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Some reminders for next week... - Tuesday- Friday we we will have Interim Phone Calls. Sign-up on Sign-up Genius if you haven't done so already! - Due to interim phone calls, we will not be posting a blog next week. Blogs will resume the week of the 30th. - Please continue to email in Winter Research images, videos, and/or other documentation. - Also, please email any pictures you or the children took at Montrose Park during our field trip!   The children's winter research has spurred a lot of discussion over the last few weeks. A few children shared their research during morning meeting, while others took part in small group discussions. While sharing, children talked about temperature (Was it warm or hot?) and the sky mostly (Was it cloudy or sunny?) Many of the children mentioned the wind as part of their discussions, so we began a studio experience by asking the children to "tell us about the colors of the wind" by mixing paints for the easel. Cal and Seon thought about the wind at the different times of their days. Cal: Maybe brown. It’s always orange and brown. When the sun sets, it’s orange. Seon: The sunshine wind is yellow, dark yellow. The sunset wind is orange-red. Cal: I need black and blue. Maybe black and then blue. It’s making….maybe….black now blue. Seon: Black…squeeze tight. Cal: That’s something I need. More black. Maybe add a little more blue now. Seon added more blue: Hmm. Let me see. Cal: That’s nighttime sky. Seon: The nighttime wind is blue.  Cal and Seon worked together to make several colors. Here they collaborated on Black-Blue, which they named "Night Time Sky." Whit and Mimi thought about how they could paint something that they couldn't see. They wondered about what colors they could create. Whit: The wind is invisible. The invisible color. We need it to be white to paint wind. Mimi: White. Whit: It’s this kinda color (pointing to gray on the color wheel). Mimi: It’s gold? Whit: No, it’s gray. Invisible gray wind. Ford and Charlton were inspired by the weather in different locations that they have visited. Charlton: Regular wind is invisible wind. You can’t see it. Ford: In Bethany (beach), it would be like white, but you can’t see it if it's only white. On a sunny day in Turks and Caicos, I see white. Looking at the color wheel, Charlton looked at the color wheel: Turquoise! Ford: Turquoise is Turks and Caicos wind. Charlton: I want to make Florida wind. It looks bluish. Ford: Gray blue. Charlton: No, Florida wind is navy blue. Ford: In my Florida and in Bethany (beach) the wind is gray blue. Charlton: I got blue. The two looked at the color wheel and found a color that they agreed was “Florida Blue.” Charlton: I got blue. Ford: I’m going to do black. Charlton: What makes navy blue? Ford: Now I’m going to do more black. Charlton: Florida blue is basically navy blue. Ellie and Seon took inspiration from the current weather conditions in the outdoor classroom.  Ellie: A gray wind on a rainy day. Seon: It’s making gray. Ellie is mixing it. Ellie: Lighter, right? Seon? Seon: Darker. Because rain is black. Darker. Black is every different color. Ellie: There we go. Wow. I mixing it. It’s making it even more gray. Darker and darker. Seon: It looks dark to me. Ellie: Rainy day. Darkest wind. A cold wind. Bailee and Isabelle were inspired by the aftermath of storms that they had witnessed during their travels. Isabelle recalled a storm that knocked down the "pine tree forest" in Tennessee. Bailee reflected on the hurricane that "broke the beach" in Florida. Zari and Fay thought about storms and the puddles that they leave behind! Bailee: I want to make purple thunder. Thunder wind is purple. Karen: Can you find purple on the color wheel? Another name for purple is violet. Bailee: Violet! Karen: If we turn the color wheel it can help us make the color violet. Isabelle: I got red. Bailee: I got blue. Isabelle to Bailee: You go first. Bailee to Isabelle: Now, your turn. I wanna put more. blue. Thunder wind! Sometimes thunder wind is a different purple too! I need to put a little bit of red now. Isabelle: I put a lot of red. Zari: I don’t see the wind. I just feel it. The wind is green maybe because the leaves are green and sometime they never again get green. Fay picked up the color wheel and pointed to blue violet. Zari: Kinda stormy. That means it’s stormy outside so you don’t go outside. Fay: In our backyard there is a puddle in it. It’s so big. We wear our raincoats and jump in it. It’s brown because of the big storm. Puddle brown. Zari: The rain makes puddles. That’s why I like the rain. Charlton and Ford entered the studio, curious about what Zari and Fay were creating. Ford: What color are you making? Fay: Puddle brown. Now (I need) yellow. Charlton picked up the color wheel and turned it: And a little black. Ford: A tiny dab dab (of black).  The Rainey Room Weather Palette... We are looking forward to see the creations at the easel over the next few days with our exciting new palette of weather-inspired colors.
Reminder
 When the birthday committee convened to begin talking about how we could celebrate Seon’s birthday the children had a lot of ideas. Seon often shares about her love of outer space as well, so it was no surprise that the conversation eventually turned to that topic. Karen posed a question: "Seon’s birthday is coming up so we are going to work together on her birthday committee. The first thing that we need to do is to find out what she’s interested in. Let’s think about questions that we could ask her." The children were deep in thought, possibly thinking about previous birthday committees. Rawls: A fishing rod, because it was my birthday. Ava: Dinosaurs for Ellie. Rawls: For Seon, A Barbie dream doll. A Barbie House. Seon: I like science. Fay: Coco (her sister) does science sometimes at school. Seon: I have a special books at home. So many...books. So many kinds of things. I got science books. Ava: How about we make a book with glue attached? It would be a bookcase. It could hold her books. Seon: I got space in my books. Ava: (laughs) There’s no space in books! Nothing about space! Seon: No, sometimes space is in a book. Planets are too many. We need to think about it. Ava: Seon, what’s your favorite planet? Seon: Saturn, Earth and Mars because they’re so cool, because the Mars Rover is on my shirt too. Earth because I live there. Karen: Now, if we are going to make a planet, what are some materials that we would need? Seon: Yes. They will need some things that are round. Ava: We might need something green and squishy. Fay: The round goes around a ball and a donut hole in the middle and they put stuff over the top. Weaving the Water and The Land The birthday committee gathered in the atelier to revisit Seon’s interview and to begin the work on her gift. Ava, Fay and Rawls recalled that Seon has an interest in planets. Fay: Oh, a globe! Ava picked up a piece of ribbon: How about these materials? All different ribbons. Showing patience and great perseverance, the children of the birthday committee problem-solved collaboratively as they worked to weave ribbon into a chicken wire frame. Sometimes they needed to cut the ribbon to make it fit. Other times they needed to fold it or tuck it in and then pull it back through the chicken wire. Ava: Sometimes. It goes into not the right place, but then you got to try again. Fay: It’s maybe a magic ribbon (because it’s talking). I see some more (loose ends) here. Ava: It needs a little tuck here. Rawls cut the ribbon to the length that he wanted: Too long. Clip, clip, cut, cut. Fay chose a blue ribbon and began stuffing the ribbon through the chicken wire holes: I think we need to tuck it (loose end of ribbon) in. Rawls: We need to do teamwork. We do it, build it all together. Teamwork makes the dream work. Can you (Ava) help me scissor (cut) it?  As they worked, the members of the birthday committee stopped to observe their creation, then returned to it, making adjustments and additions; analyzing their progress as they went and thinking critically about their next steps. They wanted their "globe" for Seon to look just like the one in the Rainey Room. Ava: Need lots more green. Fay pointed to the globe and then looked back: A lot of blue (on the globe) and only a little bit of green. Ava: I think we’re almost done, so I’ll take this little one. I don’t think this one will tuck in very much more. This one is just flopping. (The ribbon) It's saying “don’t put me in.” Adding Another Dimension to the GlobeAfter sufficiently weaving blue and green ribbons into chicken wire, the children used hot glue to attach more materials to Seon's globe. The collection of materials were varied.  Karen: What could the green on the globe be? Ava: Trees. Tree and leaves. Fay: Grass. But, blue is water. The ocean water. Rawls pick up a blue tile: This will be the see water. Rawls: You mean those have glue in them? Ava: We need to wait for the glue to stick. 5 days. Fay: It’s not sticking because some of the glue dried, so I have to put more (glue). It dried quickly. Seon's GlobeKaren: What do you think Seon will think about her globe gift? Rawls looked at the gift and then pointed to the globe on the table: I think she will think it is similar to this globe. Seon's Birthday CelebrationFor Seon's Birthday celebration, the children were treated to one of Seon's favorite treats, crunchy Korean honey twists and pears. Her mom, Jinmyung, shared one of Seon's favorite storybooks, Tiny T-Rex and the Impossible Hug, a tale that is much beloved by all the children. After the children sang "If It's Your Birthday and You Know It," Seon circled the birthday candle 4 times to signify her 4 turns around the sun. The celebration concluded when Ava, Fay and Rawls presented Seon with her gift, her very own planet Earth. Interviewing FayBefore the winter break, we celebrated Fay’s 4th birthday. To prepare for her special day and birthday gift, the birthday committee interviewed Fay to find out more about her and her interests.
Deciding on the GiftFollowing the interview, the birthday committee discussed how they could incorporate Fay’s interests into her gift. Her love for excavators especially stood out to them. What did Fay tell us about yesterday? Isabelle: Excavators. What do excavators do? Ellie: Excavate on a road. Isabelle: Scoop. Pick up things. What should we make for Fay’s birthday gift? Isabelle: An excavator! Charlton: I have an excavator at home. Seon: I also have an excavator. It digs very well but it’s kinda broken.
The children knew that Fay wanted an excavator, but through discussion about excavators they thought beyond the most obvious gift. They came to the conclusion that they would make her a construction site for her excavator at home. Where does an excavator dig? Cal: In the dirt and it’s got a big arm to build a house. Isabelle: It digs and scoops. Ellie: It’s scooping. It’s for construction. Seon: The construction site. Emma showed the birthday committee pictures of a construction site. What can we find at the construction site? Seon: Different kinds of vehicles and I see some buildings. Charlton: This kind of sand (pointing to the dirt). Seon: We could make her something brown. A tiny little vehicle. Super tiny. Some dirt. It will be a pretend construction site. Planning the Construction SiteThe birthday committee began planning the construction site. They started with drawing blueprints of what it might look like after examining different images.
"It’s an excavator. That’s the scooper. A lot of dirt." - Ellie
"An excavator works in the construction area. There’s dirt and tracks! The excavator makes the tracks. I want to draw the tracks." - Cal Cal puts an excavator toy on his paper: Now the excavator can drive on it.
Assembling the MaterialsUsing their blueprints, the birthday committee broke ground on the construction site using various materials such as rocks, small bricks, trees, pieces of metal and wood, crumpled paper, and dirt. They even created construction cones by rolling small round pieces of orange paper.  What do we find on a construction site? Seon: Dirt. Some trees. Isabelle: Dirt. Cal: A lawnmower. Seon: Outside there was a real life construction site. It was very big. Cal picking up round pieces of wood and metal pieces from the provocation: Those are extra wheels in case the excavator broke these are the tools. "You have some cones for safety. " - Seon
Cal: I’m gonna glue the dirt. Ellie: Me too. Seon: Just a little bit, Ellie.
Seon: She can move around the excavator on here. And if it gets broken she can use the tools. The trees are not stable. I hope Fay likes it. What do you think she will like about it? Seon: She can dig the dirt with her excavator. Seon folding small orange paper: It’s a stick for construction or maybe a telescope for construction. I think it looks complete. Mimi observing the birthday committee's work: It looks like a small world to play in. The Finished Gift The CelebrationFay’s mom, Paige, and her dad, Pack brought in homemade banana bread with chocolate chips in for Fay’s birthday snack. It was baked with love with the help of Fay's little brother Van. The Rainey Room children and teachers loved the snack. We then went over to the birthday blanket where Fay’s mom and dad read us two of Fay’s favorite books. The first was called Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and the second was called Mermaid School by JoAnne Stewart Wetzel.
We then sang Fay the birthday song and she walked around her birthday candle four times to symbolize her four rotations around the sun. Finally, the birthday committee presented their gift for Fay. We hope you had the best birthday, Fay!
Welcome back everyone! We hope you all had joyous holidays and are having a great start to the new year. The children are adjusting very well back to the school routine and have been excited to share about their holidays, especially with regard to the weather they experienced while away from school. Please continue to email us any pictures, videos, notes, and/or audio recordings of weather you may have collected as we will continue to share throughout next week. We're looking forward to the week ahead!  |
