Our Expanded Garden

If you want the full story, you can hop over to my blog and read about it. The hubby is quite proud and we are planning out what we'll be planting. I am very excited about the journey we will take in my backyard, excited about taking the time to garden with your children, and celebrating the earth with them.

Light Table Exploration | Gelatin and Watercolors

Some snippets from today

Gelatin Molds ready for discovery


Injecting watercolor into molds



Full on Exploration







Isn't it beautiful?

Great Ways To Clean Little Hands

Interesting article on handsanitizers and essential oils.
To check it out, click HERE

Seeds, Seeds, Seeds

Since our focus the next few weeks will be on seeds, please send in any seeds you find in your grub or just walking around. I just ate a grapefruit (fresh from my father in law's yard, he shipped them to us, yum, yum) and I saved those seeds so we can compare them to others. Since our new garden area is huge (ahem, approximately 850 sq feet), we have to plan out how we're going to plant. There will be an extra special section too, so stay tuned! Planting will probably begin next week after all.

Love,

Andrea

It's the Process, not the Product

ART
Stage 2 of our clay exploration continues.

Mia and Lulu discovered that the more water they apply to their clay, the more pliable it becomes. Mia began dunking her clay directly into the water dish. Like I talked about last week, we are avoiding the temptation to interrupt their research to give direction about how much water to use. This is all part of the process.





At this early stage, we encourage children to see any sculptural work they do as temporary, not something to save or take home. This will strengthen the disposition to "mess around" and focus on the process more than product. As children grow into this, they become more relaxed with an art medium. This leaves space for an idea to take form, and children become more comfy with revisiting and revising earlier work.





Light table continues to be a great discovery tool.
Will do a new exploration on it next week. Couldn't get to it this week with all the other fun.



Lulu and Mia doing clay exploration.
Damon pretend playing with the groceries.
Ms. Kellyann documenting.









Conversing




Representational Painting
"It's the number OCHO!", says Corbin.



Corbin's Artful Hands
Self Applied


Damon loves to pretend play


And he brought muffins to share this week.
They were delicious and the children devoured them during snack.





Practical Life
Mia and Lulu helping set the table



Damon and Sophia relaxing.



Yoga Snippets



Bridge Pose



Happy Baby Pose





The children love Ms. Kellyann.
It's great having an assistant because we can often break into small groups as the children want it.





Next week, we'll begin our focus on Seeds! We'll plant our spring garden too!

P.S.

Sooooo...

I viewed the *perfect* property this week. There is some punch work that needs to be done and here's hoping that it will work out. We also have to run a P&L report to see if it's a financially viable option since it will only house a small group of children (which is TOTALLY what I want, but the lease is a bit higher than I'm comfortable with). I am trying not to get my hopes up in case is doesn't work out. Don't want to get my passion zapped, ya know. It's also for sale, price recently dropped from $580K to $500K. Still a bit above the budget.

But, did I mention it's ADORABLE??
It has Terra Luz written all over it! It's a historical building with CHARACTER.

Clay, Suncatchers, and Love Notes

ART
Clay Exploration – Stage Two



This week we began Stage Two of our Clay Exploration, which is building on the foundation of what the children experienced last week with full body play. We moved the clay to the table and each child was given a sponge and a canvas covered wood board (gotta love the hubby who runs to Home Depot at 7:00 the night before to buy wood and then saw it into squares).

This stage invites children to work with individual chunks and changing the clay’s texture by adding water to it. The children continue building their physical knowledge of clay, experiencing its movement and texture, as they move toward eventual sculpting work. We had fun, and boy, was it messy fun!

Che immersed himself in the full on sensory exploration of clay’s qualities by almost dissolving his clay into goopey mud. He was being a researcher, investigating the contact of water on the clay. Us, as teachers, are encouraged to avoid the temptation to interrupt their research since this research is an important step in their journey toward representational work.

Lulu opted for extended clay time long after the table cleared. This is the beauty of running an Reggian-inspired program. Kids don't all have to "go with the group" and "work at the same pace". There is no fragmented periods of time here. And she has moved into the representational stage. She is hard at work creating a sculpture for her mama.

~*~

The light table has been a bit hit. Ms. Krista (our yoga teacher, who is a former Reggian teacher) gave me a GREAT idea on what we can do on the table, which will be an extension of a previous project we did. We’ll do that next week! Stay tuned!

We learned two new Good Morning Songs and a new Cleaning Up Song.

This week, we read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. We read the contemporary version and also the original version, which has these really cool “vintage” illustrations.

We also enjoyed the Napping House by Don and Audrey Wood.

This story also a cumulative tale like the There Was an Old Lady stories.



Ms. Kellyann and the children singing Ring around the Rosie

Yoga Snippets

Spreading Love
We usually don't do "crafty" things here with all the art exploration and projects we already do, but I thought it would be fun to make Valentine Suncatchers this week.







Now that I have Kellyann here, we have been able to keep up with portfolios. A LOT of work goes into these (which we would love to share with you all soon) and I will be able to begin creating the Documentation Boards on our Art Explorations, which is basically what I do on my blog, but with a bit more detail. These will be great to take with us when I move offsite so parents can see how a project can evolve over time.

Hope your children enjoyed finding their love notes from me in their lunchboxes this week.

I got much joy out of writing them all.

"Love grows by giving.
The love we give away is the only love we keep.
The only way to retain love is to give it away."

-Elbert Hubbard