Plans and Reality....

As dedicated educators we are intentional with the provocations that we provide to spark the children's play and learning.  But, there are times when we get excited about a provocation and all the potential it holds - only to realize that our plans and hypotheses don't match the children's reality: their needs, their vision, their interests.  Today was one of those days. 
To continue our work around families and relationships we decided to revisit projecting the family photos (which some children had experienced on Friday). However, this time we used the shadow screen down in Blake Hall.  We thought the children would play with their shadows and be inspired by the large space to interact with the projections of their family photos. But here's what happened:
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They contemplated the setup.

We  steered them towards an understanding of the shadows.

Eventually we moved on and began the slideshow of the family photos. There were moments of interest as they looked at the photos and named who they saw. And a couple of children interacted with what they saw:

Grace asked Emilia about her brother.

Grace hugged her family (inspired by Fletcher having done the same to his photo).

Overall, what we thought might happen and what did happen, ended up being rather different. 
We used this information to adjust the provocation for the second group of children. We shifted the focus to be simply about the shadow screen. The second group was more engaged with the concept of shadows: 

Though today didn't go quite as we had anticipated, we will learn from the experience. By revisiting the video and photo documentation we can think about potential next steps and/or new areas of interest. 

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Below are some photos of our time in the classroom and outside:

If anyone needs a makeup consultation, Lane is your gal! She walks us through the process and then guides Ada. Who knows, she might be the next makeup mogul à la Kylie Jenner or Bobbi Brown!