October 06th, 2020

Pod B

The store continues to be a thriving area of the classroom! Today the children worked to decide what kind of store they were going to have.  Here is an excerpt from their meeting discussion.  We asked the children, what kind of store is it?  

Melanie:  Is it a marshmallow store, or another kind of store?
​Andy: Another kind of store.
Grace: Or a toy store!
Oliver: We can pretend it’s a baby store.
Olivia:  I found toys at a grown-up store.  There was a lot of grown-up stuff, and I found this couple of toys.
Melanie:  So it could be a store for grown-ups and for kids?
Olivia:  Because these stuffed animals are for kids.
Oliver:  Melanie and Fletcher can be the babies, and go in this house.
Melanie:  Maybe the store is for babies too.  Things babies need.
Andy: Crib!
Oliver:  Pillow!
Olivia:  A bottle.
Oliver: Grace said diaper, we need a diaper for a baby.
Grace:  We need formula.  
Olivia:  We need milk.  We need baby milk.
Andy: We need smock.
Olivia:  We need a bib.
Oliver:  A pacifier when he’s crying, we’ll put the bib in his mouth.
Olivia:  We need baby food.

The children drew their ideas for the items they want the store to have:

Fletcher drew baby Pierce. He said, "Baby Piece can cry. That's my baby brother. He cries - wah, wah!" Fletcher smiled fondly and added the dollar signs, saying "The crib will cost two dollars, and one five."

Grace's drawing of baby clothes, diapers, a baby blanket, and a "baby riding a scooter"

Olivia said, "We're gonna sell balls in the store."

Aida's drawing of macaroni and cheese

Andy drew his baby sister, and said "My sister needs a hug." He liked Oliver's checklist idea. He said, "Baby stuffies, check. Baby smocks, check."

Oliver's checklist. He said, "See how many scribbles there are? That's all the baby supplies. Baby food, check. Baby pillows, check."

It was such a beautiful day and Pod B was outside for an hour!

Pod A

 Today's work was focused around planning, patience and problem solving. The children worked on a number of projects and even though the work was varied, everyone took their time and worked toward a clear objective.

Today the friends explored a new language: paper sculpture. These pieces of work take planning: will the paper be folded, make a bridge, stick up straight?  There are MANY possibilities! The children explored different pieces of stiff paper and cardboard and began creating their paper sculptures. It's a big task so no one has finished yet but it's good to work on prolonged projects and revisit work over many days. 

Planning and problem solving were evident in the construction area today. Wolf has been inspiring the group to build very tall structures. The children often find creative solutions for stability concerns and work to discover new ways to reach greater heights.

The initial structure wasn't very stable at the top.

So Wolf employed a building technique he learned from Palmer, to make the top half more stable.

Wolf couldn't reach the top so he asked Palmer for help, "Palmer could you get on the stool and put this up there?" Unfortunately Palmer couldn't reach either.

This photo was taken from below so it looks like he could reach, but he actually couldn't!

So they decided they needed a chair, but the chair couldn't fit on the table because of where their structure was built.

Palmer couldn't reach either! At first they boys didn't know what to do. But they solved the problem by asking Cannon - who is quite tall.

Wolf solved that problem by moving the chair to the other side of the structure.

And he did it!

Solving a problem was also the inspiration for small group work today. One morning last week, while sitting on the stairs changing shoes and waiting for friends, Lane asked, "What do those things say?" So that morning we read some of the quotes hanging by the stairs. A day or two later Jill asked Lane how we could solve the problem of not being able to read the quotes. Lane had 2 ideas. Her first was, "Make the letters that are smaller, bigger." And then she added, "If you just write pictures of the things that it says, then it will be easier." So today Jill took small groups to read the quotes and create images to accompany them. Maren and Dakota each worked to represent the quote, "The other side of the world is not far." Lane represented, "Love makes a family." 

Lane

Dakota

Maren