Dear Families,
I am shocked to realize we have only three weeks of school left before summer vacation! There is so much I want to do with the children before we say good-bye until fall: Make bubble wands, blow lots of bubbles, eat homemade popsicles, squeeze lemons for lemonade, get our toes wet in the pond, watch our caterpillars transform into butterflies and continue reading great stories, singing great songs,building, playing, dancing, making art, laughing, talking and wondering about the amazing world we find ourselves in. As for the children, they told me that it was important for us to make pizza once more and bread with chocolate in it! I will make sure these wishes become reality.
This week we explored squishy, gooey, slippery, colorful finger painting. The children enjoyed painting their hands as much as the paper. It was interesting how all the colors mushed together and a finger could make white paths through the thick paint. The children noticed that the special paper we used let light shine through, so we hung our work in the windows.
We looked at a time lapse video of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis and another of a bean plant emerging from a seed. The children noticed that in both videos there was lots of movement before emergence,“It looks like a funny dancing like wiggle, wiggle, crack!” “Look! I can see the wings coming. Look at his wings!” We have read books about butterflies and are watching our creatures closely every day to see what’s changing. We noticed lots of black pieces in the butterfly jars and think that maybe those are remnants of their old skins as they eat and grow bigger and bigger. In our meal worm box we see many more beetles. How does this happen? Each child has a ‘scientist’s notebook’ to record observations and they are getting filled with letters and pictures.
On Thursday, we had a special visit from Jesse. He gave each child a drawing of a building made from two blocks. All the drawings looked different, but we discovered they were all of the same structure from different perspectives. We spent time looking at the structure from above (the bird’s eye view), from below (the worm’s eye view), and from all around. We talked about how these kinds of pictures or blueprints are another kind of map. There was a blueprint of a boat that we followed to make a big raft-like sail boat. Every child helped to measure, saw, drill and hammer. The children also used a ‘square,’ (“…but it looks like a triangle!”) to make straight lines. We wondered if this boat would float and were so happy to find that it did! The following day it was still floating!
On Friday we filled our boat with Dandelion sailors and pushed it out onto the pond. “What if it sinks?” “What if we lose our boat?” It was a magical moment when the wind caught the paper sail and the boat skimmed out onto the pond and then got pulled safely back to harbor. “It always works!”
The children made beautiful bread on Friday. I am really proud of how well they can make bread now, kneading, rolling and waiting patiently for sticky dough to transform into springy rounds. We have a ritual of sharing one roll, warm from the oven, with some butter and honey, to make sure it came out well and taking the other rolls home to share with family.
We used our bread making skills in another way this week to help us create small beads felted from wool. Each child is accumulating many of these handmade beads which we will use to make woolly caterpillars. It takes much perseverance to roll the soggy, soapy wool for long enough to create these small spheres!
I finally took down the show from Ralph’s Cafe. So many people truly enjoyed the chance to see the amazing work created by these children. Ralph asked if he could keep the collage and have it framed. The school agreed and he will be donating $100.00 for art supplies in exchange for a uniquely vibrant and beautiful piece of art. I am really proud of this class!
Enjoy the weekend! See you all next week.
Sarah
Our current collage in process:
