March 08th, 2022

The excitement was huge when we spotted the beautiful rainbow, all of our sewing hoops together create on our way up the stairs! Thank you again to everyone for making our celebration extra special!
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Mine is the one with the bow on it. - Frannie
The rainbow! I'm looking for mine. - Wilder
There's a rainbow on the stairs! - Lily
Mine was the long neck - Wilder
I made a blue one. - Frannie
I made mine for my dad. - Michael
​I think Wilder's is the coolest one in the rainbow. - Hugh

We also recognized Tucker Room's gorgeous number 25 out of "rainbow clay" on the top of the number line:

This is the first time I used plaster. - Lucas

​Today we explored a new material together with Jen in the outdoor classroom - PLASTER!
​What is plaster?

It looks like cheese. White cheese. - Remy
It feels so fluffy. - Luke
It feels like flour. Like food. - Cate
It looks like milk. - Frannie

Plaster is a mixture of gypsum and water that quickly hardens after it's activated in the mixing process. To create our plaster we mixed the plaster powder and water, using the ratio 2:1, that means 2 cups of powder and 1 cup of water. 

We did then when we make our cake outside. With sand. - Remy,
reflecting on "baking" a cake with sand and mulch in the outdoor classroom,
​using the ratio 1:1 (1 shovel of sand, 1 shovel of mulch)

​When gently sifting the powder into the water we noticed the powder being absorbed by the water. 

It's getting done. -Frannie
It's getting mixed in with the others so you cant see it but it's still there. - Lily
It's melting. - Luke

We used a variety of natural and metallic items to create designs in plastic trays. When the plaster dries, a chemical reactions causes the plaster to slightly warm up. As the mixture gets stiffer, the children explore how to best place items to make them stand up (e.g. Cate and Frannie bend the wire into an arch shape), or experience with buoyancy and pressure. Once they are fully dry we will be able to pop them out of the plastic compartments. We can't wait! 

I already feel it warming up. - Cape
When I push it goes down when I put it it stays up. - Luke

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​I can read stories and make up the words and I can imagine the book and it feels like the story is with words. - Saul 

​Inspired by Saul's comment on how he can "read" books without words, for snack we read the story of "The Lion and the Mouse" by Jerry Pinkney. The children took turns to use their imagination and interpret the images in the book to tell the story.