March 11th, 2020

Just a few small stories from our time outside for Backwards Day:
Cannon and Lane played eagles. They built a nest, added eggs and then fed the babies as good parents do.

Cannon: Guys you need to come to the nest! (trying to encourage other friends to join the play)
Lane: Oh! I found some food.
Cannon: That's a string. You need to put that in the nest.

Cannon: Our nest is overflowed! Our babies hatch into water.
Lane: Someone gave us the string so the nest and our eggs could float away.

Lane: Let's go to the pizza place. (they leave for materials and arrive with a bag of balls)
Cannon: I brought some pizza!
Lane: For the babies to eat.
Cannon: No! For the babies to peck on.
Lane: Put a lot in our nest because our babies love pizza.

Olivia led friends in an Elsa (from Frozen!) game. There was dramatic singing, running and lots of fun! Many friends were involved and her excitement sparked enthusiasm from her peers.

The swing is always fun too!

Later in the classroom.... A Hopscotch How-To Guide

Ellie, Maren, Grace and Palmer went to the atelier to work on the instructions for the hopscotch game that is going to be gifted to the  Hyde Addison children. In addition to adding details to how to play, they created instructional illustrations of hopping on the squares.

Here are the original instructions that the group was revising today:

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• You have to hop like one, both, one, both.  You have to hop on both feet, one, both feet, one.  (Maren)
• And then you can go backwards if you want.  (Palmer)
• You throw the beanbag and you have to pick it up and hop all the way to the finish line.  (Maren)
• Wherever the beanbag goes, you have to jump to it.  (Lane)
• You just have to follow the numbers. (Palmer

Today's instructions had more detail:
"You have to throw the bean bag on one number on the board. 
Then you jump to it: one foot, two foot, one foot, two foot. 
You have to go to the finish line, turn around, then when it's your number you pick it (the bean bag) up.
If the bean bag lands somewhere that's not the finish line you still have to jump to the finish line."


Maren drew two illustrations: the first showed how to hop on one foot. First she drew the hopscotch but then she realized that the start of her hopscotch was at the end of the paper. She asked, "Where's there space?" To solve this problem she added a paper overlapping with her first and drew the person. 

Maren described her hopscotch illustration: "I drew a person and I drew the hopscotch. She's hopping. You hop on one leg." 

...She also illustrated how to throw the bean bag:

Ellie illustrated how to land on two hopscotch squares, one foot on each square. She used a photograph of herself doing this as a reference. It turned out that she wasn't satisfied with her illustration because she didn't draw the feet connecting to the hopscotch squares.  (We always emphasize that it's okay to do a second draft if the first one doesn't turn out quite right... maybe we'll come back to it tomorrow)

Grace drew a bird's eye view of how feet land on the squares. It was important to her that the feet were in shoes (because you play the game outside) and that she shoes were the same, or else "It would be mismatched and be confusing.  And someone will forget if it's the same person".  She used a thumb to help her draw.  "I need someone's thumb.  So I can make it look like a foot."

Palmer's illustration features Maren jumping on a square, along with 3 additional squares.  He took great care to put the squares in the right pattern (two, one).

He also demonstrated his knowledge of jumping/standing on one foot.

And finally, some info about a brand NEW area in the classroom... Creating a Board Game

At meeting, we suggested to the class a new project we'd like to try.  Since we have been so invested in the game of hopscotch, we were sure that some Rainey Roomers would want to help us create our very own board game with our own rules.   We showed them all the materials we had prepared.

Wolf: We have to use a tiger.
Palmer: Are we making games for ourselves because we're giving hopscotch to Hyde Addison?
Emilia:  Or maybe we could make hopscotch 'cause these look a bit like stones.
(Teachers cite Candyland as an example of a game... how is that played?)
Palmer:  You don't just cheat (he smiles)
Melanie: Nope, you don't.  You have to follow the..?
(all) Rules!
(We keep discussing Candyland, including the colorful tiled pathway. Could we use that as inspiration?)
​Emilia:  That would be great! I could cut out shapes!

Emilia and Wolf M began, and Lane and Oliver joined later.  Read the dialogue to find out how we brainstormed.

Emilia:  We could play "Gnomes at Night".  (She explains that it has a timer and cards)  We need a board just like this.
Wolf:  We have to make it even bigger.
(Wolf positions one board at a diagonal, and soon gets a car to ride down the ramp.  Then he gets the tiger.)
Emilia: We could make a trap for the tiger so he falls off the sidewalk and into the water.
(The two of them attach a second board, to catch the tiger)
Wolf: We did it! We're making it more easy.  I'm making it more stable, into a bridge.  The tiger can be in the forest under here.  (indicates area under chair)
Lane:  When the ball rolls down, the people have to run away.  (She experiments with rolling a wooden ball down the ramp and into our cardboard people)
Oliver: (has a dreidel in hand) We need this to show which direction.  
Lane: The next thing is lava.  And they have to jump over the lava.
Wolf: Look, they can walk around,
Oliver:  The next thing is water.
Lane: Next, it's the golden strawberry.  (She has placed a silver metal circle on the game board)
Oliver: This can be the house, with windows.  That's where they go at night.  So they don't get covered in rain.
(Lane and Oliver work as a team to create a house with cardboard and glue)
(Soon after, we place a series of bottlecaps down as a Candyland-esque pathway and practice rolling the dice to determine how far the player moves)
Wolf: (has tiger in hand) One, two, three, four, five... He got to five.  Haha!