Painting wind...

Wind pictures

Monsters Slide Show

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Provocation: Collaborative Play

Following are some video clips of cooperative/collaborative play between two children in my class, B (5) and L (4). This clip was taken on 11-15-09, about six weeks into the school year. These two particular children had not engaged in cooperative play together, as previously there had been a split between two boys (B & E) and two girls (K & N), with L primarily wandering.

Provocation: What are the inherent traits of cooperative/collaborative play? How do you encourage this type of play in your classroom? How do you deal with "subgrouping" between certain children?

Observations from Clip #1:

Negotiation- L says, "I need a big one" and B tells her "It will not fit there." They negotiate on how many blocks are needed before it is considered "finished". L was allowed to act as the lead, "This is the door....this can be a castle"

Observations from Clip #2:

I love the excitement in their voices & their body language, especially when L. mimics B rubbing his hands together. B builds on L's earlier comment, "It's a car castle". The two work together to find a solution when the car does not fit. B knows how to access resources, "We need people..." B shows excellent self regulation when the "car castle" falls down, "It's okay, we can still make it."

Observations from Clip #3

B becomes more directive, but there is still negotiation..."No, they can not go there. But they can go..." L. doesn't hesitate to make her ideas known, but does not object when B disregards them. L expresses a desire to share her work, "I want to show my mom this". B shows an understanding of a basic selecting game, "Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish..." and count to 10.

N. was an onlooker throughout this entire activity, how could she have been encouraged to join their play?

Discovery Gateway pictures...

Last month we took a trip to the Discovery Gateway museum with the kids, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures! I'm playing around with SmileBox, so I hope this works...

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Wind....

We have the opportunity to participate in a large-scale "mega project" on wind studies, in cooperation with a school in Hawaii and other schools around the world. I've begun introducing the concept of wind to the children, trying to get an understanding of how they think of the concept "wind". Here are a few video clips from today...

Art Class...

Just a peek at what is going on in art class these days....

Our painting is still very much hands on! Even the older kids (in fact, especially the older kids!) enjoy really getting into the process. This is a huge difference from the beginning of the class when most of the older kids came into class with the idea that they had to create something in order for it to be considered "art". I see a lot more open exploration now, and I love it even though it's messy! I think it is important for children to have a chance to openly explore a medium before moving into represntational work, a lot of times they miss this step.

It's not all mess making though, when they come up with an idea they can really get down to work! These girls found various containers in our recycling bin they could trace to make circles. One, apparently drawing inspiration from the recent olympic games, entitled her work "Olympic Circles". They were very serious and engaged about this work, and obviously had a product in mind--but it was still very much child initiated and child directed.

Our favorite part of class, hands down (or usually, to be more accurate, elbows up) is open studio time, where each child has the chance to work on their own or with self selected partners with any of the mediums available in the classroom. Here we have children working with recyclables, clay, glue, and scissors. The work they come up with is amazing. Many ask me how I can keep kids busy for 1 1/2 hours--the better question is how can I give the kids enough opportunity to work on their ideas and still have time to clean up! I think they could go at this all day if I let them...

More to come!