April 17th, 2020

♪♬ The More We Get Together
The Happier We'll Be ♬♪

Another fabulous week has gone by, and we're so excited to show you all the fun we've had over Zoom with the Rainey Room friends.  One of our favorite aspects has been "show and tell", or the times when the children retrieve an item from their belongings and describe it to their friends and teachers.  At times like these, it feels like we are back in St. John's, sitting round the edge of the carpet together.  Hearing and seeing the objects that are special to the children is one way in which we can connect, even long-distance.
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(Hover over the pictures below to read captions.)

• Wolf B: "This is my favorite color and this is a bird.  It's a toy though.  Can I send it to you?"
• Evelyn: "An LOL doll.  Because the Easter bunny brought it.  It has pink and green."
• Olivia: "I got a camera, it goes on if you press that button.  You can take pictures.  I can take a picture of my iPad.  I like pink so I brought this pink.  I love pink."

               Evelyn: "Me too."

• Fletcher: "It's a Lightning McQueen truck.  I very like the colors."
• Gigi:  (flowers in hand) "Some are purple and some are blue.  My shirt has purple on it too."

We also got to glimpse some of the children's favorite family photos:

• Oliver had a picture from Zoolights.  "Greta's just yelling!" he laughed as he recalled some funny stories from that night.
• Grace said, "This is when we were in the woods.  My nanny took a picture on Easter."  We remarked that soon there will be another member of the family.  "There's gonna be four girls and one boy," she said, and added that perhaps they could get a male dog so there would be two boys.
• Maren holds up a drawing she made.  "It's my whole family.  This is me, this is Lily, this is mommy, this is Ford, and this is daddy." 
• Olivia said, "This is Daniel, this is daddy, this is mommy, and even Gio!" (her dog).  "We're kissing!" she said, holding up a picture of herself giving Daniel a smooch on the cheek.  Olivia was delighted crazy hair day hairdo.  "Isabelle says take the ponytails out, but I say... keep it up forever.  I am going to wear it forever."
• Wolf B showed a framed picture depicting his older sister and brother, as well as his grandma.  "But they're a bit bigger.  My brother's going to be taller than you.  Mimi lives in Florida, and my sister lives in Canada."
• Emilia showed a picture of her extended family, including her Tuto and Tita (aunt and uncle).
  
• Fletcher showed a picture from the time he brought home a Christmas tree with Violet in the wagon.
• Evelyn showed us a picture of her family in Disney World.  Grace asked, "Is that Elsa's castle?"  Evelyn said, "Cinderella's.  She's inside."
  

Kneading Salt Dough Together

Mixing & Manipulating the Dough:
Lane: It looks disgusting to touch.
Cannon: It's smushie as clay.  Guys, I made a Easter egg!  (he rolls dough into a ball)
Brooke: This clay can go in the oven, and when it comes out, it's hard.
Cannon:  What?  So if you throw it on the ground it will break?
Palmer: I have a dinosaur fossil.  I'm using it to make pawprints.  (He is pressing the feet of tiny dinosaur toy into surface of dough)

Oliver: I got water, sugar, and flour.
Emilia: I got very, very cold water.  I'm putting salt in mine now.  It reminds me of mixing salad dressing.
Maren: We need one bowl of this, one bowl of salt.
Emilia: It's very sticky.  It feels like I'm making bread!  It looks just like bread but without the crust... and squishy.
Wolf B: So dry.

Some Snapshots from our Weaving Workshop

Bingo & Beyond

We've had so much fun playing bingo with you all lately.  It's been a big success, allowing for teachers and children to have a rapport that almost feels as natural as being together in the classroom again. As teachers, we're also enjoying how the game of Bingo can allow us to slowly approach the broader concept of games.  Before we left, we were investigating hopscotch, which is another kind of game.  Perhaps we can seek answers to overarching concepts like - Why do people play games?  Why do games have rules?  How do people invent games?  What makes a game fun, and what makes a game challenging?  Does every game have to have a winner?

During small groups, we approached the topic of creating games with the children by first refreshing their memory of some of our work creating a "golden strawberry" board game.  The first group drafted an idea...

Cannon: What about bones?
Lane: Or a unicorn.  I know what -- a pony!
(What will be at the end of the game?)
Cannon: The golden hay.
Grace:  And maybe everyone could do it and sit on the pony and whoever touches the golden strawberries wins.
Lane: Or how about golden carrots?  Bunnies could hop to get the carrots.
Cannon:  Or golden hares  need to race to the golden carrots.
(We begin chatting about what else bunnies eat)
Lane: Or silver broccoli.
Wolf M: How about lettuce!
Lane:  Golden vegetable pieces.
Palmer: What if there was a chocolate egg!
Wolf M: Or a Easter egg.
Grace:  Or we could just do it when the virus is over.  Then we can play together.
Cannon: We haven't seen each other in a long long time.

We asked them how we will play the game if we're far apart. Grace said, "We could make the game and they play at home with their mom and dad and sister and brother."  Here are some quotes from the next two rounds of brainstorming.

(Group 2)
​Emilia:   We should make it THIS long.  (holds arms out)
Melanie:  A long game? That might even take an hour to play?
​Emilia:  Or maybe 35 months.
Melanie: We talked in the last group about a game where 4 little bunnies have to go and get the golden lettuce.
Emilia: Or what about a golden carrot?
Wolf B: A dinosaur or a lion?
Melanie:  Maybe the bunnies have to hop carefully through the forest and if the hop too loudly the T-rex comes.
​Emilia: OH YEAH that's a good.  
Melanie: That would be a very scary game.
Emilia:  I'm not scared of anything.  Except very scary things. 
(after a little more brainstorming and refreshing our memories about the original golden strawberry game)
Emilia: ....I know how to paint a strawberry, so I could paint it, then let it dry overnight, then tomorrow, we could each add a very golden thing to the strawberry, then as soon as we get back to school, we can get tape then put all the strawberries together! Whoever gets to the strawberries first wins.  And you have to go through the tunnel, then get the golden strawberry, and it's a race.  The only thing is, how can we make it, and what can we make it out of?  Grass or something, or moss?  'Cause I have moss right outside.

​(Group 3)
​Melanie: Maybe it could be like Candyland, where there's an ice princess...
Fletcher: (recalling his family's Halloween costumes from years prior) The ice princess is mama.  And my daddy is at the castle.  And Violet's the lollipop.
​Brooke: Olivia, what kinds of things would you add to the game?
Olivia: A unicorn.  Unicorns always glow their horns at night.
Brooke:  So maybe the players could follow the unicorn's glowing horn at night?
Olivia: Yeah, but sometimes unicorns are in the city.  When it's at night, all the unicorns in the world, even when they're in a cave, they glow their horns, even when they're in a cave.  When you tell the unicorns "turn off your horn", it just keeps it on! 'Cause sometimes at night the unicorns don't know what you're saying.  The unicorns don't have arms like us.  I think it would be fun if we had a lot of unicorns, and the unicorns can get to the egg first.  They hop all the way to the end!  They're gonna go to Unicorn Land.
​Brooke: Ellie, did you want to add your ideas for the game?
​Ellie:  Unicorns light their horns in dark places.
Melanie:  Maybe it's a nighttime game in a spooky forest.  What if a scary monster comes?
Ellie: She lights her horn to scare him away.