leigh: "I was thinking of the girl who came as a mystery guest...Aletha."

Another opportunity provided for the children today was mixing and painting with paints inspired by the shadows we have been studying: shades of grey. Sam was the first to arrive to face the challenge of mixing the shades. He was presented with a jar of black paint, a jar of white paint, and four empty jars in between. The challenge was to mix the paints so that it would result in a range of tones from light to dark (white to black). 

When reflecting on where we are in our exploration of body movement through the language of shadow, we wondered how to further prompt children's thinking about the way the size and shape of shadows can change. We thought about distance and angle between the light source and the object. We also wondered about multiple light sources and what children know about how this can effect shadows. These thoughts directed today's provocations.

We introduced the idea of multiple light sources during meeting:

Q: What if we had two or three lights?
Austin: "Two would be like...one there and one there." 
Leigh: "We could do candles." 
Austin: "If you mostly go that side" (gestures to the right) "it shows over there" (gestures left.)

Leigh has an idea for ways to obtain multiple light sources. Austin demonstrates the way multiple light sources create multiple shadows. He also gestures to the right and left indicating where you may shine the light and where the shadow would be as a result.

After lunch the children set work with blocks, an overhead projector, projection materials,  two other light sources, and animals. It turns out the second and third light sources didn't compete very well with the light from the overhead projector but the children had meaningful work with the materials exploring projection, layers of transparency, opacity, shadow placement and "blocking", design, and construction concepts.

​Here are some images from their experimentation: