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​Kids' Workshop

Thursday, October 31, 2019

10/31/2019

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Lunch at the Hottest Spot in Town!

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Today Lisa and Rachael came to lunch and a good time was had by all.  There was never a lull in the conversation as the group talked about Halloween costumes, sewing, the creation of place cards, seasons and holidays, pets, hair and stories about Lisa's children.  At one point Leigh remarked,  "We're talking so much that we're forgetting to eat."  Indeed, lunch lasted so long that we didn't;t get to all of our scheduled experiences, but no one seemed to mind.

Halloween Cooking: Pumpkin Bread

 Almost everyone helped with our cooking project today.   Children took turns adding ingredients and monitoring how fast the mixer would go.  We never made it to "10."  Austin suggested, "Maybe that's for harder things."  Indeed, our bread batter was rather liquid-y and would have splattered at a fast seeing, while a "harder" dough may have been just fine at that speed.  Lane noted that the batter turned colors as we added the pumpkin:  "It's turning peach!"  The dairy-free gluten-free treat will be served for snack in the Rainey and Tucker Classrooms, maybe tomorrow!
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Seasonal Watercolors


After our lovely lunch, we did have time for fall-themed watercolors.   Lou Lou and Leigh spent most of their time here, often working together on ghosts who say "Boo!"

Have a Wonderful Halloween!

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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

10/30/2019

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Finding Light

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As the Classroom Stories presentations ended last week, there was an invitation for parents to "find light" and send us the images.  We were interested in how children would approach this task as well.   After lunch today, Maren and Louise set out to take photos of the kinds of light they could find around the school.   Even before they set out, they had an encounter with light and shadow in the classroom.  
    Louise - (Noticing the shadow on the wall)  The light makes your shadow move.  When the light is off, you don't see the shadow.  (She turns the light off)
     Maren - Look!  You can still see my shadow!
  Louise - But when it's dark, dark, dark, your shadow goes away.  
     Jessica - What's making Maren's shadow?
   Louise - (Looks around)  Maybe some of that over there (pointing to the window) is making the shadow.


As they began their walk around the school, they first noticed windows.  Gradually they moved onto lamps and other light sources.  A bit later, they started paying attention to reflections.  
   Louise - Let's sit down here and see if we see any light. (Sitting at the table in Brown Room.
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Photo of jars on table taken by Louise.
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Photos of jars on table taken by Maren.
Louise - I think there's light in the book. ((Hymnal in the church.)
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Photo by Maren.
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Photo by Louise.
As you can see, although Louise and Maren were making discoveries together, they each offer a different perspective and capture a unique image. Here's a just a small sample of the other photos they took.
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.............
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Clay Collaborations

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Last week, when the children were glazing clay, a few classmates admired Joslin's clay heart and wondered how she made it.  Today, Joslin lead a clay group, "teaching" others how to make a heart.  As they worked, children built upon each other's knowledge in various ways. It went something like this....
    Joslin - You have to make a ball to loosen it up.  (The clay was very hard!)  You make a ball and flatten it.
    Lou Lou - I'm making this for my mom, because her birthday's coming up.  
    Leigh - (to Joslin)  How did you make it that flat?
   Joslin - I just pounded it.  (To Grace)  You can start poking it and pulling it to the shape (Indicating that Graces' clay was flat enough).  And guys, if you want the sides to be really smooth and straight, you can cut the heart shape.
    Lou Lou - (While pounding her clay) Standing up is easier to do this.
   Joslin - You can also add details to your clay.
   Lou Lou - Like these details (working with tools to create impressions).
   Grace - My heart is a baby heart.
   Joslin  - When I was doing a heart at home, I had to start, and do it over, and try again, and I fixed it.  That's how I learned.  
     
   
Today Elyse and Melanie Olson had lunch with us!  We talked about favorite colors, siblings and blue cheese.... among other things!  Thank you, Elyse and Melanie!
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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

10/29/2019

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What is Light?

As we've explored shadow in our studies of body movement, we've also been experiencing aspects of light. We wondered, how much do the children connect light to shadow and so we decided to begin discussing light more directly. We opened dialogue on this today with the question of "What is light?" The children shared a couple beginning thoughts:
Joslin: "Light is electricity."
​Lou Lou: "And you can see, remember that, you can see. You can see everything you are scared of."

Fall Watercolors and Spooky Building

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.

Problem-solving in Construction

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. 
At this point Grace M., Austin, and Louise were also involved in the construction. Here's some of what was said while the children worked:
​Grace M. (Stacking tree cookies in descending order): "Do you want me to put these on?"
Austin: "Yeah, that could be the fire place."
Joslin: "We need a fire."
Grace: "Oh, I have a idea." (She brings an orange bottle.)
The children work together to build a fire. Grace decides to use some of the black pipe cleaners in the fire.
Louise: "We could make these (black pipe cleaners) spiders. This (netting) could be a spider web."
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Painting and Messages

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. 

Outdoor Classroom

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.)

A special thank you to Brigitte for filling in today! The children enjoyed the story and silly French song.

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Friday, October 25, 2019

10/25/2019

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Ladies' Lunch

We had our first pair of teachers visit for lunch today. Brooke and Melanie joined us and everyone had a wonderful time together. Some topics of conversation included upcoming weekend plans, what Halloween costumes people will wear, stories about our families, favorite colors, birthdays, and food. 
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Also today:

Making messages, painting with our shades of grey paint, viewing the classroom stories movie, and making witches brew on the outdoor classroom.
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."

Have a happy weekend, everyone!

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Thursday, October 24, 2019

10/24/2019

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Back to Volta Park for Movement and Shadow

Teamwork and Communication

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

Places of Connection

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.

Other Body Exploration: "It feels good. It feels like I can do it."

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."

Noticing Moving Shadows

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Dancing with Color Shadows

Once again we brought translucent colors for children to explore. Children were invited to dane with the colors to Tiny Dancer. 

Happy Birthday, Lane!  
​As it was Lane's birthday and we had leftover cookie bars we made for Classroom Stories, we enjoyed a special treat before heading back to school. 

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Classroom Stories

10/24/2019

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Thanks for a great evening at Classroom Stories!

Click here to see the video we shared last night!

https://vimeo.com/user67254374/download/368523553/c7733199cc
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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

10/23/2019

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Cookies and Clay

Throughout the school, everyone is getting ready for Classroom Stories.  Therefore, once again, our blog will be short.... and definitely sweet!   The children worked in the language of baking as they prepared cookies for tonight's event.   There was also time spent glazing clay.
Much to our delight, the Rainey and Tucker teachers have let us know when they will be lunching with us.  There was continued work on name cards for them.  The children also viewed our KW Classroom Stories presentation.  We look forward to sharing it (and the cookies) with you tonight!
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Tuesday, October 22, 2019

10/22/2019

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A Quick Look at our Day!

Today and tomorrow, the blogs will be rather brief as we prepare for classroom stories.  Children watched the presentation before lunch today, and seemed pleased with the production!  Here's a short and sweet look at our day!
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Shadows Throughout the Classroom

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"I always see shadows like that in the parking lot."
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About the cat's shadow,"It didn't have enough space... the space is on the wall."

Our interest in shadows started as we read the book today.  While looking at illustrations in "The Ghost Eye Tree," Austin commented on the quality of the shadows portrayed.
Last week, there was a lot of interest in building with shadows.  Today we repeated the experience with an added challenge.  Once they finished building, they were asked to trace the projected shadow.  Austin and Sam took to the challenge and successfully represented the building on large paper.  We will use this in future provocations.
Also last week, we had presented a different type of shadow challenge: tracing the drawing figures on large white paper.  Some of the shadows proved difficult to see and trace.  Today we changed the experience up in three ways.  We used a different light source, animals instead of the drawing figures, and worked with  the grey paints that we mixed last Friday.   Success!   
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We also spent time making messages and working on place cards for teachers who may visit us for lunch later this week!

We look forward to seeing you for Classroom Stories tomorrow night!

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Friday, October 18, 2019

10/18/2019

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Invitation to be Together

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."
Some  concepts we observed the children work with during this process included literacy concepts such as letter sounds and printing letters to form the guest's name and  elements of collage. Children also explored aspects of relationships as they selected whose invitation they would make, specific materials and colors for individuals, shared information of what they know about the person, etc. 

Completed Invitations

The children excitedly delivered the invitations:

Shadow Shades

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). 
Sam's approach was to put white paint in the two jars closest to the white with more paint in the one closest to white and less in the jar closer to the black, He then put black paint in the two jars closest to the black paint  with more black paint in the closest jar to black and less black in the jar closer to the white. He then added a very small amount of black into the middle white jar and a little more black into the next white jar closest to black. He repeated the concept on the black paints adding less white to the jar closest to the straight black paint and a little more white paint in the black paint closest to white. Sam showed his knowledge that there needed to be a range of more or less white/black to receive darker and lighter tones of grey. After mixing, Sam saw his approach resulted in some colors being similar in tone and some shades not as light or dark as he wished. So he continued mixing more white or black paint until achieving the desired shades.

​Lane and Leigh also joined part-way and helped mix the paints. Then Lane and Leigh set out painting with the newly mixed shades. 
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Thursday, October 17, 2019

10/17/2019

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Shadow Perspectives

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.

Shadow Building with Multiple Light Sources

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:
While building
Maren: "I'm building a dungeon."
Lou Lou: "I wanted to make a cage for this little lion."
Evelyn: "Here's a cage, Lou Lou."
Maren: "Yeah, let's make one."
Evelyn: "It's looking great."
Austin: "Sam, this one is not showing" (pointing out an animal behind a block which is blocking the animal's shadow) "so let's move it."

At the projector
Evelyn: (Adding red cellophane to the projector light) "This makes it too dark." (Noting too many pieces are layered) "Let's take something away." (Evelyn removes some layers.)
Maren: (Checking out the projection over the building) "It works! It works!"

Shadow Tracing with Moveable Lightsource

Our second provocation today involved tracing the shadows of the adjustable figures we had used to brainstorm ideas for the Shadow Ballet. Children were prompted with a moveable light source directed at the figures standing on a long table. We wanted the children to have an opportunity interacting with the long shadows and possibly with the ability to change angles of light. Here are some of the observations of the children:

Leigh: (pointing to a long figure shadow) "It's longer!"
Leigh notes the length of the shadow is longer than the figure.

Lane: (comparing the different shadows) "This one has a shadow that's all the way and that one I can only see the feet, not all the way." 
Lane notes the different length of the shadows, one casting so far it extends off the table.

Lane: (Tracing legs of a shadow) "But I can't see the head." (She adjusts the figure.) "Now I can do the other leg. This is too long for me too finish."
She notes the figure's long fading shadow makes it difficult for her to trace the entire shadow.

​Grace M. took a different 
approach, drawing the figure first. She made a plan to compare the figure's shadow with the drawing later. Grace formed the figure into a "leap" and drew each section of the figure's body as she saw it. 

Grace D. tried to find the shadow which was somewhat blurred and did not clearly show the form of the figure. It was difficult to see and define. Jessica helped her move the light to make the shadow sharper and Grace traced it. At times, Grace switched between drawing and tracing, showing her thinking about the form of the figure and possibly how to represent it. 
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Click on the images in below to see the full tracing/drawing and captions:

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Also today...

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  • Home
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