Tuesday arrived, and so did the children, clad in pajamas and ready for our Pajama Day Two. Coming to Gathering, the candles were lit, star cut-outs hung from the ceiling to their delight, cozy pillows and blankets on the big rug; we began our time together lying down, singing "Great Big Stars.... Way Up a Yonder". We played instruments as we sang about what we did over the weekend, (V "made finger paint", T "Played with my grown-up friend Ken" and B "went to the beach and did finger paint"). We built a pattern with our new colored stacking pegs, with B creating one first, and then V and T replicating it, then we created two reverse patterns and positioned the peg stacks in another alternating pattern. This would be a theme throughout our week...
With the thought of pajamas came the natural extension of the conversation: talking about Night. This, at our Wednesday Gathering:
Question: How do we know when it is nighttime?
V- Because the stars are up in the sky.
B- The stars are up in the sky.
T- Because you can see the moon. Actually, there's a circle moon.
V- Because it's dark.
Question: What happens at night?
V- Once, raccoons fight our kitties.
B- The raccoons fight too at my house.
V- Bats go up in the night-night time.
T- And they hang.
B- It's dark.
V- Owls keep up in the dark 'cause them catch foods.
Question: What do YOU do at night?
V- We reads books.
B- I do go to bed and read stories.
T- Read books.
Interestingly, no one mentioned sleeping. Perhaps this is too passive to qualify as something one 'does'!
We then did a group picture of a house in the night with bats, raccoon, cat, a person walking a dog, and of course, stars and moon. This was done with chalk on dark paper; later, the children asked to use these materials to make their own pictures, which they took home. I also offered "night colors" at the easel this week: black, blue and a dish of white paint with a star/flower shaped sponge for printing. We have adorned our walls with these pictures, and each child's work was very different: B created a 'waterfall', applying blue, then black over the blue, and a smear of white (the waterfall, as she pointed out); V covered her sheet with the darker colors and then randomly stamped stars everywhere; T created a blue background and four "flowers, glowing in the night" centered on the paper. Their time working individually at their art is working out well, and their unique interpretations are proof of this for me.
Our Ice Sculptures were a big hit on Thursday. Because it was raining outside, the children wanted to explore the ice indoors, which we did on a large tray. A dish of salt, a small tub of water, paintbrushes and straws were offered to melt the ice. (The straws were for practicing using our fingers over the top to move the water from tub to ice, and lifting the finger to release the water.) We noticed the rough spots where the salt melted the ice away, and the rivulets dripping down the sides which froze and created new patterns. We also saw enough of T's sculpture melt away to remove one of the beautiful bamboo leaves, carefully preserved.
As I mentioned before, patterns seemed to be a recurring theme this week. Over the days, I have made pattern cards available to the children, offering both alternating (ABAB) type pattens and more complex repetitive (AABAAB) patterns to start. We will be continuing with this throughout the rest of the year. T really embraced the new pegboard set, first creating vertical repetitive patterns (ABCDABCD) and then using all the pegs on the board (There are five colors, so they were ABABABABABABCDCDCDCD- CDCDEEEEEE). B was engrossed with watching and enjoyed saying the names of the colors with him.
V worked on the dressing puzzle and watched, but was content to keep at her own work.
It's felt like a very busy week. We had time for playdough, spelling puzzles, bristle block play-- we added considerably to our collection over the weekend!, and even for building marble runs. I introduced the concept of Zero (it's a starting place, and the number for when there are 'none') as we did our math game of dropping objects onto a placemat with a smaller blue cloth in the middle. (We count the objects on the blue, the ones on the mat itself, and then all of the objects, concluding with "x plus y equals z".) We took a walk to collect 'pricklies' (sweet gum seed pods) and to see if some of the green shoots from bulbs are beginning to come up, and we were excited to see that they are. We spied purple finches from our back window, little and fat and cute, and the striking yellow-faced Townsend's Warbler, a new visitor to the suet feeder. We watched the etched edges of ice form on the saucer of water we leave out for birdies, marvelling at how cold it was on Tuesday, and then stayed in to play "Doggie Doggie Where's Your Bone?" and draw on a huge piece of chalkboard fabric we spread on the floor. V noticed, too, that when the chalk is used sideways, instead of on point, that the color is less intense.
Something magical has happened at preschool, too. The children are starting to tell me "Hazel, I touched my nose/mouth. I want to go wash my hands." Wow! This always gets a big smile and a "Thank you for taking such good care of your friends and our school!" We also have new lavender bar soap, which I think they prefer to the pump soap.
Our fine motor skills got a workout this week too. Our Montessori botany puzzles are tight-fitting and require us to use our pincer grip to hold onto the little pegs so that the pieces will fit into place. This is a directly supervised activity; I remind the children that they must use the pegs, or their fingers will get in the way (none of the pieces easily slide in, purposely) and give them labelling for their questions regarding animal body parts. The wasp has a thorax, the turtle a carapace beneath itself, and so on. The puzzle of the little child is most popular though, and the symmetry of the wasp is very inviting as well. On Thursday, we practiced squeezing little glue bottles and filled container lids with glue, then added beads, tissue paper, cut up ribbon, colored macaroni, sequins, buttons, etc. and offered glitter glue for a little sparkle. More than one child noticed that their 'hands were tired', but the children were very engrossed in this activity, prompting us to move lunch back a bit. They stayed at the table for this for 45 minutes!
Next week we'll bring our ice sculptures out of the freezer and into the backyard, where they will be the target of spray bottles! And we've got bird feeder-making on our horizon, too. Have a lovely weekend, and we'll gather together again on Tuesday!
