January Winter Picnic

"We had a picnic today! Really! Really we did and we even ate real food", exclaimed Kailyn as she greeted her parents and sister at dismissal.

Our outdoor play time today was fantastic; the beautiful warm weather brought the feeling of spring and the children became fully engaged on this glorious day! Riding bikes, digging with shovels, climbing on the climber , swinging on the tire swing and building with the hollow blocks were a few of the activities that the children were involved with today. The energy and delight in this spring-like day was felt by all! The children were asked if they wanted to have a winter picnic and they unanimously started cheering and jumping up and down!

A few of the comments we overheard as the children enjoyed their 1st winter picnic were:

" This is the very best day ever!"

" This is so much fun! We don't even need to wear our coats!"

"Look what I'm doing- I am going to sit on my helmet to eat my lunch!"

"I love this. I want to be in PreK forever!"

"Let's do this everyday!"

The joy and pleasure that the children expressed during and after our spontaneous winter picnic was heartwarming to see.

Celebrating Chinese New Year

Maggie's Dad, Daniel, visited with our class today to share traditions of Chinese New Year. Daniel began our conversation by asking the children " What do you know about Chinese New Year?" A few of the comments that the children said were, " They have red"," They eat dumplings and noodles" and "They have a dragon costume".

Daniel first shared beautiful paper lanterns that Maggie's family uses to decorate during the Chinese New Year. We looked at a 'chop' which is a stamp that has symbols and characters that are used to print Maggie's name in the Chinese language. Daniel shared with us photographs of his visit to China when he went to bring Maggie home. Afterwards he read the book

My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz. This delightful book describes how Chinese New Year is a time to for new beginnings, giving thinks, and reunions with family and friends. We learned that families prepare for many days getting ready for the Chinese New Year. The holiday lasts for fifteen days, and each day is distinguished with a different activity, such as visiting relatives or eating special food.

We learned that the color red is symbolic during this celebration Families try to wear clothing that is red and some families give red envelopes to children. These envelopes may contain money or chocolate coins. The money and coins symbolize good luck and prosperity for the coming year. Daniel gave each child a red envelop with Chinese symbols representing an inspirational word with chocolate coins inside.

We saw many photographs of China and noticed the beautiful artwork and architecture of the country. The children especially loved see the photo taken from the airplane of the North Pole! The children were fascinated with seeing the photo album of the trip to China and we all appreciated getting to know and understand more about Maggie and her family and how they celebrate traditions.

Creating Sculptures In Nature

The forecast for today was for a warmer day and we wanted to take advantage of the break in cold temperature and move our exploration of Andy Goldsworthy and nature back outdoors. Our Integration session came at a perfect time and we planned during our Integration planning time to bring the children outdoors and begin to explore and create sculptures in nature through the lens of Andy Goldsworthy. Having the support of additional resource teachers during this hour long scheduled period would be a true gift. The children would be grouped in small groups of three or four with a teacher in each group to guide and facilitate this work.

As we thought about this experience we questioned how we could best prepare the children for this next level of work? We had looked at Andy Goldsworthy work in photographs extensively as well as photographs of other artists who work with natural materials and outdoor installations. Having worked with natural materials on our screen mural the previous day, the children were becoming more aware and connected to natural materials and art. What we had not yet looked closely at was how Andy Goldsworthy actually creates and installs his art. We learned that his art is often temporary as it changes as temperatures and natural conditions change. What does that really look like ? What does it mean and feel like to work so hard on a project and return the next day to find that a rainstorm washed it away? How could we move the children towards a deeper connection with this work?

Before heading outside, we watched a few short clips on YouTube on Andy Goldsworthy and his work. This gave us all a fantastic visual and insight of the work of this incredible creator of art. We recognized his sensitive relationship and appreciation of nature. After watching him in action, we felt that his work was almost magical. ..

Here are a few of the clip we viewed for you to enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPxhSbSkNAg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF-Mgx2aSC8

We went outside and without a skip, the children immediately immersed themselves in creating art through the eyes of Andy Goldsworthy using branches, mud, snow,leaves, twigs, acorns and rocks.. Observing the children as they connected in such a thoughtful way to nature was truly a joy to see.

The slide show captures the magic and beauty of this experience. Be sure to engage in conversation with your child about his/her feelings about the day and about their own creations.

A digital slideshow by Smilebox

Nature Mural

We cleared our screen from all the materials that we had worked with on previous days and decided to begin our mural work at the table rather than on the rug. We realized that this work would extend over several days and wanted to create the most optimum classroom conditions for it to evolve. We designated a display table as you enter our classroom to serve as a 'working natural art studio '. The materials needed to work with were easily accessed and just looking at the collections in beautiful wooden bowls felt inspiring. We added our Andy Goldsworthy book to the display table and created a stand to hold the screen. Having the opportunity to look at and enjoy the screen and reflect on it's changing status as work progresses we felt would be a important part of the process for the children .

The children worked on the mural one or two at a time selecting materials and designing the placement of materials that would reflect their ideas and creativity . We recognized the importance of providing time for each child to work on the screen and have the opportunity to creatively express their ideas. At the same time, the nature of a mural requires collaborative efforts from the whole. It was fascinating to observe the intrinsic level of respect the children showed for the work of their classmates as they began to work on the mural for themselves. The children were mindful of using 'open spaces' on the screen and were extremely thoughtful and considerate in placing their materials in ways that would not interfere or damage another child's work.

Collaborative work of this nature often helps to develop a sense of community and cooperation from within. The group spirit that is emerging is very special. Expressing ourselves through nature and art supports the values that we hold so dear. The deep sense of community that we all feel towards each other is nourished by the experiences that we can build upon and share together. We welcome our families to join us in creating our mural and feel certain that you will experience the joy and satisfaction that we are gleening from this work together.

Creating Art With Natural Materials

After sorting the materials we collected on our walk, the children were very eager to touch and handle the smaller collections. There seemed to be an true sensory connection where the children were emerged in exploration through a sensory lens. We recognized the direction that the children were going and shifted our 'plans' immediately. It was clearly not the time to begin any structured art/collage experience. We observed the children scooping up the fluffy seedlings and letting them drop and flow from their fingers; children touching pine cones and trying to stack them; children placing pine cones in size order and rolling sticks and branches and stacking the acorns were just a few of our observations.

On the day of our nature walk we happened to be passing an area in our Lower School playground where we noticed two broken window screens that had been left for trash. Ideas were hopping and we thought that the screen may be a wonderful ' canvas' for the art that we would eventually be creating. We were not sure, but certainly worth a try! We showed the screen to the children and we all decided to see if we could figure out a way to make this work.

We added the screen to the area and the children immediately started moving the materials to the screen ;spreading the fluffy seeds, stacking pine cones, piling bark and burying seeds. "Look, I made a nest! See, this acorn top is the egg" , exclaimed Hayden. The art/play shifted and children were now using twigs, seedlings and bark to make little nests all over the screen! The landscape of the screen was changing by the minute and the children were navigating skills necessary to work collaboratively and cooperatively and were working together so respectfully.

In the midst of the work on the screen, on e of the children discovered that the tops of the acorns could be wedged between the leaves of the pine cone and stick! Interest in using the pine cones as a base for sculpture was a new focus for a few and this continued until the work period ended.

The energy in the classroom surrounding this work was exciting! We all were slow to engage when we needed to clean up and prepare for lunch! As we cleaned up, the teachers commented, " I wonder what Andy Goldsworthy would be thinking if he were part of our PreK class today....

Math Emerges From Our Andy Goldsworthy's Exploration

As we mentioned the day before, our collection of natural materials filled several bins and we recognized that in order for the children to have the opportunity to use them in a creative, artistic way we would first need to sort and organize them. We revisited the beautiful photographs of art that Andy Goldsworthy created and noticed that he was very intentional in selecting specific materials that he wanted to use to create his art. For example, the children noticed that in one photograph Andy used only red leaves of a similar size from a Japanese Maple tree to create the image he wanted.

We talked about collections and what it means to group and sort.

Miranda said, " I know. It's like putting things in places where they look the same, like color". Sania exclaimed, " If I had a red bowl and a red teddy bear , I'd put the teddy bear in red bowl".

Kailyn"s response was "If I had a pine cone, I'd put it with other pine cones".

Cristian added, " If you put a green bowl, we need to fine something green to put inside it".

We spread all of the materials out and had various natural containers for the children to begin to sort. In a rather spontaneous manner, one child said " I have the pine cones here" and children immediately started sorting and passing pine cones to that child. The children self directed their own sorting and organizing and within moments a system had been established! Pine needles , branches, acorns, leaves, bark, gumtree seedlings and sticks were separated form each other and the children had a full hands -on experience of the mathematical concepts associated with classifying and creating sets.

It was quite amazing to observe the children take full charge of their own learning. Along with learning and experiencing important math concepts, this activity required collaboration and the integration of mature social skills. The excitement and joy that followed as the children began to use their creative talents in exploring the materials we gathered was wonderful to see . Keep posted to our blog ... we have so much to share with you!