Making Prints

We have been making prints in our classroom all year. Typically, the children paint a picture on a glossy wooden board, and then lay paper on top and, voila! They have "moved the paint", as they like to say.

I came across another technique on the Let's Explore blog -- laying down a layer of paint, and then etching paint away to make the design.










It was a big success -- the children really liked laying down their colors and then taking away. This is a new way for them to think about drawing, too -- it is a new way for them to experience the idea of an outline and line drawings. On Let's Explore, they used cotton swabs to take the paint away -- my last minute planning left us with straws. But it was a busy part of the room all morning.

When I moved to Europe from Seattle last July, it was hard for me to part with the four beautiful pieces of glass that I had found on the side of the road that the children last year used for printing. I was teaching in a parent co-op, so when we were doing that activity, there was a parent available to wash the glass between children. I came across the glossy boards I have now while moving into this classroom -- they didn't appear to be in use for anything else! There are six or seven of them, and we use them all of the time.

But for those of you who do not have glass or glossy boards, I have a brilliant and affordable solution : flexible cutting boards! We just used them for the first time the other day after a little lightbulb went off in my head. Unbreakable AND kids can wash them themselves. That is part of our classroom printing routine : paint, print, drying rack, wash the board.

They would also be nice, easy-to-clean painting surfaces for projects at home...

Cutting board printing in action in our classroom...

Bon week-end!

After rest time,

in the classroom.



This is a few minutes of our choice time -- children working in various parts of the room. All of the activities are open-ended, and the children choose what to do with the materials in front of them. I tried to make is as much about documentation as possible, and less about me talking. I try to do that everyday - I'm not always successful. One day I should share some of the more chaotic moments -- those are common, too!

Creating Thunderstorm Sounds

We made a recording of how our voices can sounds like a thunderstorm. We created rain, wind, and thunder. I really enjoyed the part when the chorus of "splash" began spontaneously.

sounds like a thunderstorm

Where has "Changes" taken us?

We are a few weeks into our final "unit of inquiry" for the year...Changes. I planned some activities that revolve around change to spark the childrens interests and start some conversations about it. We :

*Made ice cubes
*Used the juicer to make fresh carrot apple juice, then made popsicles out of it
*Made a simple yeast bread

We also read plenty of books about change, including :

*Leo the Late Bloomer
*A Color of His Own
*Little Blue and Little Yellow


(Leo Lionni really seems to have a thing for change as a theme.)

Sometimes I am sitting in the classroom with my giant to-do list and I start doing something else random. That happened at the start of last week : I was working on some paperwork and I got up and took every last thing out of dramatic play. Scarves, blocks, buttons, mirrors, xylophone -- all gone. I decided that the children can experience "change" by choosing what to change the dramatic play area into, and see the process from start to finish. I put up a clothesline on the wall with large paper clipped to it, and proposed that the children use that to plan what we could change the area into.


Many people have a housekeeping area in their preschool classroom, but I prefer to leave it more open ended. In the fall, it (along with the rest of the classroom) was transformed into a forest as part of our forest project. The ideas that the children proposed at meeting were quite interesting:

*australia
*big big thunder
*animals
*make a thunderstorm in there
*raindrops

There had been a thunderstorm the night before, and many of the children came to school with stories of flashes of light and crawling into their parents beds and seeing people get struck by lightning on TV. We talked about the storm for ten minutes straight after making our initial list of ideas for changing dramatic play. At the end of the day, we voted, and the choice to change dramatic play into a thunderstorm was almost unanimous. (There were two votes for raindrops.)

So the children have been hard at work drawing, cutting, and painting.








We are on the hunt for umbrellas, and are brainstorming about how to make puddles. The children prefer to have real water in there, so they may have to figure out the logistics of that. There was an idea to have thunderstorm sounds, and we have some very interesting recordings...

Tuesday's Photograph

photograph by ro, age 5

Tuesday's Photograph

photograph by mi, age 5

Dancing Lessons

A little dance lesson for your Monday morning. Has anyone seen a full episode of Pancake Mountain? Perhaps you can find it on TV in the states or in Canada...

Tomorrow I'm going to start a weekly sharing of children's photography. I'll post one photograph each Tuesday. I hope that it might start some conversations about children's art and children with cameras. So please join in and let me know what you think!

Sketchbooks in Schools

Sketchbooks in Schools is a really wonderful link that I found via the Camp Creek Blog. It is a project happening in the UK with students using, well, sketchbooks in schools.

I have been meaning to do some of the activities with the children. We are not officially part of the project, but the ideas are great, and with a little adaptation, they could for sure work in preschool.

I really like the what shape are your thoughts work:



and the doodle ball:



These are already on my list for next school year -- we may be able to squeeze them in during the next few weeks.

Natural Play Dough

It's all the rage. I found this recipe over on this blog and it's just perfect. Scenting the play dough is so nice -- the children recognized the lemon smell of my first batch immediately. (I used lemon zest...so there were a few little pieces of lemon skin in there as well.)

The natural coloring is wonderful, too -- I used turmeric for this batch. I was a little scared that is was going to dye our hands yellow temporarily but cooking it does the trick.

And the options are endless! We made chocolate play dough -- the cocoa powder scented and colored it. I'm thinking about going on a walk through the forest and having the children find things that might color our play dough and make it smell great. Grass? Flower petals? Who knows.

Teachers enjoying themselves!

Looking at the recipes that we make at school and I send home, we make a lot of bread products. As part of our "changes" unit, we made a simple yeast bread again. We did some reflective journalling today, and I offered to make word cards for any new words anyone would like for their drawing and writing. One boy asked to write "bread" -- our bread that we had mixed the day before and shaped and baked that morning was cooling on a cutting board right next to his table.

He added a drawing of a boy licking his lips at the smell of fresh bread coming out of the oven:


It always goes quickly.


These are the things I wish we could do more often in the classroom. Something as simple as baking bread can make an environment so comforting for children and adults, too. Children need the opportunity to see adults being creative and enjoying themselves. I've often thought about opening up my own book during our occasional book times. When we were sewing, I worked on my own embroidery. Teachers can model things that aren't just "teaching", right? Isn't modeling a form of teaching?

I think teachers spend a lot of time fretting and whizzing around the room this way and that, and that can create a tense mood. I know I'm guilty of it. The art teacher here mentioned that he used to teach in a Kindergarten in Massachusetts where there was a fireplace in the classroom, and he would sit in a rocking chair and knit from time to time by the fire.

I think that is a teacher is responsible and attentive to children's needs and creates an appropriate environment, there is definitely a place for them to model other activities and hobbies for children to observe.

Young Children's Photography

In 2007, I began teaching digital photography classes to four- to seven-year-olds in Seattle. They were little summer classes, just a few hours at a time, and it was really amazing. The perspective they have on things is so different and refreshing -- they took some really lovely photographs. Since then, I have used digital cameras in the classroom.




I attribute their alternative perspective (compared to adults) to two things : their size (their perspective is naturally lower) and their interests. Some children ask other children to pose and smile, as they have seen at some point at a family gathering or a birthday party. Others take photos like I do, documenting our day and what people are making without making them stop. But generally, they are not concerned with the product -- it is all about what the subject is while it is happening.

Another reason I love giving children cameras is because it is another form of visual art for them to experiment with. Just as a child can paint what they see or what they like, a child with a camera can take photographs of what they see and like. For children who cannot draw representationally, a camera allows them to show exactly what they want to show. They just have to turn it on, make sure what they like is on the screen, and press the big button. Done.

I'd like to share some of my favorite photographs by children, maybe once a week - I have many already and there are more to come.

Do you allow children to take photographs in the classroom?

Winner!

The winner of the ABC with Imagination giveaway is sunnygirlsf -- congratulations! I'll be in touch with the details!

Hopefully there will be another giveaway at some point...and I hope you all come back for it.

We Ate Dandelions Today.

I have been getting strange looks from other members of the preschool team this week. I'm used to people thinking I'm a little different, but I think this took the cake for some of them.

I told them I was planning to make dandelion muffins with my children. We could go out and "harvest" some dandelions around campus, and then mix and bake and eat! I was completely inspired by this recipe for dandy bread, and as soon as I stumbled upon it last Sunday, I couldn't get it off my mind. And what an ingredient to introduce kids to!












We gathered Dandelions and put them in water. Ater school, a few of the children whose parents were a little late for pick up helped me to gently pull the petals off of the flowers. Some green did end up in ours, but not enough to do anything to the taste.

The recipe was nice and simple -- about 6 children came to help mix and pour into the muffin tins. While we were cooking, most of those children said they would help to cook, but not eat them. But when they came out of the oven, it was a different story. Even my pickiest eaters asked for seconds. Unfortunately, we didn't make enough -- just a dozen. But they have asked to make them again next week, and I don't think I can say no to that!

I'm taking it easy this weekend, but don't forget to enter into the giveaway by Sunday at Midnight (Belgian Time!)

Princesses and Postcards

I am not really a girly-girl. I did not willingly wear a dress until I was in middle school, and I had a My Buddy instead of a Kid Sister. When I began teaching, I had some trouble making connections to the Disney princess culture that encompasses all four-year-old girls. And if you are going to be teaching four-year-olds, you have to come to terms with princesses.

One of my students this year is constantly drawing princesses. On the art table today, I put out a box with old greeting cards, postcards and small mirrors; a thick blank cardstock; pencils, and markers. This particular girl began making a series of princess postcards -- but not only with people as princesses. There was a dinosaur and a pig as well. I thought this was a nice development!


This has me thinking about communication, handmade postcards, and pen pals. I think I'll be looking into acceptable postcard sizes for the Belgian post...


p.s. don't forget to comment for the giveaway!

ABC With Imagination Giveaway

I'm so excited to be teaming up with Morgane from little circus to bring you this giveaway!

ABC With Imagination is a set of foam shapes designed by Bruno Munari that are meant to be used to experiment and explore shapes and lines. Children can use them to create letters, or simply designs.

It is essential to honor everyone's learning style in the classroom, and I like this material for my students who really need an alternate route to understanding letters. Before I bought my set, I had one student in mind. She has made progress over the course of the year with fine motor skills, but she was not writing letters -- not even her name or the letter it began with. Understanding that she always gravitates towards activities with sensory elements, We created a sandpaper name card for her and offered fingerpainting activities with letters nearby to inspire her. The ABC With Imagination set allows children to use their body to create letters -- big, bold shapes that they can connect to. She set to work soon after it was on the table and proudly made a K.

I have to say I find them lovely as a design tool, whether you are making letters or not. Another group of girls made a long snaking line across a table.


So! To be in the running to recieve this wonderful item from little circus, please comment on this post between now and Sunday, May 10th, at midnight (Belgian time!). Don't forget to leave some contact information! All of the names will go into a good old fashioned hat, and we'll find a winner that way. It will be announced on Monday, May 11th.

Good luck, happy commenting!

This one is for all the library nerds.

Like me!

I love books, and I love owning wonderful books -- but I have always loved libraries. The smell of the books, the quiet, the selection -- I can spend hours and hours in a good library. The Seattle Public Library opened its central branch right before I moved there in 2004, and I visited at least once a week. One of the most brilliant things about the SPL is that you can look up books, music, and movies online, at home, put them on hold, and then they email you when your items are ready. So I may have been number 3, 287 on the waiting list for a book, but I knew it would be set aside eventually.

Perhaps you have all seen this, but it is exciting and new for me -- WorldCat is a directory of every library catalog in the world. Or the public, electronic ones, at least. None of the books I have entered are in Belgian libraries, but it will lead me to one in a surrounding area where I might want to curl up for a day.

Is your hometown library in the directory?

p.s. come back tomorrow to be in the running for the giveaway!

A giveaway!

A few weeks ago I mentioned that there would be a little giveaway happening at the beginning of May. Well here we are at the beginning of May!

My students have been exploring these ABC With Imagination foam shapes designed by Bruno Munari. I got them from Morgane over at little circus. And now Morgane and I are getting for a giveaway! One bakers and astronauts reader will win an "ABC With Imagination" set for their little one(s).

Come back on Wednesday to hear more and to get in the running to win!

Happy Monday!

The Case for Natural Happiness

I loved this article and I love this picture. I definitely have summer on the brain.


We encourage children to go outside, but do we spend enough time outside? Over my spring break travels, we walked all over cities and small towns rather than getting in the car. Being outdoors is a natural part of my day because I don't have a car. But I'm not getting as much "nature" as I'd like.

If you live in a city, where do you get your "nature" and how often? How do you share nature with your students? If you live in the country, how much time do you spend outdoors?