totally crafty.
totally not child-centered (all they did was choose a nut with eyes already hot glued on and an acorn cap for the teacher to glue on).
except for the moment they carry their nut buddy around the room and it enters their play.
again, a skill that we do not expect mastery of.
this is simply planting of the seed. each house has an address. if you have a house, you have an address.
we made our paper houses again (many, many different designs!) with paper shapes and glue.
adding the photo in one of the windows was fun.
then the children had one on one time for me to look up their address and write it down.
at the end of the day we did a little “show and tell” with each project.
what a week! in the midst of the last days of school and mother’s day prep, we turned our classroom into a zoo (quite fitting, actually!).
children were invited to bring pretend animals from home. this was a favorite of the day. we did show and tell at the first circle time (instead of at the end of the day). we graphed each one on an all-school graph and made a masking tape cage for each type on the floor of the classroom.
this graph is incomplete…we had to move on to another piece of paper and the fish column went off the top!
we had blue water, blocks, and a few big rocks in the tub table. plastic animals were allowed to come swim all week.
i found cheap plastic animals that worked well for making cages so friends could take home their own part of the zoo.
there were some zoos without walls…
some with open gates…
and some had animals that were so wild, the cage bars couldn’t stay up.
during our the very hungry caterpillar week, even the animals that usually live in the block corner got hungry.
they moved to the play-doh table and left instructions.
good thing.
p.s. can you see how our play-doh is all mixed up like the butterfly’s colors at the end of the book?
oh, it was a silly few days (we had to give every class a chance, not just those who actually attended on april 1!)
the teachers looked silly (oh, why didn’t i get a photo of ms. viliya in her pajamas?).
there was bologna and peas waiting at the play-doh table (funny).
the letter of the week turned back to A (funny).
the calendar and the music said it was christmas again (funny).
the paint was edible (but i didn’t tell them that at first. instead i pretended the only funny thing was that we were going to finger paint. then i suddenly licked the paint! oh, wide eyes).
there were fake moustaches (funny)…really these are just strips of fake fur with a roll of masking tape.
but the best joke of all was the coffee cream in the cleaned out glue container (funny!!!).
a.w.e.s.o.m.e.
they weren’t so much the box car children, but children making box cars and box trucks and box trains, etc.
with old snack boxes, stickers, tape, tickets, crayons, scissors (though tearing works as well sometimes), paper fasteners pencils and glue, they made more transportation!
some knew they wanted “smoke stuff” to come out of that “pipe thing that is at the back.”
some even had built in windows. : )
in our conversations about travel and transportation, we discussed airplanes. figured out was that they can go over water, but they can also go over land. they can go from country to country, but also city to city. one answer i didn’t have was what is the SHORTEST distance an airplane can take us. how many blocks would a plane need to take off and then land? good question! anyone know?
we used snack boxes, packing boxes, and LOTS of masking tape to build airplanes. they only guidelines were at least one long piece for the body and two wings. it was a busy time building, trying it out, adjusting, trying it out again, etc.
great variety was made!
and why in the world did i not think of inviting kids to the lace and ribbon bucket? silly me.
here is one class…standing in the “runway”…looking not quite ready for the picture?
we put raffi’s song “riding in an airplane” on repeat for the day. : )
oh, how i wish model magic was more affordable! since it isn’t, our friday class was the group to sculpt transportation.
we named the colors, counted together as i cut them apart (since that couldn’t be done ahead of time in fear of it hardening), then gave each child a plate of pieces. there were toothpicks and googly eyes (so our transportation vehicles might look like the ones in richard scarry books!)
i didn’t sense frustration as i watched them sculpt, mimic each other, or go new directions.
introducing transportation by the friday class:
i wish i had recorded the names of their transportation vehicles. i know there were ships, boats, cars, trucks, vans, airplanes, rockets, trains…and some creatively named vehicles!
friday morning jam session using real instruments: ukulele, accordian and hands
good old spin art made an appearance again.
