Double Feature Mystery Guest!1. Maisie's grandma: Search and Rescue & Hiking Safety"We always wear orange so you can see us." -Maisie's grandma
"Search and Rescue is when they search and rescue." -Caleb "We don't want anyone scared on the trail." - Maisie's grandma
Thank you Maisie's grandma!2. Caleb's sister Clara, her bunny Zuzu, and a bunny book"Her ears are really floppy and that gives her her breed name, Holland Lop. Lop means floppy. |
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"You know how you have to baby proof to make sure
there are no electrical cords they can get at?
We had to rabbit proof!" -Kate
"There's a really funny story!
Once Clara is like we need to check her mouth.
And then Mom said of course I don't want to do it because she is going to bite my fingers when I open her mouth." -Caleb
[Clara read in her rabbit care book that they can get a burn in their mouths from chewing on electrical cords.]
Once Clara is like we need to check her mouth.
And then Mom said of course I don't want to do it because she is going to bite my fingers when I open her mouth." -Caleb
[Clara read in her rabbit care book that they can get a burn in their mouths from chewing on electrical cords.]
"No I want to turn the page." -Caleb
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Clara reads a book about a bunny and Caleb assists.
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Mystery Guest
Will's Dad, William Clarkson Shares Animal Photos
"We love all kinds of animals." -William
Will with their passed family dog, Penny Lane.
"His middle name is my sister's middle name." -Will
 Horse: "That's in the mountains for Christmas." -Will |  Racoons: "We set up a camera and they sneak up to the camera. And it's for bears too!" -Will "There are two of them." -Caleb |
 Deer: "I've seen a whole pack of deer." - Cate "Deer eat Grandma's flowers." -Dagny "Somebody told me that they opened their door and a deer went in." -Tegan |  Fox: "Next door, and there's a fox there. And they have a dog and they keep it inside. ...Ooh I've seen bunny rabbits, they go in my backyard." -Will |
Creating Storyboards
"I like that we get to share all our ideas!" - Dagny
"Animals"  | "The Crocodile Family"  | "The Seal Rescues"  |
| Each movie group has made tremendous headway in creating their storyboards. While "The Seal Rescues" group worked on completing their board, we began making the characters for "The Crocodile Family" movie. Abby, Elena, Maisie, and Tegan chose to make their characters out of clay. We've got... -a mom and dad crocodile (made by Elena) -a mom and dad alligator (made by Maisie) -8 crocodile babies (4 made by Tegan) -3 narwhals (made by Abby) -A turtle and a fish (made by Tegan) |  |
Mystery Guest Presents: A Unicorn and a Narwhal
| Lily's dad, Wes joined us this morning for a very special Mystery Guest sharing session! He brought in one of Lily's favorite books along with her giant stuffed unicorn and narwhal. Thank you for joining us Wes, the children loved listening to you read! | |
The stuffed animal friends inspired new players for our favorite frog jumping game...
Outside with the Brown Room
At this point each movie making group has met to begin their storyboards. The children combined all of their ideas and we've got three entirely different movies in the works. While we were outside today, each committee met for an important conference to debrief characters and set design to prepare for next week.
We missed you Melanie!
Thank you Jennie, we enjoyed such a wonderful morning with you!
 Following our morning guest and game, we joined the Brown Room outside and enjoyed a lovely picnic snack before Sing Along. |  |
Classroom Stories Night!
Thank you, thank you to all of you for a wonderful gathering last night at Classroom Stories! Your attendance, participation, and remarks last night were very appreciated. You are all such amazing parents!
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Reach out to us if you were not able to make a ribbon!
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Building "Little Spaces for the Animals"
Continuing to Explore Materials to Support Movement
Mystery GuestAnd the mystery guest is...  |  Dagny's Grandpa, |
"Is there anything special about it? About being a doctor?" -Maisie
"Well you get to help sick people sometimes and you get to help people from getting sick..." -Dr. Elting
Dagny's grandpa came to share his work with us. He is a doctor. Not any doctor though. He is a presidential doctor and served as former President Clinton's doctor. So he also shared aspects of this aspect of his life as a doctor.
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 | "The president sits right back here." -Dr. EltingRepresenting the president motorcade   |
Thank you, Dr. Elting!
Move!"That has four kinds of legs. It doesn't have two pairs. It only has one." -Maisie |  |
How animals move has been part of the children's fascination since pretending to be tigers or cheetah, running like wolves, or pretending to be dogs in a dog park in the meadow. Movement of animals also helps support the exploration and research for our movies as we explore the way something moves and how form supports the motion. Elena, Tegan, Maisie, Abby, and Lily played and experimented with a variety of materials to explore movement. We'll keep the materials "in motion" next week!
 ELENA |  TEGAN |  MAISIE |  ABBY |  LILY |
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The Early Stages of Making a Movie: Storyboarding
"It's a board with a story." -Caleb and Hugh
 "The more parts in the movie there is, the better it will get." -Will |    |
"I was thinking maybe to get ideas we could look at this book (atlas of animals) because it's all about animals." -Cate
Telling the Storyline (scene by scene) In Sequence
  | Tommy: A panda is sitting on the ant, and then a tree, and a dog, and a sheep, and a duck, and the sun, and two clouds. And then we zoom in to see the ant so we know...yeah... Allison: So that we know that the panda is doing what? The panda is sitting on the ant. And then we zoom out, and then he sits up. But he doesn't notice that all the other animals are leaving. Then he realizes that he's alone (scene #5) Allison: What happens after the panda realizes he's alone? Cate: A boy, a dog, a golden retriever, a panda, a golden retriever come... Allison: To do what? Cate: To play with the panda! James: And it's called the animals. It went all the way down to....welll we didn't do sixteen. |
"We need to get our ideas..." - Elena
Planning for the animal movie, the children worked in small groups to brainstorm an idea for the movie and gather their ideas down on paper. We joined back together later in the morning for a second meeting to review the drawings and share our ideas with the group.
"We could animate it!" - Caleb
With the idea in mind to animate the movie, we began to research various types of animation and traditional ways to manipulate images.
The first type we looked at is a Flip Book. Will got the idea immediately, before the tutorial even began. He said, "so he draws the body first, on the first page, and then he draws the thing that the person is gonna do on the next page." Noticing the simple materials and strategy, the children were confident that they could master this method. With Will's instructions you don't even need to watch the video, but just in case, here it is (we watched only the first book with the drawing of a person waving):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un-BdBSOGKY&t=67s
The first type we looked at is a Flip Book. Will got the idea immediately, before the tutorial even began. He said, "so he draws the body first, on the first page, and then he draws the thing that the person is gonna do on the next page." Noticing the simple materials and strategy, the children were confident that they could master this method. With Will's instructions you don't even need to watch the video, but just in case, here it is (we watched only the first book with the drawing of a person waving):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un-BdBSOGKY&t=67s
Considering the element of sequencing, we looked at a Zoetrope, which utilizes a sequence of drawings to give the illusion of motion and its progressive stages. The video scored major points right off the bat because the example showed our favorite amphibian friend playing our favorite jumping game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2v-L-1Kctk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2v-L-1Kctk
Next, we looked at a Thaumatrope, an early version of animation that dates back to as early as the 1820's and is believed to be the precursor to the motion picture. You might recognize the famous image of the bird in the cage, we watched this video to see how to make one (Lily liked the music playing in the background):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLNJ_FQTRMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLNJ_FQTRMQ
We've also started experimenting this week with
Stop Motion photography, using a free downloadable
app, pictured left. The children have been making mini movies
using the tiny animals from the classroom. They worked with
Sculpy clay to create backgrounds and scenes for the animals
to engage with and natural materials while filming outside.
Stop Motion photography, using a free downloadable
app, pictured left. The children have been making mini movies
using the tiny animals from the classroom. They worked with
Sculpy clay to create backgrounds and scenes for the animals
to engage with and natural materials while filming outside.
We'll spend the next few weeks exploring each of these methods, while simultaneously working on our movies, in order to inform our thinking and help us strategize ways to get our animals moving.
Who is in the Tucker Room? "MEEEEEEE!"
Yesterday, we were preparing for a class field trip to the Natural History Museum, but we have decided to postpone it for two reasons: 1. We want the children to further work out the importance and reason for the field trip. 2. We don't want to be overrun by human animals and cherry blossoms due to the Cherry Blossom Festival on Friday. Stay tuned and be on the lookout for a message from the fabulous room moms!
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 | "Because we're studying animals for the movie." -Maisie |
"This is all of the group together. That's Allison (at left) and that's Melanie (at right)." -Elena |  |
Although we will not yet be going to the Natural history museum for the research purpose for making a movie we explored other elements to help support making a movie about animals. We played our sound game making animal sounds and we had maps and brought out the little animals for them to match the animals to its geographic location in thinking about habitat.
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Updating the Calendar for April
"You can actually see how many numbers are on the calendar!" -Hugh
Welcome back from Spring Break! At this point in the year, the children are very much on top of maintaining and updating our classroom calendar.
| Abby wiped all the X and O's off the calendar  |  Hugh, Cate & Abby switched out all the numbers |
|  Tommy's Laptop |  |
Adding our Special Events...
| "How about humans walking in for classroom stories night. I'm gonna make the classroom and I'm gonna put so many people listening to the story" - Abby  Lily added the words to Abby's drawing |   |
| Weekends with Baby April Line-Up: Caleb Cate Maisie Tegan Next Month: James |  |