Gifts for Melanie You know what? I think she will love that green! - Sylvie We are missing a big part of Rainey Room! As Melanie recovers, we thought we could create some gifts to help her feel better. But what to create? She likes so many fun things. We started with creating some fun paint colors Rainey Room thought she might like. Sylvie' Purple - Sylvie Strawberry (red) - Janie Chair (green) - Maxon Caramel (brown) - Jane Carrot Orange - Lucia What if we send the pictures to my house? Then we wrap them and they'll be a gift - Sylvie Jenn showed us a new way we make gifts for Melanie. We could take our sewing skills and work with a loom to create beautiful works for our dear friend. We found film, flowers and materials we thought Melanie would enjoy and set to making something she would enjoy as she recuperates. Special thanks to Jenny for coming in and helping us as a sub today! You were super! 
 I'm going to add Melanie's symbol - Maxon It's a peacock feather - Lucia I like the feathers - Sylvie What animal is this from? Jordan A peacock! - Janie
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This morning was a continuation of several of our class projects. If you’ll recall, before the winter break we spent much time working on an obstacle course guidebook! Today we sat down and paged through the book together, commenting on all of our hard work. Lochie: Wait, wait go back. That’s my bench! George: That’s me! CC: Remember when we wrote that? Elle: Where’s me? Violet: Can I see it?  If you’re curious to see the book for yourself, have no fear! In this coming month the book will go home with each child so they can share all their hard work with you all at home! Stay tuned for an email with more information. We also spent time today glazing our clay projects from Tuesday. Some opted for the clear glaze where others preferred to choose from the myriad of color glazes.
Marley and Jack spent time working on some messages for families. Later our message table turned into a jewelry table with Lochie, Marley and Jack all working on beautifully beaded bracelets and necklaces.  Jack: I’m making a flower. This is stefani and this orange flower, it’s huge, and this is a bit of grass. Marley: I’m just making this (message). This one is for my mom. Now I’m making one for daddy.  "Water, Soap, Water, Counter" Something you might not know about Rainey B is that we take great pride in our space. "Rainey B cleans up Rainey B" was something we a lot during the year. As the year has progressed, we've become even more capable as we maintain our space. Recently, Maxon showed us how to wash our dishes after snack. Lucia noticed him cleaning his plate and he explained what he was doing. It turns that Jane also knew how to clean her plate. Thats's the soap. This is the counter. This is where the soap comes out - Maxon
But we needed more. Rainey Room B decided there needed to be another way to remember our post snack responsibilities: A list - Lucia For us. On the counter? - Maxon But it will get wet - Janie We can hang it up - Lucia We need new materials. Gems and paper to cut - Janie We decided to make a list of the steps to clean our dishes with collage materials. Maxon immediately set about making an image for the soap.  You see this, Jordan? The soap is orange. And these? These are bubbles - Maxon Rainey B came up with some very interesting materials to use to create water for our list. We used transparent and silver for our bases. We had a variety of blues, whites, silvers and even transparent materials to collage. Bubble wrap was very popular to the surprise of absolutely no one. After working on the water symbols for our signs, we came back together to discuss how we made our works and what we appreciated about our peers' works.  I put some bubbles, then I put some glue then I stuck it - Lucia  The rounds things are the soap. That's the water. That's more water. It's different colors - Jane  This is the water where the angler fish live. The dark paper is the midnight zone - Janie  This is the water. This is a bridge. This is an island. Lots of water - Maxon We saw water and soap in lots of different ways and that's ok. What important is that we all remember our phrase. "Water, Soap, Water, Counter" and take charge of our Rainey Room
 Continuing with our exploration of light, shadows and the moon we took time today to paint with watercolors. To add dimension, we used medicine droppers to place the paint on the paper, making observations along the way about how the paper and colors change with the addition of new drops.
 The Family Game This has been the most popular dramatic play in Rainey B for the last several weeks. In fact, it’s become so prolific in the classroom, Brigitte and I thought we should make note of it in the blog. The game, begun by Elle, features a family. Sometimes with two moms, two dads or all babies, the families begin and end their days in their meticulously constructed block houses. As we’re sure you’ve heard about it at home, here is an excerpt from the storyline on Monday:
 We wanted to end today's blog with Jack's inspired Spring drawings! Despite the cold and gloomy weather, Jack persisted with drawing beautiful, spring flowers which he reminded us need "sun, rain and soil to grow". If you're wondering how to copy these works at home, don't fret because according to Jack drawing flowers is "easy peezy!"  On Monday we took our explorations with the projector in a slightly different direction. Instead of simply displaying silhouettes, we challenge the children to find materials in the classroom, trace them on big paper and then draw and design around their images. Children could choose to work independently or collaboratively depending on their vision. 
 While only a few were interested in tracing yesterday, the projector was at the forefront of their thoughts during our clay exploration today. After spending time chipping away at a huge slab of clay, several children began to merge the projector and the clay, displaying their shapes and creations.  Lochie: Let's start with a small piece. CC: mmm maybe a little bigger Lochie: My two parachutes are finished! George: This is my parachute, mine has a line. CC: I'm cutting the clay, that's making lines CC: I'm thinking treasure Lochie: We have to keep digging, to find treasure Marley: I need my piece to be bigger 
Look its all the moons. The smaller ones are far away! - CC
Here, this one is a crescent moon - George
For Jack, the most interesting parts of yesterday and today was the chance at continuing his own book making project. In these books he includes beautiful hand drawn images and special symbols for the recipient of the creation.
 I had to mix the colors so it would match. The colors (markers) just weren't really the same. I make the books by taping these (stationary) together. I think Mommy is going to love it! - Jack
Rainey B I can see a building - Janie Our house building in stormy weather intensified today with the help of technology! With Jenn's help, we were able to put up a large screen and project a rainstorm. Suddenly, our narrative about gettin inside before the storm hit became even more exciting. We used this new perspective to move our building in new, exciting directions as we searched for safety and security.
All I see is tiny rain drops - Jane I see buildings - Janie There! - Maxon We have to build a horse house - Janie The horse is in the rain. I need to make a house. A stable! - Lucia They want to play together - Lucia You can come over every day. You can stay in the house- Janie  As we built, our minds swirled with possibilities. What kind of storm was it? Was there thunder or lightning? Possibly even a tornado? Thankfully, Janie had some safety tips. That's a tornado! It goes down really fast and up really fast. You need a bedroom or a bathroom with no windows. - Janie  Not content to work in just one space, Rainey Room decided to add on to their already impressive landscape. We added game and all sorts of amenities.
We can put hop scotch - Lucia Thats very good - Janie I'm making a big castle. And an elevator - Jane This is a pathway so no animals can come in - Maxon All the plastic makes a wall to protect the house - Janie Happy Friday! Today was truly a day of construction big and small! Some children chose to continue with making their own silhouettes which quickly became a plan for a “shadow city”. They collected several objects from around the classroom that would lend themselves to towers and houses, and traced them on our black silhouette paper. Some even realized that adding two shapes together created the design they wanted.
 Others chose to construct using message center materials.
Still, for some, brand new clear legos dominated the day with all kinds of crystalline towers dotting the brick landscape. Oooh, I like the pink one. See my tower? - Marley 
We also took time today to discuss Elle’s box project. She missed our box sharing in the beginning of the year, but has been increasingly interested in the ones she saw in the hallway. Over the weekend, she and her mom worked on putting one together and she shared the process with us today! I wanted to add moon rocks. These are from mom, you hit them and see the inside. I wanted it to be beautiful so I put pictures with my family. I took the pictures with my camera. - Elle  Have a wonderful weekend!
Rainey Room B Making our Space SecureToday we finished our first animal home. Not satisfied with yesterdays work we decided to create additional walls and security so that our animal friends would remain safe from rain and the dreaded "angler fish tiger." We created 'walls of ice' and to keep the invading angler fish tigers at bay. As we continue with homes and building, we are starting to think about security and what that means to us. What would other people or animals need to feel safe and happy? And how do we take those ideas and recreate them in 3 dimensional space?
We can build a huge castle so bears can't arrive - Janie Danger! There's an angler fish tiger. The bears are not getting in - Lucia After competing and disassembling their animal house, Rainey Room decided to create paints so that we could make paint our new, exciting homes. But there was also the thunder storm to consider. We had to paint the storm withstanding the rain of the storm. So we worked to make colors that reflected our mental images  It might make a rainbow color. Look the colors are on the wall - Maxon I need to make brown. It's all the colors - Maxon Brown for the trees. Green for the leaves. - Janie Mine's makes turquoise - Lucia Jane's is beautiful, too - Maxon  Puffy Red. Maroon Dark Blue like your shirt. Bark, Dark Green. Pink Reddy. Turquoise. Light Green. Blue White (blight) Friday Funday!Today's new Friday Funday is a counting game called Mr. Fox! You can play at home, too! https://www.playworks.org/game-library/hungry-fox/ Adding to our SilhouettesHow good it is to be back in the classroom! Thank you to everyone who joined us on zoom this past week! We had a wonderful time exploring the sun and the moon through our pastel drawings.
Today we continued again with our exploration of silhouettes, but this time children had the opportunity to create their own characters. Some chose to trace or design theirs on the ones from families, others made designs based on shapes in the classroom and some decided the best technique was just to freehand. Today we added castles, hands and even a 3D spiral to our silhouettes collection!
 
 Can I try putting my picture on the projector? - Jack  Special thanks to Maria for stepping is as our sub today and tomorrow while Brigitte is away! Expanding Architecture  Back to work we go! Rainey Room B jumped back into the classroom after a few days at home. We arrived in the classroom to find new wooden houses which inspired us to come up with new ideas! This one has a door - Jane This one has 2 levels and that one 3 levels - Janie It doesn't have a fridgerator but we can add one - Jane Yea, good idea - Janie I have an idea. You go there and I'll play here - Maxon The animals are sleeping - Maxon But we are still working - Jane As our building grew, so did our narrative. Once again, it had begun to rain. The animals needed to get inside so that they could stay dry for the evening. We thought about what the animals would need to be safe and secure in their homes.  I added blocks to the rain. A wall! - Janie But we soon discovered that the house was missing several sections that we would need to create. So we set out to create architectural additional I tried to make the rain go away by making box. It's one of the roofs - Jane That thing can heat up the food so animals can eat. And you know why I put the things with the holes in?nTo add medicine to keep them sleeping - Maxon I added a roof for the storm so we wouldn't get rain. I added a black thing (tube) but it didn't work. I wanted a chimney - Lucia  After snack, we read a book Lucia brought it called "If I Built a House" by Chris Van Dusen. We loved the pictures and the ideas of crazy, new rooms. The robot kitchen room and the giant fish tank room were big hits. We immediately began drawing creative rooms of our own.
Some of us elected to do additional research to create new rooms  Can we read together? - Maxon I choose a castle and you choose a castle - Janie I'm excited to see what kind of new, unique ideas we have for our homes and how we can find a solution to this ongoing rain narrative that keeps the animals from going to sleep. Tune in next time to find out! See you later, alligator!
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