Tomorrow the friends who haven't yet had a turn: Fletcher, Gigi, Cannon and Emilia  will get one. 

Tracing with Pen and Watercolor
We are building our skills of tracing around the outline of an image using tracing paper.  We are hopeful this skill will come in handy within our hopscotch project.  Brooke printed out images that she knew children would be interested in - particularly, a gorilla for Cannon.  At meeting, Cannon smiled and said, "I always don't know how to try a gorilla!"  But he gave it his best effort and it turned out beautifully.  It's great to try new things, even if you're not sure it will work!

A Hopscotch Surprise
Today we began solving the problem: How do we send our hopscotch to the children at Hyde-Addison?
We realized we might need to reach out to them and let them know a surprise gift is coming.  At morning meeting the children dictated this letter:

Dear children across the street,
This is a letter from Grace, Palmer, Wolf M, Lane, Evelyn, Ellie, Wolf B, Cannon, Olivia, Oliver, Emilia, Maren, Gigi, Fletcher, (and Alexandra and Ada).  What are  your names? How many kids are in your class?
We have something to give to you.  It's a secret.
Love,
The Rainey Room, St. John's, DC

Children brainstormed ideas of getting this hopscotch game out of our studio and delivering it to the other children.  Wolf B said, "How do we take the whole thing off?"  Lane said, "The problem is the teachers don't have carseats."  She thought we could drive it over.  Palmer said, "The school is close to us!"  Meaning we don't need to drive.    Maren suggested, "Probably just put it in their mailbox."  Wolf B had the idea, "It has to be a secret."

Then, in small groups, we discussed more logistics.  Palmer said the first step is to "Un-tape it."  Lane recommended that "100 people can help."  Grace agreed saying, "Molly, Jessica, the other Jessica...." 

Palmer understood how long the hopscotch has become, going all the way to 20, and said, "We need a big door to do this.  Bigger door.  If we want it to go through the door, then we have to turn it sideways."   Lane responded, "We could just fold it in half like a taco."
Ellie:  "We lift the hopscotch up and then we'll take the tape off the ground and then we'll tape it onto the street.  ...But where will we park if we put the hopscotch on the street?  ....We'll just do it on the sidewalk!"

We began trying out our idea of using cardboard as a way to carry the numbers.  Ellie and Fletcher helped to fetch the cardboard from the closet, and put the boards in a long line to measure if it was enough.  Ellie could visualize the next part of the process in her mind...
Ellie: We have to put a line with the boards and then put it on.  And then we tape the boards to the hopscotch.

HOPSCOTCH  DEVELOPMENTS!
​

Here is a breakdown of the last two days building a hopscotch game in our studio:

• Yesterday we began with applying very small numbers on the floor and using tape to make lines showing the linear course from start to finish.  But it wasn't clear where to put your feet.  Where does the player hop on one foot, and where do they hop on two?
• We began using carpet squares to indicate to the player where their feet should go.  But it began to look too straight, like a bridge.  When the children tested the game out, they would just run from start to finish like a race, or skip across.
• A few children realized the problem and came to help us.   
  • Maren:  So, you have to jump on one leg and then jump on two legs. 
  • Lane: How I play hopscotch, is I jump in... and out.  (legs together, legs apart)
•  Lane illustrated that we needed a pattern of two carpet squares, then one, then two, then one.  We adapted our game, and gradually our hopscotch stretched all the way across the room!
• Today, it was time to add the numbers to our game.  Teachers had printed out numbers 1 through 9.  We taped those down SUPER quickly, and realized we needed more.
  • Wolf B: "Now you have to print more."
  • Palmer: "Yeah because it has to go all the way to here.  We're gonna get up to 8, but then we don't have all these numbers."
• We calculated that we were missing numbers 10-20.  Together we went to the computer and typed more numbers in.  We laughed every time we accidentally hit the wrong number key!!  
• When we came back to the Rainey Room, we first sorted out where each number should go, using the help of a number line.  Finally, we worked extensively with taping the numbers securely.
• Playing the game was the most fun.  Maren said, "We need a rock."  We opted instead to use bean bags.  Fletcher went all the way from 1 to 20, tossing the bean bag down a couple numbers ahead, then hopping to go pick it up.  At the end he said, "I won! I won! I won!"

Some great hopscotch quotes:

Gigi: I like jumping over things and in the middle.

Oliver: (after laying down a piece of tape) One... two... three... four.  Four inches long!

Wolf M: (after figuring out how to use the tape dispenser) We are DOING THIS! Nobody will ever slip.  Tape it together guys, because tape it together means we have to DO it!  We can do it as our own.

Palmer: (singing as he works) I got to move it move it!
Cannon: (also singing) Then we get to try it out!

MUD!!!
As a result of soaking the clay this week, this morning we had a lot of dirty clay-ish water we needed to discard outside.  We mixed it into our sand pit and it became and wonderful muddy mess.  We added more water and put the tub onto our bridge.

The Mini Animals in the Nursery
We have even tinier animals now - so small they can fit in a little box.  As we looked through the supply we were delighted to find a variety of species.
​
Wolf B: My dad likes shrimp.  You can cook these.
Palmer: Shrimp can really sting.  They can kill you! 
(Cannon has begun assembling a long line of his favorites)
Cannon: Look at my big happy family.  Do you wanna come over to my house?
(Oliver has made a house for Baby Ena, her mom and her sister.  They're in their beds.)
​Oliver: Do you wanna take a picture when they're out bouncing?
(Palmer builds a tall building with criss-cross method)
Palmer: There's a nursery inside.  There's a little teeny tiny penguin.

Taking Good Care of our Clay

Clay requires a certain level of moisture in order to build with it properly.  Not too dry, not too wet.  Recently we learned about how different levels of dry and wet can transform clay.  Some of our clay supply had gotten so dry that it was like a hard brick.  Some of it had been reduced to crumbs.  On Friday, small groups of children used pitchers to pour water back onto the dry clay.  Sometimes the clay would bubble, showing that the water was working its way in slowly.  Teachers explained that it would take all night, perhaps all weekend for the water to really penetrate the clay fully.

(The White Clay dissolved almost right away)
Olivia: It's feeling so, so, so squishy, so hard.
Fletcher: Look at my hands.  They look like mud.
Olivia: It's like a swimming pool.  A clay swimming pool.
Maren: Our hands are inside the swimming pool.
Fletcher: It's making a little waterfall.
Olivia: It's getting higher and higher.  All the way up to here.  (she has noticed the water level change as Maren added a couple pitchers of water)  You wanna try it? Try it!

(The Red Clay was hard like a brick, and brittle)
Fletcher: It cracked... like train connectors.
Olivia: Someone leaved it alone so so long.
(They all begin cracking small pieces on the side of the container like cracking an egg)
Fletcher: I see little rocks coming out.
​Maren: I know what we should do.  (She lets hers fall to the ground... it doesn't break)
Melanie: What will happen when we pour the water on?
Fletcher: Maybe it will erupt like a volcano!
Maren: WOAH!
Olivia: It goes up, then it will land on our heads.
Melanie: Will it stop being so hard, and be mushy?
Olivia: Yeah, like the other.  Like the other one.
Gigi: I think it might need a LOT of water.
Maren: All the way up to there.  (points to "1 pint" mark on pitcher)
(We begin pouring water, several pitchers worth)
​Olivia: ...THE CLAY IS STILL HARD.  We need more, more, more, more.
Fletcher: It will erupt.
Gigi: This is really fun.
Maren: I think we need a little more.

​Today, our clay was extremely moist - way too wet to build with properly, but better than before.  Children worked hard to lift the clumps of sticky wet clay into a bag so that the clay can be used again when it dries back out a bit.  Lane said it was "like glue."

After all that work, we had some time to play with our normal, right-amount-of-moisture clay.  (See photos toward the bottom).  Wolf B, Palmer, and Fletcher had the idea to add red clay and white clay together on their "cakes".
Grace: I made a butterscotch cake.
Wolf B: Cakes are flat.
Palmer: Cut it, cut it.
Grace: I made a smooth cake.
Fletcher: I made the perfect cake.  This is a itty bitty cake.  This cake is for... for... for you!
Wolf B: It's raw still.  It's gonna turn white.  It's gonna be messy.  I wonder how you will like it.
Palmer: It's a brown cake.  For me and Wolfie.
Fletcher: Look at my messy cake! Mine is getting really messy.
Wolf: Look how round it is.  And it's heavy.  You have to keep your hands in the oven.
Palmer:  It'll burn your hands off!!

Our Giant Weaving!
Now that our weaving is complete (with the help of many many Rainey Roomers), maybe we can weave even more strips in?  Thinner strips, or multicolored ones? Stay tuned this week to find out...

At St. John's, like many other schools, we have an area for "dramatic play", which is where children can play pretend.  It has had many evolutions in our classroom... Travel, Doctor, and Kitchen to name a few.  But the umbrella term "dramatic play" is an important one that ties back important findings made by early childhood scholars.  Research over the last 100 years tells us that children's pretend play helps them to build countless cognitive skills.

"Sociodramatic or make-believe play, according to Vygotsky, has three features: children create an imaginary situation, take on and act out roles, and follow a set of rules determined by those specific roles. Each of these features plays an important function in the development of higher mental functions. Vygotsky associated the creating of an imaginary situation and the acting out of roles with children’s emerging ability to carry on two types of actions, external and internal, internal actions being a defining characteristic of higher mental functions. [...] The very emergence of the internal actions signals the beginning of a child’s transition from earlier forms of thought processes—sensory motor and visual representational—to more advanced symbolic thought. At first more stimulus bound, preschoolers gradually learn to transcend ostensive reality." (American Journal of Play, 2015)

Read more from this article: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1070266.pdf

​Now that our dramatic play area features food, travel, and doctor elements, children have more control over the flow of play.  Below, Cannon and Wolf M have taken on roles of gorillas.  Lane prepares food nearby.
Cannon: We're eating green gorilla food.  Gorillas like apples.  Guys, let's play family gorillas.
Wolf: I'm the mommy gorilla and you're the baby.
Cannon: I'm the dad.  The dad is the king.