(Please note that due to family illnesses, this installment of our blog covers our activities from Tuesday of the previous week as well as the current week.)
As the children came in last Tuesday, all of them remarked with surprise that "the tent is up again!" Our camping play wasn't finished yet; we had more to explore. Gathering together, I used a few blocks and a piece of cloth to create a shelter for a couple of our dollhouse dolls. The children were ready to get right into building their own shelters for dolls. A shelter, I explained, keeps people dry and out of the elements, even the sunshine. Hoping for some connection between our camping play and the idea of shelter, I asked the group "So, why do we stay in a tent?" "I do!" replied B excitedly. "To keep you warm" suggested T. We all agreed those were very good reasons to sleep in a tent. Pressing further, our follow-up question: "What could be a shelter?" V said that a car or house could be a shelter. "Or a tree. For the sun." (implying that the shade from the tree was relief from the hot sunshine.)
A few moments later, our usual Skateboard Park construction began. As the curves and angles were being placed on the floor, T wondered aloud if we could build a shelter for the park. The children then began assembling their own creations of block 'shelters', for the skaters to go into. "I build a house!" B crowed over her own little block house.
The following Tuesday brought more camping conversations. I showed the children a compass, and our Teddy Bear's Camping map (which we usually use for counting) was oriented with the compass to face true north. The children had fun moving their bears wherever they chose, and I told them where they'd moved to using the four simple cardinal directions. For some reason, there was a lot of giggling involved! Later, I labeled the inside of the sandbox with the same. This activity is more to introduce the concepts, obviously, than for any sort of mastery, but labeling the directions in which we were walking over the two following days also kept things interesting, and all the children seemed interested that each of their houses was South of the School; and that B's house is West of T and V's houses.
Because camping is one of those activities that tends to be unpredictable, this seemed like a great moment to talk about both perseverance (what a big word!) and finding ways of making ourselves feel better "when things don't go how we like", which is the phrase I find children seem to understand well. How does one explore the topic of try, try again? We started with singing the song of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider"; I have always clapped and cheered for the spider at the end of the song, because even though things were tough, the spider waited a bit, and then tried again and was successful. Reading the Frog and Toad story entitled "The Kite", the children could see Toad, heckled by robins, is ready to give up trying to fly a stubborn kite, only to have Frog's enthusiasm and perseverance push through; Frog encourages Toad to keep giving it one more try, and at last the kite "flew all the way up to the top of the sky".
During our discussion the next morning, I told the group a story about one of my own disappointments: going to the beach with the hopes of beach combing and hunting for pretty rocks, only to walk over the dunes and find a sandy beach with very few rocks. It was a disappointing moment, but then I was able to look around and find other things to do that were fun. "When things don't go how we like, what can you do to feel better?" The children had some very practical answers:
T: Maybe drink some milk a little bit?
H: Oh, does that help you to feel better?
T: Yeah.
B: Drink milk.
H: Anything else?
B: To do some playing.
V: Go to the beach, or watch TV.
Our story that day was called "Acorn Magic": an older boy finds an acorn, and then sees a scarlet tanager and an owl. His neighbor, an older woman who happens to be a bird enthusiast, suggests that the acorn must be "magic", as he was lucky to have seen the two birds. When the boy goes camping with the neighbor, he begins to collect as many acorns as he can, with the hopes of seeing lots of animals; but his preoccupation with the acorns means that he keeps missing the birds his friend spots through her binoculars. Angry and upset, he throws his collected acorns to the ground. Through a hard night in which a rainstorm visits, the boy cries with his disappointment. The next morning, however, he comes face to face with a moose, who has been dining on the acorns the boy had thrown down, and he comes to understand that magic in the acorn is not about what it helps him to see, but in what it can become.
We followed up this lovely story with our big project of the week, which was making binoculars. I think it's safe to say that this was just as big a hit as the birds we made a while ago, with the moving wings! The children were very engaged in using markers to decorate the paper that surrounded the tubes, and helping to wind the masking tape around the tubes to hold them together. But the best part by far was wearing them and peering through them. The camping play in the tent began again, with the children mostly looking at each other through them, and they were worn and used as we went on a quick trail walk before returning to school for sandbox play that afternoon.
Another great walk we had was on Wednesday, when we went collecting pine cones and pine needles to use as painting materials on Thursday. Both the collection of the items and the actual painting were intriguing to the children. V found a dried, curled up rhododendron leaf on the ground and asked if she could use it to paint. I told her that of course, she could give it a try. We also collected fallen moss and some sticks. Once we sat down to paint, V wanted to know how to use her leaf; I suggested scooping some paint into it and then dripping it onto her paper. "Wow!" T remarked, "that's a cool dripper!" B wondered if anyone had a paintbrush, so I showed her how to drag the little twigs with pine needles through the paint, and she used this as well as a pine cone to apply paint to her paper. "This is so fun!" remarked V.
Some more moments:
At the play dough table, I made a dough 'campfire' with logs and flames. "What could we add to this?"
V- "I made a little wood." (This, after she has already made a 'person' with a dough head, body and Popsicle stick legs.) She added three pieces of 'wood' to the fire, creating an arc pattern which reaches over the other 'logs'. T works intently, creating and recreating with his dough, very quiet. Then tells me "I made a wooka-zoo-zoo" for "squirting out fires". B continues her favorite past time of cutting the dough into little bits.
Some new teacher puzzles were out this week: we've added a horse, frog and ladybug to our selection. I also set out a challenge puzzle at the puzzle table; this is one that's meant more for 5 and 6 year olds. When it had been disassembled and left alone, unfinished, I reassembled it. B came over, sat down, and worked the puzzle completely on her own in about five minutes!
At the snack table, T wants to sing "that fruit song, about the ones in the tree", so we sing "Way Up High in the Apple Tree", V solos as she sings about the lemons falling out and how "they were sour". We all giggle, then we talk about other things that fall: waterfalls, leaves, snow, rain, and even stars. (Well, meteorites.)
Watercolor pencils on water-soaked paper: B sings the "Hello Everybody" song as she dances two different shades of pink, one in each hand, around on the paper.
Water play: the water mill, scoops, corks, small beach stones and some bubbles (of course!) were available, as well as the hand strainer, which scooped up both bubbles and corks. Tiny agates were placed at the top of the mill; some went through, while V observed that some "get stuck" because "the hole is too small". Later, B stirs and stirs, telling me "We're mixing brownies. Pretend brownies."
At Gathering this Tuesday, we took turns helping to assemble another creation with the connecting foam pieces. Our finished creation is very abstract. What could it be?
V- A standing-up thing where people could work. Maybe an ice cream store.
T-That kind of looks like a tadpole. A green frog.
B-A slide. At an orange park.
We sang "Row, Row Your Boat" and as the children paddled along, I asked them to tell me what they 'saw' in the stream:
V-Crocodiles!
T-Frogs.
B-Monkeys.
We must have been rowing our boats on a jungle stream, I told them, because that's where all these creatures live.
And ever more skate parks were created, with one skate park using all of the blocks on the shelves! We are still continuing our pattern work, both at gathering (with beads and pegs) and with more pattern cards offered. These have become more sophisticated, with a sequence repeated once or twice, and then spaces for the children to continue the sequences on their own.
Moving into next week, we'll be focusing on friendship and love, and of course, a little St. Valentine's day fun with some sweet art projects. See you then!
