Rhododendron Garden

As you all know, we went to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens last week. We lucked out with the most beautiful and sunshine filled window of time. It was one of our most relaxing and fun pre-k field trips to date! We enjoyed connecting with family members who were able to join us, our lovely art studio teacher Laura, the neighboring pre-k class students and teachers, and of course with the natural world. I think we all came away refreshed and in good spirits! 

What do we notice that is small and what do we notice that is BIG? 

What happens when pen and paint meet somewhere outside of our art studio?

What emotions and stories live in the colors we choose?

What ways might we connect with our surroundings?

Nature walk

Thursday April 21, 2016

I consider myself  blessed to have this opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the pre-k students.  So much is new, and exciting.
Today, while the students were examining our caterpillars with mind buddies they made observations such as:
 "they are getting so big",
"there is poop on every leaf"
"the holes in the leaves are so much bigger"
 "they eat a lot and they poop a lot"
"they are turning into butterflies"

Then I was asked "Sharon, why did you have to put a green leaf in with them, they are so hard to see."

We took this question to the class for conversation and the results were fabulous.  The students knew and discussed the fact that they eat the green leaves, but they wondered further if we could put in something else instead "so that we could see them" something like "apples" or "cake even".  "so they don't blend in so much"

Tomorrow we are going to give the caterpillars apple.

Cabbage white larva are incredibly quick growing, and their chrysalis stage is very short.  We should have butterflies within 2 weeks.  When these caterpillars joined our class on Monday  they were less than 1 cm in length and less than 1 mm in width.  They are now getting close to an inch long.  The growth is fast and exciting to observe.












Yesterday was also a fabulous day for a nature walk.  The tadpoles were visible in the pond, there were animal tracks in a slide to the water, the beaver dam was accessible.  The kids found sticks which were "walking sticks" "dragon slayers" "fire sticks"  and "taller than me" sticks, we observed leaves and wildflowers and overall had a wonderful time.

Character's of Bloomsberry & The Underground

The evolution of the characters of Bloomsberry and The Underground truly shows the growth of these amazing pre-k students over the course of this study. The complexity of their characters continues to develop as they bring them to life through the arts and imaginary play. Below are images and snippets of conversations from art studio, where the children painted large scale images of witches. They started with one color and one brush, taking turns and passing the brush back and forth while discussing the attributes of their witches. The next step was to work in color families to add pinks/reds and then green/yellows. The children have also returned to experimenting with costume in their imaginary play, and have developed the beginnings of stories around these other characters.

She has bumps. There are nine arms. These are extra eyeballs! She has eyeballs on her stomach.

Her belly button is showing. The dress is striped. The dress is blue, there will be a color between the lines.  Her hair is straight. But some parts didn't get cut, this part is short and this part isn't short.

This witch is on fire, and is from nowhere. Her face is black. She is very spiky and poisonous.

She is a puzzled witch. She has six arms and three fingers each. She has blood and a heart. Her heart is alive. She has bumps all over the place. She is wearing a dress. An exploding dress. 

It is nighttime. He likes the night the best because he is spooky. He has a hat on and looks cool. He has smooth skin and feels soft. He is asleep at day time and he is awake at nighttime. 

She has lots of belly buttons and spiky hair. Her dress is made of steam. If you get close to her, she puts you in jail. She has 100,000,000 cats and only eats stump stew. She is from poison land. 

She has squiggly legs, and squiggly arms, and a thorny dress. She has a tusk on her nose, and one nostril. She has curly crazy hair. She has pointy, pointy, ouchy, ouch hair all over the place. Our witch has three legs. She has one big toe on each leg. She only has one eye, and a big CHOMP mouth, so she can eat everything in one bite! She has one BIG ear, and a magic star in her hair. 

I am a wizard! I live in a very light cave in Bloomsberry. The cave has glow in the dark stars when I turn off the lights. Wizards are afraid of the dark. She has a spell basket. A wizard make magic powers and brownies. I am friends with pirates and doctor princesses. 

I am a princess of rainbow sparkle jewel unicorns. I ride a unicorn, and I can fly. The horn makes her fly. The unicorns name is Sissy Lala Abigail. I live in Bloomsberry. I play with my friends, and sometimes I even tell secrets at playdates and sleepovers. My favorite thing to eat is unicorn sparkles and jewels from them. Sometimes I am also a doctor princess. I am peaceful.

I am a princess hero. I live in a talented family. We live in costume land. It is in Bloomsberry.

I am a princess doctor. I go places where people get really sick, and help them live. Sometimes I am a princess doctor and I have 24 and 55 powers. Some of them are snow powers, and ice. And I have water powers. I have melting powers, and I haves one summer powers. I also have statue powers.

I am a pirate that lives in the underground. I have a pet tarantula, coyote, wolf and a t-rex named Fangs. I like playing around inside my ship because I have my own secret hideout in the sea, and I have a fleet of ships. It is an underground ocean because this underground ocean is in Battle Island. Up in Bloomsberry there are some knights, and sometimes the knights come down and we hide behind some old roots and then we attack with our compasses and pistols. That is what we do!

I am a police officer in Bloomsberry, and I do not battle. I help people who are hurt and put bad guys in jail. I live on Fantastical Creature Island. My name is Sky. I am a police officer dog. I mostly just play and fly. It is important to help people because it is my job, and because I Just want our whole community to be safe.

Where we left off...

As we enter the spring season the teachers and the students will start to pour all of their energy into creating and bringing to culmination OUR LEARNING CELEBRATION. The learning celebration is a time for reflection, recognition and honoring the HARD WORK that we as a community have encountered throughout the school year. Currently the themes we will continue to study are:

The human heart- we  investigated what is happening on the inside? from a fairly scientific view at the beginning of the year. Around the holiday season we started to explore the social emotional learning that happens in the heart (and brain). What are emotions? How do we communicate them? Why is it important to recognize how a friend is feeling? How can we help one another when we are feeling frustrated or sad? What does a peaceful community look and feel like? This lead us to the creation of:

Bloomsberry- our land of friendship. A place where love, laughter, safe adventure and all things that can fill ones buckets live. New questions we have started to explore are: What other creatures live in Bloomsberry? What are the neighborhoods of Bloomsberry? Why do these neighborhoods exist? How do they influence who WE are as individuals and as a community? How do we feel when we are with our friends here in this place? We learned through our play that not everything feels good all the time. We have curiosities and impulses that do not necessarily fit into BLOOMSBERRY but are still very much a part of us. And so we created:

The Underground. Here mystery, risk, and challenge live. In the underground we sometimes feel wild, afraid, angry, daring and mischievous-  Questions we are exploring here are: Who are our WILD THINGS? What do they do? Why are they important? What scares us? What happens when we feel afraid or angry? What stories live here? How can we honor one another when we are feeling BIG feelings? How can we be peaceful warriors in our darker world? How do Bloomsberry and The Underground connect? 

Here are a few images that captures work that explores these current wonderings:

A new Bloomsberry Character named Chocolate.

If our community were to have one BIG heart what would live in it?

This Bloomsberry character is named Ella.

Our Wild Things: What story do they have to tell?

And just because it is cool and snakes live underground- Addie brought in the molting of her snake Angel.

Our last week before Spring Break we had an AWESOME intern. Her name is Jennifer and she is an US sophomore. For her winterim study she wanted to be a part of a classroom. We were so lucky to have her around. She was super fun, loved to play games, read great stories and helped out when we needed it most.