Dear Families,
I asked the children:”What do you know about igloos?” “It’s when you glue and put an egg down.” After more brainstorming, I showed everyone the cover of a book I had brought in, “It’s where Eskimos live!”
We began our week looking at a photo essay of how Tookilkee and his son Jopee made a house for themselves in the Arctic landscape that would keep them warm and protected while they hunted for food. The children were amazed that Tookilkee built the house around himself and then cut a little doorway to crawl out of with his knife. The children were also very interested in the window that he made by cutting a piece of frozen ocean that turned the light inside the igloo to greenish blue.
We revisited the book many times, wondering what it would be like to exist in such a frozen world. One day we explored frozen ice shapes in our water table. “It’s so so freezing cold!” “And it’s very slippery wet.” “It’s coming into water.” “Splash, splash, splishy splash.”
I gave the children salt, paint and droppers. They spent a long time sprinkling salt and dripping paint on the ice. After awhile everyone noticed that where the salt lay, the ice was melting a lot. We could see beautiful tiny tunnels forming through the ice. “It could be like a house!” “It’s a color house for ice skating.” “It’s where my snowman lives.”
Later in the week we played with melted ice. Dripping drops of oil onto the surface, the children noticed that it was floating and, “It’s making rainbows!” We sprinkled colors on the surface and swirled them around. Laying paper onto the oily, colorful water was exciting! We saw the shape of the oil droplets seeping through the paper, but each work was so unique and surprising. “I want to do it again!”
It was interesting that as we explored the transformation of water in our class we also witnessed huge transformations in the world outside. One day we were shoveling icy, slushy snow and tromping through huge puddles and the next day, the snow and ice had disappeared.
We have continued reading snow stories, watching a puppet show of “The Snow Child,” and watching the wordless video of “The Snowman,” about a young boy whose creation comes alive for one magical night before melting. I wanted to share some excerpts from the children’s snowman stories:
“He eats snow.
He melts.
He grows a tree in the spring.”
“A snowman see a treasure in the snow.”
“He had a dream and then he climbed up on his sparkly mountain.”
“Then he went swimming.
It was so cold, he didn’t melt.”
“He melted.
He was made out of snow on a train.
And then while they moved he came to a snowman again.
He came alive!”
With the snow melted, we were able to search for and finally find our pumpkin on the compost pile. It had lost almost all of its orange color and was very flat. “I see all the seeds!”
We will continue to explore the outside world as an integral part of our curriculum and learning. The children love to tromp through puddles, stir mud with sticks and throw clumps of icy snow into the brook. Please have warm layers and extra clothes available every day!
Happy winter and happy February!
Sarah