Wednesday, November 13, 2019

11/13/2019

"We Call It Snowing!" Maren

Almost every year, we get a day like this. Potomac Street is transformed into a carpet of green, yellow, and gold as the gingko leaves drop to the ground. What a fun, beautiful way to end our day!

Light Buildings and Stories

The building with light and shiny materials was a bit hit yesterday and we brought it back again today. As children built, they began to tell stories about the environments that they were creating.

Joslin and Louise

Louise and Joslin started building with the stained glass block and quickly added several lights to the structure.
   Louise - (Balancing on light on top of another light) I hope it stays.
   Joslin - It's beautiful!
   Louise - Yes, but it needs a touch of...... (she adds a flat mirror)... a beautiful dance floor.
Joslin - It's a little dark. We'll put on lights. One light on each corner.
   Louise - (Adding some people) These four people are getting married with each other and dancing.
   Joslin - What's it called?
Louise - it's called "Star House."
   Joslin- We need beds. Here's some beds! (Adding small shiny circles)
   Louise - (With a mini-flashlight) I know what this can be..... a chandelier. And this can be the red carpet. And when they're on the red carpet, they can see their castle.
The two continue to work on a path, all the while telling a story of people getting lost in the maze, cries for help, and returning down the path to the castle.
Louise - We found ourself home with the royal queen.
   Joslin - (Decorating the path with small clear cubes) We can do ice cubes to continue the path.
They build another structure at the other end of the path. This building doesn't have any lights.
Joslin- It's supposed to be dark. It's the woods.
Louise - We'll trap them in the house.
 Joslin - We're the bad guys and we trapped them in the house.
    Louise - (Adding blocks to the original castle. ) We'll make it bigger and when they come back, they'll be surprised.

Joslin and Louise incorporated both light and darkness in their environment and in their story. Naturally, the dark structure belonged to the "bad guys!" It seems as the the story did have a happy ending, with the people returning to the castle!

Alexandra and Maren

Alexandra was ready to pick up where she left off yesterday. She returned to building with the stained glass blocks on the light table. Today, she included more materials and light sources as she built with her friend, Maren. They started by building a house.
   Alexandra - I think this is the bedroom.
   Maren - I'll get more rainbow blocks.
   Alexandra - (Adding more blocks) That's the roof.
   Maren - We're making it bigger.
  Louise - (Coming over to take a look) That's fancy. I like it!
  Maren - (Adding a shiny circle to the light table) This doesn't work so well. (Maren is indicating that the solid circle doesn't let any light through. She removes it from her building.) We're doing decorations.
   Alexandra - These are the grown-ups.
   Maren - And these are the kids.
   Alexandra - We changed our minds. This is a castle. It's a perfect castle
Maren - (Adding smaller, colorful pieces) We're doing decorations. So.... the grown-ups are inside. The kids are inside, too.
   Alexandra- We're decorating our house for Christmas!
   Maren - It's Christmas! This is all the decorations.

Maren and Alexandra thoughtfully built off each other's ideas. Because they were working closely in a small space, parts of the house/castle were knocked over from time to time. In each case, the two were resilient, calmly making the necessary repairs.

Light Watercolors

Children worked to represent light with watercolors again today. Maren worked on a sun with some rainbow colors included. Lou Lou included some possible technical terminology (e.g. HP HP) as she painted light sources found in her home and then proceeded to draw how they work. Leigh talked about lights that hang from the ceiling as she painted.

Categorizing the "Shiny Stuff"

Leigh and Lou Lou reflected on the shiny materials and object that children collected yesterday. Everything was certainly shiny, but were they shiny in different ways? Definitely! Here's the categories they identified:
   Leigh - Like yarn shiny. (Then, looking at a pinwheel) I think that's paper shiny.
   Lou Lou - This is glittery shiny (copper mesh). That's called string shiny.
   Leigh - It's painty shiny.
   Lou Lou - It's reflective and it's made out of metal.