What a busy, beautiful week we've had! We kicked off our art time on Tuesday with the much-requested marble track painting; the children each had a chance to make three creations, choosing different colors of paint and paper each time and shaking the box of marbles hard. On Wednesday, we gathered by the easel to create colorful leaves: each child chose a leaf from some that we'd pressed, I drew an enlarged leaf of the same shape onto a sheet of paper for them to paint in as they pleased. Once the 'leaves' were dry, they were cut out, and the children remarked how they looked like real leaves we find outside.
Thursday, we focused on mail and mailboxes. Each year, we create mailboxes for the children and I to leave notes to each other. Sometimes, these are simple pictures, scribble drawings, and sometimes there's more intention and the children ask me to write the messages they have for each other, or make a go of it themselves. At our Morning Gathering, B brought in a wonderful sharing item-- a sweet Jack-o-Lantern card, complete with envelope and stamp, sent to her. The children passed the card and envelope around. We noticed the address on the front, how B's name and the name of her street and city were all there. (They all know we live in Portland, by the way.) We saw the stamp and talked about how it is the 'money' that pays for sending the card from one place to the other, and then read a book on Postal Carriers and what they do.
After Gathering, we began to get things ready for making our mailboxes. First, a little fun with hole punches (both hand-held and the larger 3-hole punch kind) and colored paper, and lots of bright curling ribbon for cutting with scissors. After gathering up our tiny circles and ribbon bits, we took a break for our popcorn picnic, and then returned to make the mailboxes. We used sticky paper, adding a name tag and plenty of our little bits from our morning work, then finishing it off with a marble track painting of their choice. These are by far the most beautiful mailboxes I've ever seen! Then, the real play began. V and T wanted to put mail in the boxes, so they used ink pens to decorate scraps of paper. V moved her mailbox into the housekeeping to "pretend a mailbox is at my house", where B was setting out tea and treats for herself and her friends, T delivered the mail to her. Then, V and T switched roles; V dumped out a basket of magnetic blocks and put several pieces of 'mail' in, before delivering them. Soon, all the children had a basket for mail delivery, and were sticking pieces of hastily-scribbled paper into each other's mailboxes. They had a blast!
We are enjoying a new storytime book called "The Little Wood Duck". In this tale, a mother wood duck has six ducklings, who love to swim in a straight line through the reeds on the lake--all except the littlest duckling, who will only swim in circles and "can't do it any other way", despite the impatience of his mother and siblings and the teasing of other forest creatures. A wise owl notices how one of the duckling's feet is larger than the other, and chides the animals for their unkind and foolish remarks. When a hungry fox comes to call, the littlest wood duck becomes a hero and saves them with his dizzying circles. This tale of inclusion sparked a lunchtime conversation where the children noticed what each child 'was good at'. T said that B was 'good at learning how to be at school, cause she is new', which was true and made B smile with pride. V said that T was 'good at playing', and he commented too that he was good at 'not being sad when I say goodbye anymore' , and then V told us that she was 'good at being friends and listening to the teacher'. I love conversations like these, where we can be thoughtful and reflect positively back to our friends what we like so much about them (or ourselves), and for each child to know they are an appreciated person in our little group.
You might have noticed, too, that your child may be eating more at school. I've begun using a timer set for 20 minutes to encourage the children to eat more (instead of eating a few bites in order to get back to playing) as well as developing table-conversation skills. The children are asked to sit with the group until the timer goes ding before running off to play. This has created a more relaxed lunch time and gives us opportunities for the more productive chats like the one above.
Here are a few more glimpses into a wonderful week~
Ramps and counting at Morning Gathering on Tuesday: we rolled seven horse chestnuts down the ramps, and counted how many landed on a placemat and how many rolled onto the carpet.
Spelling puzzles at the school table. Each word has a separate piece for each letter, the completed puzzle creates a picture of the word. V calls to B "Hey hey, come over here on this stool and watch me. I'll show you!"
Some experimenting with pattern blocks, which we tried stacking atop each other-- they are too tippy to stack-- and then the children each made a 'sunshine' with very different interpretations of what a sun should look like, and even how many suns there were! Some children liked to create random patterns, B liked to scoop and feel the soft, smooth wood of the blocks and to pile them onto her tray before sliding them back into the basket.
Rice play in the bin-- it seems the children never tire of this. What giggles I heard when the air vent poofed the floor blanket up, billowing. We are still engaged in playing 'ice cream' in this area and hiding our hands in the rice.
V and T playing babies and princesses, while B dresses up in layers upon layers of dress-up clothes.
Gathered around reading "Leap!", a book about how animals move. With it's blown-up text, the children began a spontaneous game of letter recognition, telling me which letters they saw that they recognized from their own names.
We've revived our game of 'Hide the Shoe" outside, which was a huge hit. Some of the children are starting to find some very tricky places to conceal the searched-for shoe, and I'm introducing "hot and cold" type hints.
Lastly, we learn so much about how to be together at the playdough table. This week our play started with birthday cakes. I made a wee playdough bowl and asked the children what could go in it. The conversation that followed:
V-"a treat, candy"
T-"chocolate, vanilla ice cream" (the conversation takes a new direction)
V-"It's for a bird. For a clockwork bird." (points to cuckoo clock)
T- (placing a piece of dough in the bowl) "It's vanilla cream sauce. It will make the bird get sick."
V-"No. These are good bird food. It won't be sick forever."
B-"This could be the bird. (places yellow playdough knife next to bowl) This could be a squirrel".(adds blue scissors to scene)
T-(has made another bowl) "This is sick food. It's not for the birds. It's only for the squirrels. And it goes up way in the trees in a nest."
A big story, and T decided that if he didn't like what was in the first bowl, to make another one. I love how they all joined in. Next week, we'll see what can go into a playdough box...
Don't forget! We have conferences next week and will have school on Tuesday only. See you then~
