Imagine

Our class has been making a beautiful mobile for the window in our red room. We set out various objects that can be strung together on twine. Things like beads, shells, keys, pom poms etc. The thing that made this activity special is that each strand was created by two children working together to make one strand for our mobile. It sounds easy but sometimes it was a little bit tricky. The partners had to negotiate who would go first, what object was going to be on the end of the strand and whether they would take turns each time or whether they might come up with another way of working together. It was interesting to watch the level of communication that existed or total lack there of. Some pairs were definitely better   at cooperating with each other than others.  We talked about the word compromise and stressed how working together is really very difficult without good communication.    We hung each strand on or wooden mobile that hangs in our red room. Each set of...

We read the book " What do you do with an idea" by Kobi Yamada. We had a great classroom discussion about where ideas come from. One friend told us "an idea is something in your head, it's something you think about and then start making." We asked the class if they had any ideas for today's activity. The idea was born, "build houses", "big houses", "out of everything". So on this day we worked together in one big group to first draw houses and then build houses. The children decided to "connect" all their buildings together both in their drawings and in their block buildings. What a great day of working together! 

We continued working together making chains today. This time using strips of colorful felt and buttons. These felt strips will become a more permanent activity for our work room. The children can work together or individually to create a long felt chain. For our younger friends it will be a great opportunity to develop their fine motor skills while practicing buttoning.

In this first week of our new school year we have been focusing on community building . We asked the question "what is a group?" One of our friends told us , "a group is people who stay together." We had a great classroom discussion about working together as a group. We asked if anyone knew what the word cooperation meant and quickly a friend told us, " it means working together to build something." In the coming weeks we will be doing activities and having conversations that will continue to explore this topic.  This was an activity that the seniors of our class participated in. We split the children into small groups and asked them to work together to make paper chains. They started out each doing a different job, drawing lines, cutting and gluing together. After a bit of adjustment everyone seemed to find the job that suited them best. Leaders seemed to emerge and they were encouraged to help others.  In the end the children measured each teams chain si...

This final week of summer camp we are revisiting the portrait. In the beginning of summer the children drew portraits of themselves. This time we had each child pick a friend to draw. On large pieces of butcher block paper with bright oil pastels the children drew their classmates.  We hung them on our largest wall in the red room . Take a look , you can't miss them.

This printing project was done using styrofoam trays from the grocery store. Using a pointy object the children carved a design into the foam tray. The children used a paint roller to distribute the paint evenly on the tray. The painted foam is then turned over onto paper.  As an extension activity we used white paint and printed on black paper.

We read a book about Jackson Pollock called "Action Jackson". The book taught us that Pollock used his whole body when he painted. " He swoops and leaps like a dancer, paint trailing from a brush that doesn't touch the canvas." We invited the children to paint like Jackson Pollock and with much energy and excitement they did just that, In the end everyone was covered with paint and our paper was beautiful with lines, splotches, drips and splatters. One of our friends said " it sounds like rain." When we felt done we took a piece of our painting away to dry and then let the children ride the bikes across the paper making tire trails curving and looping along the large butcher block paper.  What a super fun day! We cut our giant painting in half and hung them in our studio.