Introductions

11/11/2020

Hello Luke!

He's my friend! - Frannie

Today we welcomed our new friend Luke to the Brown Room for his very first day at school!
Luke is familiar with St. John's because his older sister, Grace, used to go to school here too. Some of our Brown Room friends have already established relationships with Luke outside of school as well! Frances has a strong bond with Luke and they began their friendship before ever coming to school.
When Frances was reminded that "Lukey" would be joining us at school today she excitedly said, "he's my friend!"

"My school!", Luke told his classmates during our snack time today.

We're so happy to have you here with us, Luke!

The Brown Room children have very strong connections to their symbols. This morning, when first arriving upstairs before entering the classroom, Luke noticed friends using our check-in board with their photos and symbols. Later once exploring the classroom, Luke noticed friends using their symbols at the message center and was shown the symbol organizer.

Luke then began making marks of his own on paper using a variety of different stamps. When his friend Frannie visited her drawer in the symbol organizer to use her symbol on something she was working on, Luke made a connection that he didn't have a stamper in his organizer drawer yet!
"Oh no! Empty!", Luke said when he opened his drawer and didn't find a stamp inside.
Without hesitation, he then chose a "moth" stamp and placed it inside of his drawer. Closing the drawer with his newly chosen symbol inside, Luke was still disappointed. He noticed that next to his name there was only blank space - no symbol image!
"No! My symbol!", he said pointing to his label on the organizer drawer. Ines then helped Luke stamp his image next to his name. He celebrated his decision with a little wiggle dance, then moved on to exploring other areas of the classroom.
Luke has not yet identified his symbol with a "name", but we look forward to learning what he will call his beautiful image.

A New Language - Wire

Children as human beings, possess a hundred languages: a hundred ways of thinking, expressing, understanding, of encountering otherness through a way of thinking that weaves together and does not separate the various dimensions of experience.

The hundred languages are a metaphor for the extraordinary potentials of children, their knowledge-building and creative processes, the myriad forms with which life is manifested and knowledge is constructed.

(The Reggio Emilia Approach®)

Yesterday, children began exploring wire. In what ways could this material be used?

Vocabulary used by the children during this initial exploration to describe the way the wire pieces were being manipulated by their hands included twist, bend, and fold.
As children began to shape the wire into different forms, teachers offered additional descriptive vocabulary including spiral, loop, round, curve, and arch.
Children observed that the wire differed in colors and communicated these differences with one another.
Weight and thickness of the wire was observed when attempting to cut the wire from the spools.

Here are a collection of wire sculptures created by Bea, Lily, Finlay, Remy, Cate, and Hugh on Tuesday, 11/10.

Today's group of children began their initial exploration of wire by manipulating the shape
with their hands as well.

Then, a collection of small hollow materials were offered to the children and they immediately took to threading the items onto their wire pieces. They demonstrated fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, persistence, patience, sorting, and sequencing abilities throughout this process.
We compared our creations to some homemade musical instruments that we have found before in the school instrument cabinet.
We have always been fascinated by these and now, we have our own handmade rattles to use in the classroom!