Birthdays

It was easily agreed upon by the class that we all have a birthday.
We talked about how this is another thing that we all have In common, like how we all have bones,bodies and families. Through the common things we share we are connected as human beings.
We asked the question, "What is a birthday?"
Arthur: "It's a day that we grow up."
Ashby: "It means you're a number and then you get a cake".
We tried to delve a bit deeper to see if we could begin to understand a truer meaning of the word birthday.
We tried asking, "What does birth mean?"
Theo: "Birth means the first time you come out of your mommy's belly".
This led Arlo to tell us, "A birthday is a celebration of the day you were born!"
It was a great moment, the proverbial light bulb went on.
We love to see how rather than supplying children with answers we can create a richer comprehension by asking questions that lead children to form their own understandings of the world they live in.






Popular posts from this blog

Insect Compositions

Image
We often use loose material compositions in our classroom as a way for children to tell us what they know. We set out various materials, stones, gems, paper and sticks. These representations are not permanent.  We take a picture and then the material gets sorted back and the activity is ready for the next child.
Read more

Summer Art Show

Image
This summer has been an incredible journey into the world of art. It started with a family trip to the Harn museum that inspired explorations into color,lines and shapes, which led to the discovery of different mediums and techniques.We read books about famous artists like, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Jackson Pollack. Somewhere around mid summer we provoked the idea of finding a way to show our art to our families .We talked about our trip to the museum and the children were excited to make an "art show" for their parents and friends. Our art show was a huge success.  We documented the work that the children did with the intention of making our summer visible to our parents. This type of documentation lets those not in our classroom day to day understand our path; where we started and why and how we ended up where we did. Our art show was not only an opportunity to show off our beautiful  works of creativity, it was also a way to sho
Read more

Painting Storm Clouds

Image
We learned there are different types of clouds, and that not all clouds bring rain. We can tell the weather by the kinds of clouds that are in the sky. Storm clouds are called cumulonimbus. They are tall, puffy and grey. They bring the rain. We invited the children to paint storm clouds. They turned out beautiful! Look for the them in our work room to the left of our back door.
Read more