Thursday, November 7, 2019

Light and Lanterns

​For the third day in a row, children showed up to meeting with their thoughts on light, (before any prompting) showing their connectivity to and ongoing thoughts on the subject. Today children expressed thoughts about certain fish which have lights, light related to weather, the temperature of light, and when and where the sun shines. It is fascinating to see where connections are being made and what children understand about light from their experiences We will continue these conversations as children continue to work through such complex thoughts on the topic of light.

​Children were given the opportunity to create vessels for light once again as paper and clay lanterns were both options. During these experiences, children were able to work with the mediums of paper and clay, exploring shapes, symmetry, design, pattern, opacity, and the way the light came through the shapes made for the lanterns. They also worked with tools in both circumstance to cut through  media  in a variety of ways.

As we've been discussing the lanterns' purpose for our Thanksgiving Feast, children are building connection to the upcoming event because they are directly involved in the preparations. On a couple of occasions during our lantern preparations, children have connected the idea of lantern centerpieces to their memories and plans for celebrating Thanksgiving with their families. These opportunities to engage in community (school-wide and family) events brings meaning to the children, their experiences, and their relationships.

Rachael and the Compost Worms

After the children had given Rachael her open invitation to join us for lunch, she decided to visit us for lunch again today! The Tucker Room has been collecting compostable food scraps since the beginning of the year and recently started their compost with worms. We often collect food scraps at lunch to give to Tucker's compost and today, Rachael shared a little more with the children about how the worms need the food to be cut up into smaller pieces right now. She let the children help feed the worms the food scraps from today and the children were able to see the process a little more close-up. Thank you, Rachael for the surprise experience!

Happy Birthday, Molly!

As today is Molly's birthday, children had an opportunity to make surprise messages for her. They chose special details including many hearts, to include in the messages. Most children took on the challenge of writing Molly's name on their message.