Caution: Construction Zone!
The children have been building homes like we have never seen before! They used all the tables, blocks, fabrics, and loose parts to build intricate spaces. They worked together to negotiate rooms within their structures as well. They chose to make rooms for one or two friends, and had amazing conversations when they ran into conflicts and challenges. When the spaces were too small, they worked together to make them bigger. When it was too challenging to get to a space inside their structures, they reworked their construction so that there was a way in. When walls fell down, they discovered the concept of reinforcement. They used more blocks to help hold up and stabilize the blocks that they were using as walls.
They also chose to use the parachute to create a huge structure in the middle of the classroom. This too, called for a set of rules that they made up as they went along. Lucy and Ariel F. chose to bring colored pencils and small books under the parachute structure. Other friends decided that they were not allowed to draw inside the parachute. When they discussed why and realized that colored pencils don't take up very much space, they agreed that it was fine.
They tried a lot of ways to make the parachute stay up. They put planks on top of it to hold it in place. They used chair legs to loop through the hand holds on top of the tables. There was so much trial and error happening all at once. They also needed to negotiate with each other, because they would get one spot set up, but then they would pull in another area and the first would fall down. The Rainbow class worked together like never before on these structures. They used social skills, communication, math, and physics principles to complete their work. Once their structures were "complete" their sense of accomplishment was visible in their faces.
This work is clearly a growing interest for everyone in the Rainbow Class so we will allow for this work to continue in a larger degree next week.
Exploring Patterns
We explored patterns at the discovery table this week. There were many small loose parts available for the children to use in order to create patterns. We started out by using felt pieces as a work space. We then moved on to collect natural materials and use paper shapes to glue patterns onto black paper. We also had small beads and pipe cleaners available to create patterns. The children discovered that there are many ways to create patterns. You can differentiate objects from each other by shape, size, and color. You can also create patterns that alternate in different ways such as blue, green, blue, green or blue, blue, green, green, etc. As the children worked with the materials, their patterns grew increasingly complex. They also enjoyed copying each other's patterns, especially with the beads and pipe cleaners.
Outdoor Work
The children chose to do a muddy boot cleanup one day. They collected all their boots, put them in a bin, and washed them clean using the hose and a paintbrush. They discovered that when all the muddy boots were in the tub, the tub water was no longer clean! They realized that they needed to wash them clean as well.
We also explored water shadows this week. The children lay still on the ground as Morah Mirele sprayed the hose over them. When they stood up they could see the dry space where they had been before. This was a great exploration of positive and negative space. They realized that if they moved while the hose was on them, it didn't work as well, so they tried the activity again. They could see their bodies were more differentiated the second time around.
The children also enjoyed using chalk this week. Its colors were brilliant when wet from the water. They also made a few obstacle courses and completed them with friends.
Rhyming Words
Our literacy work focused on rhyming words this week (I don't know what happened to all the pictures!) There were small books on the literacy table for the children to draw rhyming words on each page. We had a memory game set up where the children needed to find pictures that rhymed with each other, instead of pictures that were identical. We had a rhyming bingo game out as well as rhyming literacy trays where the children matched the large picture with one of three smaller pictures below to make a rhyme. This was challenging work as we got started, but everyone caught on quickly and had a lot of fun discovering the concept of rhyming.
Counting Up and Counting Down
There are two big dates that we are counting towards now that Pesach is over. We are counting up the Omer to Shavuos and we are counting down to the last day of school. We have a strip with numbers for each activity on our wall near the window. The children are crossing out one number for each day that we count down and circling one number for each day that we are counting up.
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