Grape Class: Rainbow Class Tinker Lab

Documentation for the week of February 13-16, 2017

Our friends have been showing a lot of interest in building with loose parts and creating unique experiences for themselves through their building projects so we chose to bring in a lot of materials this week for the children to build with and explore.

Paper Clips, Screws, and Magnets

In one area of the classroom, we had a tray of paper clips and a tray of screws. We added magnets to the table as well. Imie chose to make art pieces using the magnets, screws, and paperclips. Her pieces looked a lot like bicycle wheels. She saved each one by placing them on a shelf in the dramatic play area. She also chose to draw a picture of one of her pieces of art. This shows continuity from our anthropology work where the children drew illustrations of our artifacts and what they thought they might have looked like when they were whole pieces of pottery.

Hillel discovered that he could make chains with the paperclips. He worked for a while creating one long chain. He realized it was taller than him. Later, he used his chain to create a gate between the block shelf and the dramatic play shelf. Eliya and Bayla joined him, after a while, to make more chains and use them to make gates throughout our classroom.

Construction Building and Exploration

We had a lot of new supplies in our construction areas this week. Ariel S. chose to create a helicopter with some straws and paper tubes. Her friends soon joined her to create similar structures.

Oree and Eliya chose to build a tower for their Shopkins. This work continued throughout the week. They had complex plans of where each Shopkins should go and a story about how they were interacting with each other. They worked hard to make sure they placed them carefully on their towers and were aware of their bodies so that they didn't knock the Shopkins down.

On Wednesday, our friends discovered that they could take balance boards to a new level with a hard cardboard tube underneath a large plank. What stood out the most about their process, was their negotiation of taking turns. In the morning, Hillel and Ariel S. decided that they would each have a 100 minute turn. Later in the day, Ariel F., Imie, Lucy, and Bayla created a whole system with their chairs to keep the order of turn taking that they planned. It took a few tries for them to place their chairs "correctly." Once they did, they negotiated whether they should move to the first chair in the line as they waited or if they should stay in their own chair until it was their turn. They were extremely capable of talking about their ideas and listening to each other throughout the process. There was no yelling or physical fighting as they found a solution that met all of their needs. It was so great to watch!

Fine Motor Challenges

There were cutting strips out for the children to use this week too. Black pieces of paper with white chalk lines were on the art cart. There were varying levels of difficulty on the strips. Some strips had straight lines, some were wavy, and some had complex patterns to cut. Lucy was the first one to try to cut along the white lines. She was very successful at even the most challenging cutting strips! Bayla and Ariel S. were both extremely successful at this work too. Morah Tara hadn't realized that their cutting skills were so excellent! It was very exciting to see their expertise at this task.

We had play dough and play eggs on the discovery table this week. Originally, the plan was to use the play dough to build with the eggs, since it would be a more challenging way to build, but the children took this work in a different direction. They chose to open the eggs up and place play dough inside of them. They filled some eggs all the way, and they placed tiny balls of play dough in other eggs. Later in the week, they brought scissors to the table and began cutting the play dough. They came up with strategies on how best to cut the play dough and negotiated with each other how to take turns with the scissors and acquire more scissors so that they did not need to take turns.

Typewriter Exploration

We put the typewriter on the writing table this week. Ariel F. and Lucy chose to take turns spelling each other's names. Hillel and Leah chose to type everyone's name in the class on the typewriter.

Outdoor Environment Work

There was also a lot of building, discovery, and using old materials in new ways outside this week! Lucy chose to use two hula hoops to walk around on. The Peach Room let us help them create bird feeders with bagels, sunflower seed butter, and bird seed. We enjoyed Jump Bunch with hula hoops and stretchy bands. There was dramatic play involving a restaurant that served soup in metal bowls where Lucy was the head chef. The children continued building and flying to new places on their ship of loose parts at the bottom of the hill.