Friday, October 28, 2011

Science and Art : Exploring Our Natural World


Prek 1 and 2 have been exploring our beautiful outdoor campus in a special way during our last few ART/SCIENCE classes with Roseanne and Sam. The beauty of Fall is quite amazing throughout our AFS campus and we felt that focusing on the leaves, trees, seeds and acorns would be a wonderful way for the children to truly have the opportunity to embrace the feeling of the season.

During our session we went on a nature walk. We explored lots of different areas of our campus and looked at and gathered leaves.
Walking across campus to the Meeting House and to the other side of the campus was really special in that we discovered trees and areas that we don't see on a regular basis.


Excitement and pure joy was seen and felt as the children happened upon the tree logs and stumps that live the Grove area near the Meetinghouse! "It's a tree playground!" "Look at me climb!" "I"m the king of the forest!" These were just a few of the joyful phrases heard as the children ran to climb and explore this wonderful outdoor area!



The following week we worked with Sam in the Art room and had the opportunity to create art with the leaves we collected. Two different art experiences were explored using the leaves: leaf printing and leaf rubbings. The children used a variety of materials to explore rubbings including crayons, cray-pas,oil pastels and chalk.


The following Art/Science class was designated to create nature frames for our leaf prints. We went on short walk to collect seeds, twigs , bark and leaves to use to decorate our frames. Working in the Art room is always so stimulating and the children loved selecting items displayed from the nature table to use in their art. This open ended collage activity encourages the development of creativity. "Look ! I made a pattern with the seeds!" a child announced as he independently worked on his project.



THE JOY OF FALL!

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