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Weekly Projections

1/31/2022

This week!

1/28/2022

It has been a fantastic week here in Tucker. Everyone has been engaged in all areas of the classroom. Our night research has expanded and now includes: night, stars, planets, orbiting, the sun, aliens, and more. We have so much work around this to share with you, and we ask that you're patient as we transcribe and gather all of their drawings and quotes. It really is very exciting all of the amazing things that are happening!

We introduced digital drawing this week, and it was A HIT! The children are so enthusiastic about the process. There is a learning curve to using the technology and tools, but they've quickly moved on to teaching each other how to do it.

Marley

George

"It's my spiderweb with a spider." - Lucia, 4.8 years

Audrey, 4.10 years

Marley's Butterfly

Audrey, 4.10 years

Lochie, 5.3 years

Jane

"My brother and Willow." - George, 4.8 years

Audrey, 4.10 years

Audrey, 4.10 years

Getting started on a paper mache volcano (to scare the rats)

This week

1/25/2022

Here are our projections and a few sneak peeks into our week! The blog will be minimal this week as we have interim phone calls each afternoon.

It's a busy week full of birthday committees (Sylvie, Marley, and St. John's), expanding our ideas about night/the night sky/planets/orbiting, etc. We will update you later in the week with some photos and look forward to returning to our usual blogging schedule next week.

Friday

1/21/2022

Our Chapel Candle Lighters

Building a trap and playing the "family / monster" game

Establishing the characters for the "family / monster" game and drawing them: kitty, doggy, mom, baby, monster

"I'm a cake!" -Reed ... Reed bakes in the oven, later Audrey also becomes a cake and Reed and Lucia add the icing!

Nora and Giacomo' continuing search for evidence of rats, and "they are this big ..."

Making pop-ups, drawing BIG at the easel, weaving at the light table, and pop-up shadow play

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Thursday

1/20/2022

A conversation about stars and the moon:

So you guys were talking about putting the stars and the moon in the black area.
What do we know about stars? Or do we know any stars?
We can’t know stars. Stars are a circle with pointy stuff. - Jack
But when you look at them, they look almost like dots because you can’t see the points. - Elle
Because they’re far away from the stars. If you go close to them you can see the points. - CC

Why do the stars fly up without wings? - Sylvie

Because the world is spinning, so the earth can bring the stars up and bring it to the sky. - Reed

Did you know the sun is a star? - Janie

The sun is not a star, it’s just a great ball of fire. - Lucia
The sun is actually just a great ball of gas. - Jack
The gas makes the sun hotter. - Maxon

You can only see stars with a telescope. - Nora
Is that the only way?
But when I was in Florida, and I didn’t look through a telescope, and I just saw a star. - Maxon
Have you ever seen the stars at night?
All said yes.

Some of those dots in the sky are planets. - Lucia
Actually, the weight that takes the stars up, even though they dont have wings…the earth spins round and round, and that makes the gravity go down and that makes the stars go up. - Maxon
Sometimes at night when I go out to dinner, and then when I get out of the dinner place, I see the moon, but when I’m walking the moon follows me. I don’t know why it does it. - Reed
I have the same thing, but I’m driving and it’s the sun. I look outside and see the moon and the stars, and I’m going to my bed, the stars kind of come into my bedroom. And you can’t fly to a star with a rocketship because they’re too far away. - Lochie
Yesterday, when we were coming back home... and we went to get cupcakes, and we were waiting in line... the moon followed me while I was walking there. - Elle
Sometimes when I’m driving I see that the buildings are following me - Reed
Me too - Lochie
The moon follows you because it doesn’t have gravity weight. How can the moon go up in the sky without wings just like a helicopter. Helicopters have spinners on the top to make it go up. - Maxon
Well, I can answer how the moon goes away. The moon and the earth stay in the same place. - Giacomo

How does the moon go away? He begins to show us with his hands.
The moon spins around slowly, and when the moon has been here at Washington, it’s night in Washington because the moon is pointing at Washington. When it spins around, basically into different places of the world, then night and the day. ... The earth spins slowly so that there can be a lot of day and a lot of night. - Giacomo
I don’t know if the night is longer than the day. - Maxon
The sun actually moves too. The sun moves around the galaxy. - Lochie
Even though it doesn’t have wings, the sun actually is very hot, but our planet earth, that is not the sun, has giant volcanoes. -Maxon...
The sky actually has a hot air balloon, and the stars move when the star goes in the air balloon. And then, even though you can’t see the air balloon with any material, it’s still there. - Sylvie
You can’t even see the hot air balloon. - Maxon
I have a book at home that says the planets move around the sun - Elle
In outer space there are big dippers and little dippers. - Maxon
Constellations. - Lucia
Are the stars random up in the sky or do they have a pattern?
Sometimes random and sometimes they have a pattern. - Jack

DRAWINGS

Lochie
The sun is spinning... it spins around the galaxy. And then I drawed and this side, and then I drawed the earth and it was this part facing the sun's light. It's dark on this side... Why was this something that making that black... So that's why I added this. So I added something black to make it dark because this side has the sun to make it light. The galaxy is... it's like the middle of the whole solar syste...it's like right (finger moving around the sun and Earth) The galaxy is space. The earth goes around the sun and the sun spins around the galaxy.

Giacomo
Those are stars. This is spinning. That’s the sun, and that’s the moon. This is a blackhole. It’s sucking in the stars. It can suck up light. (about the black hole)

Lucia
Illustrated on the left: This is the constellation from the book (book of constellations).
Illustrated on the right: A big monster constellation. I made it on my own, I just made it up in my brain. So it’s just like you hop on and then it carries you for a short ride and then it takes you home and drops you off.

Sylvie
Day of: I made my own constellation. It's a monster that only comes out at night. The circles are the stars.
Reflection: The lines are how the stars connect. The lines show the stars where they just move. It’s a monster how they kind of… and someone created it a hundred years ago. I looked in the book, and then each circle is a piece from the book. Then I made all of them and I connected them to make one big thing. Each circle, those are the stars.

Lucia
These are the lights. The light that you can see so you know if it is the moon or not the moon. This is its power so it can walk. So that it can move and follow you. These are its lights, and these are the stars around it. …” “And I did the full moon, and this is like a rocket ship shooting up into space and landing on the moon in outer space. And these are all the planets.”

Sylvie
This is the air balloon and this is the sky. They are the same color, so that’s why you can’t see it. The air balloon makes the star follow you. The moon has invisible wings. [What happens if the balloon runs out of air? - Giacomo] It has a lot of air. It can go a thousand miles. [You’re not floating because of gravity. Space does have gravity. So, how would the air balloon be built if there’s no air in space? - Giacomo] It doesn’t go in space. It goes to the top of the sky. It doesn’t go above teh sky. It doesn’t go in outer space. It just goes following us. The air balloon just carries the star to us. This is just how the star carries. It’s not anything about…it’s just how the stars follow you.

A small group conversation about constellations:

What is a constellation?
“It’s a group a stars that makes the stars… A group of stars that make a shape of someone from a long time ago.” Giacomo
“Makes the shape of something.” Lochie
“But, but t’s almost the exact same thing, it just looks like something else. Pretend that this is the man and that’s like the picture. But then, the picture of the group of stars is not the same way! Like… it’s not like from arms to like the head… It’s just a different way.” Lucia

Where do we find these constellations?
“We usually find them in the country.” Sylvie
“They live in outer space! And then, at night time, sometimes they come down and then they show the constellations.” Lucia
“They don’t come down. They fell. As you can see, like the darks of things are stars! You can’t see the sites, but the sites are really there. It’s just that you are too far away. And shooting stars, they just have this like rocket that has blue, blue-violet coming out of them.” Giacomo
Why can we not see stars now?
“Because it’s daytime!” Lucia

Why are there constellations? Why do they exist?
“I don’t know.” Lochie
“It’s just to decorate the sky.” Sylvie
“I don’t know. To make people say…” Lochie
“You can see who lived a long time ago.” Giacomo

When you look up at the night sky, do you see lines on the constellation?
“I’ve never seen a constellation!” Sylvie
“I’ve never seen a constellation! I haven’t seen a comet either.” Lucia
“My mom said we can see them when we go camping, but—we did not! We’ve been camping twice.” Sylvie

The moon moves and follows us? Say more.

“The moon moves the way we move. The moon just follows you, it follows you without even thinking. The constellations just stay where they are. We are moving. The constellations, they just came somewhere and stay there. So if we want to draw them, then we can see them … catch them. The constellation does not move. We go, the constellations stay.” Sylvie

If we stay in the same place, and didn’t move, what would we see in the sky? Would the constellations stay in the same place or move?

“Same place.” Lucia

“A different place.. So imagine if the Big Dipper is in Lucia’s yard, and that if it stays in place that would mean she would see it every night, in her backyard. But stars (?) can see planets so… So the Big Dipper moves because…” Giacomo

Happy Birthday, Elyse!

Projections

1/18/2022

Here are our projections for the week and a few photos from today's work!

There will be more to come on Thursday and Friday of this week in terms of blogs!

Happy Friday!

1/14/2022

St. John's Watercolors

Lochie's Sharpie and Watercolor of the St. John's Logo

Audrey's Watercolors of the St. John's Symbol

Elle's Sharpie and Watercolor of the Bell Tower

Reed's Watercolor of the St. John's Logo

Violet's Blue Doors

Valentine's Messages

Jack has been asking about Valentine's Day alllll week! He even asked if he could mark it on our calendar! The other children caught on, and they asked if we could make Valentine's messages. So, the studio table and message center table came together today for one big Valentine's fest!

Other things around the classroom

It has been a busy and fun filled week in Tucker. Brigitte brought in some osage oranges, which we found out can be boiled down to glue! The children also figured out that they could squish them to make glue. Maxon and Nora also did an observational watercolor of the osage orange. Marley did a beautiful flower painting at the easel earlier this week as well. We also experimented with drawing on graph paper which offers a variety of possibilities and challenges.

Surprises and Clay

1/13/2022

There were a few surprises awaiting the children today!

Before the winter break, and especially in these few days after, we have been paying extra close attention to the work happening in the black and white areas. As teachers (plus a lot of observation from Jen this week), we have been questioning whether or not we needed to make adjustments to the space, materials, challenges being offered, additional provocation materials added to the space, etc. With all of our own observations and questions in mind, we decided to bring it to the children at morning meeting on Wednesday. We were wondering how they were feeling about the space and materials. Did they think there was anything that should be changed or adjusted.

I started by telling them a few of mine and Jen's observations:
1. Sometimes it feels like there isn't much room for you all to move around.
2. We've noticed that it can be difficult to get some of the materials to balance for building.
3. We've noticed that a lot of the structures are only made out of these [bed risers].

"I feel that it is big." - Nora, 5.3 years
"No, it's not big enough." - Lochie and Reed simultaneousy
"It's a little bit big, but a little bit small." - Lochie, 5.2 years
"It's too small." - Jack and CC
"It looks small..."- Lucia, 4.7 years
"But it's not." - Maxon, 4.10 years
"It's not the same because the white area is bigger, and the black area is small." - Elle, 5.0 years
"We need to spread it out." - Jack, 5.7 years

In order to achieve a larger space in the white area, we had to move the nugget and cozy corner. So, we switched it with the blue table. We will continue to observe and analyze the movement and flow of our classroom and collaborate with the children to work out any kinks we may find.

“Look! This moved!” - Nora [about the nugget]
“The table is gone.” - Jack [noticing the table that had been there Tuesday and Wednesday was missing]
“Wait, how did you do all of this in the morning? This is crazy!” - Giacomo

The all-school Birthday calendar

Another surprise for today was the "completion" of the all-school birthday calendar! A big thank you to Jen, Ines, and Elena for their hard work to make this happen! I promise to get you more dialogue around this from our visit, but it will be tomorrow or next week! We also added St. John's to our classroom birthday calendar!

Each time we talk about St. John's turning 25, we discuss the fact that it will happen between Janie and Maxon's birthdays, so we were sure to put a smaller version of our school symbol between their photos.

Clay with Brigitte

Based on the children's work with wire, beads, and paper beads, we initially invited them to make clay beads that they could use for jewelry making. These children love clay, and there was so much meaningful work that happened beyond creating some beautiful clay beads.

"I made mine like I made the paper beads." - Lochie, 5.2 years
"I made a triangle bead." - Elle, 5.0 years

"I made mine like a cinnamon roll." - George, 4.6 years
"I love cinnamon rolls. I have them at my house. The icing is yummy!" - Elle

"It's a holy leaf." - Violet, 4.8 years
"It looked like a caterpillar ate through it." - George

I"m making a pepperoni pizza bread." - George

"I made a straight line with wings." - Lochie

"I made Brigitte." - Violet
"I made a snowman." - George
"I made a sea star and couch." - Elle

As we always do, we had to wait for the clay to dry before they could glaze it. But, on Wednesday George, Violet, Elle, and Lochie spent time glazing their clay creations.

George glazing his mushroom

George's mushroom

White clay

On Thursday, Brigitte once again invited children to the studio for clay, but this time it was our white clay. They were very busy making baguettes and other bread creations.

"Baguette, I"m making a baguette. I"m cutting my baguette." - Reed
"We need more baguette. I'm making some baguette. Can we put all of our baguettes together. Who's going to bake my baguette?" - CC
"I'm making an oven." - Audrey
"I'm making an apple crisp." - Nora
"When I'm done making my baguette, I'm making a baguette cake." - Reed, 4.9 years
"I'm making a baguette cake with a birthday candle." - Audrey, 4.9 years
"I made a baguette cake." - Giacomo, 5.1 years
"During bread week on the Great baking show, they made a square break out of circles. That's what I'm doing." - Lochie, 5.2 years

"I want to make a design on my clay." - Marley, 4.11 years
Marley's idea led to quite a bit of print making on small clay slabs and other sculptures. Their work was thoughtful, intentional, and you can see the contamination of ideas (specifically with the baguettes).

St. John's is turning 25

1/11/2022

Back in September, as we began to discuss and revisit the idea of birthday committees and celebrations, the idea of St. John's having a birthday was brought up. The children had some initial thoughts, and we took a trip out to the clay number line to figure out just how old St. John's is.

"Every year somebody has to have a birthday." - Jack, 5.3 years
"Birthdays are only for growing, but buildings don't grow." - Giacomo, 4.9 years
"If you want a building to grow, then you'd have to build it." - Jack
"You don't really grow because when you get to old, you start to shrink." - Jack
"You start getting lower again." - Lochie, 4.11 years

Going to the number line answered a few questions for us:
How many numbers are there?
"24. There's 24." - CC, 4.11 year
So, how old is the school?
"24." - Maxon,
"That's not what I thinked. I thought it was more old than that." - Lochie
So, how old is it going to be?
"25." - George,

January 2022

As we approach the school's birthday, all classes are beginning to explore the school's birthday: what does it mean?; how old will it be?; how will we celebrate?; what gift(s) will we give?; etc.

After reflecting on our previous conversations from September, we decided to start the conversation by revisiting the age of the school.

During morning meeting, a conversation was started about the school's birthday and age:
“Because it’s been here for lots and lots of years.” - Lochie, 5.2 years
Do you know how many years it’s been here?
“Nope.” - Lochie
Twenty-five years.
“So it must be uh, 25.” - Lochie
How should we celebrate St. John’s birthday?
“I think we should make something for it. Like, make something for it like a present.” - Lochie, 5.2 years
“Like something yummy. Like a cake.” - Jack, 5.7 years
“Schools don’t eat cake.” - Lochie
Schools don’t eat cake, but could the people in the school eat cake?
“Yeah, I think.” - Lochie

“Well, if St. John’s is not alive, why does she have a birthday?” - Elle, 5.0 years
“Well, we already asked that, and because St. John’s has a birthday, is because it has been here for hundreds of years. Because it’s so old. Because it was built, and then it stayed there for that day, and this day, and then another day, and then another day, and then another day, and then another day, and then another day.” - Lochie, 5.2 years
How can St. John’s have a birthday if it’s not alive? Does anyone else have an idea?
“I kind of think the same thing as Lochie. It has been here for millions of years, but they put numbers up so that we don’t have to celebrate anything. They put numbers on the stairs; have you seen that? Why the numbers are there is so that we don’t have to celebrate the school’s birthday because it’s not living. Like I was saying, we just put numbers on the wall, clay numbers, so that everyone doesn’t have to celebrate St. John’s birthday because St. John’s is not a person.” - Jack, 5.7 years
Well, that brings me to another question. Can you celebrate birthdays for something that is not a person?
“Yes. Like animals. My dog has birthdays.” - Elle, 5.0 years

If we were going to celebrate St. John’s birthday, how would we do that?
“I don’t know.” - Jack, 5.7 years
Any ideas?
“I don’t know, maybe giving it a present.” - Lochie, 5.2 years
“Like a toy.” - Janie, 4.11 years
“He does not play with toys.” - Elle, 5.0 years
“It’s a her.” - Lochie

Do you guys want to give St. John’s a gift? - Molly
“We can give it clothes.” - Elle
“It would have to be giant.” - Lochie
How big would they have to be?
“Like bigger than the school because it would have to fit onto the school, but we can’t do it that big.” - Lochie

Giacomo talking about St. John’s birthday with Elyse:
“You know how normal kids have birthdays with cakes or other sweets? Will the school have them too?” - Giacomo, 5.1 years
Well, we get to plan the celebration. Tucker, Brown, Rainey, and KW. So, do you think we should have something sweet? - Elyse
“Yes.” - Giacomo
Where are we going to get it from?
“I could buy one from Whole Foods, and I could bring it here, and that could be the treat.” - Giacomo, 5.1 years
What kind of sweet would you buy?
"There’s cakes, cupcakes, mini cupcakes, and a lot of other stuff. I can tell my mom if we can do that.” - Giacomo, 5.1 years
Well, we have to make a plan all together. So, we can take your ideas and share it with Tucker, Rainey, Brown Room, Molly and Audrey, and maybe we can all decide together.

The number line continues

After spending some time looking at the clay number line in the hallway, Giacomo, Maxon, and Lucia worked at the low table with our loose parts, block numbers, number stickers, etc. Giacomo quickly began the process of creating a number line using only the materials. Maxon then added the stickers to indicate the number of materials in each grouping. Lucia then pulled out the rulers to measure how long the new number line would be.

Weaving

Every year, we have work from the children underneath their official school photos which hang above the mailboxes in our "post office". The work from each class is unique and a wonderful opportunity to work on something "mini".

Every child will have the opportunity to create their own weaving which will hang beneath their photograph.

Top [L to R]: Jane, Giacomo, Nora
2nd row: CC, Maxon, Audrey
3rd row: Violet, Jack, Elle
4th row: George, Lucia, Marley

The tallest structures

We've also had some incredibly tall structures happening in Tucker Room. The children love the opportunity to use the ladder, which they do with incredible confidence, ease, and attention to safety. These structure require a lot of focus on stability and carefully placing the pieces! We also had to rebuild them a few times, but there was a lot of joy in both watching them fall and building them back up.

Projections

1/10/2022