What happens when you add salt to your watercolor picture? We began our experiment last Wednesday, when the children were given several pieces of watercolor paper and paints to work with. The first piece they painted was a cut-out of the first letter in their name; one child explored the contours of her letter with the paintbrush, following the curves while another spent more time exploring the colors in the paintbox itself. I appreciate how some children seem more drawn to muted shades and others to bright color. The salt was gathered up in pinches from a small cup and sprinkled onto the paint; the contrast between the salted and unsalted areas is quite clear, and I'll be interested to see what comes from this observation when the pictures are shared on Wednesday.
We also spent some time making more colored rice, the children mixing food coloring into the rice in large bowls. It turns out that following the recipe for purple actually makes a very black-looking rice. This was a very focused activity for the kids, who didn't really look up from their bowls while they worked.
We've had more time for open-ended work with glue, scissors and paper. I am constantly amazed at how much the children love to practice their cutting. They asked for letters to be cut out (letters from their names) by me, but mostly spent a lot of time cutting a pile of little squares. They were also offered dried flowers to glue onto their paper, but the scissors were certainly the main attraction.
A block zoo was made with all four of our long blocks; the animals were lined up on top. Another block set (the half-circle/arch pairs that fit together) were used to make telephones; interestingly enough, each child used the blocks differently as phones--one had a more conventional arch phone while the other had a more contemporary half-circle cellphone. Their conversations centered on organizing visits to each other. "You can come at three o'clock" one told the other. Then the long blocks were used as gates across the floor. We had two sets of gates as the builders were very particular about how their gates needed to be and this appeared to be the most appealing solution.
As our poor long-handled shovels and rakes were getting pretty bent up---gee! our kids are strong!--I've replaced them with more of the smaller hand tools to work with and we've found these to be much easier to use. Soon to come will be a big bag of potting soil, and we've got some pea seeds to start this week. Stay tuned... Oh, and our calendula seedlings are indeed coming up, happy to see more of the sun at last.
A few other moments:
Taking a short walk down the street to watch a chipper turn a neighbor's trimmed branches into bark chips. The children dragged me to the door, they were so excited to know what the noise was.
A neighborhood walk, to explore the signs of spring: a few nascent daffodils almost ready to burst, hellebores, summer snowflake and the ever-present crocuses, all closed up due to the cool weather.
Making bracelets with beads, and naming the beads with very imaginative names as they worked. One child dubbed on sort of bead an "Easter egg" and would draw my attention to it each time she found it.
We are reading a wonderful book by Lois Ehlert called "Feathers for Lunch", which identifies birds, their calls, and flowers that grow in our Portland neighborhoods. (Sadly, a few of the birds don't live here--I think it would be great to have some orioles and cardinals in our midst!), but the forsythia blooming out the window of the housekeeping area might help to keep that name fresh in their minds.
We have some new activities for the puzzle area, and don't be surprised to find a new sandbox in the backyard in the next month or so. We'll see you next week, with more focus on color and flowers and fun.
