Tuesday, January 21, 2014

120- The students continued their study of solids, liquids and gasses with an inquiry into liquids.  They were given bottles of liquid, one at a time, to investigate and I recorded their observations.

116- I brought a group down to continue work on the mural. The church is almost complete and I've asked them to think of the living things they want to research.  I'm going to use the schools iPads to have them research their living things and draw them from observation.

108- I pushed in to continue documentation of the block area. The block area is occupied by Joe, H and Sadi.

They've set up a store to purchase bugs. They are playing cooperatively. The exterior of the store is composed of blocks, the interior is like a pen for the insects and they are using the human figures as shoppers at the bug store.

Again, this group is taking community places into their Reggio explorations!

Aviyer excitedly moves over to my group to show me that he's made a top out of the gears. He spins it and it works just like a real top would.

Ariana asks me to draw people holding hands, so I stop documentation to show her.  She ended up doing a beautiful drawing of herself and her mother holding hands.

Joe and H sing Itsy Bitsy Spider and the fireman figure is the source of the water that washes the spider out. They were really excited that they thought of this funny joke. 

Sadi has created a cage out of the blocks for the insects and lizards who need to sleep. He tells me that they aren't ready to wake up yet.

Teacher- I wonder what else we could use to make this bug store more interesting...

H selects the marbles.

H- We can use these as their eggs! The bugs are laying eggs!

The other kids think this is pretty awesome, so they fill the bug store with bug eggs.

I notice two extra blocks near the bug store, so I ask what those are for. They say they are for the entrance, but Joe notices that the triangular blocks would make a great ramp. He begins to roll the "bug egg" marbles down the ramp. He does this a few times, then goes back to the bug play.

I notice that Sadi has separated the bugs into categories. Spiders with spiders, ants with ants and what they call the "stinky bugs" are together in one corner, far from the others. 

They take the empty marble basket and make it into a nest for the lizards. I watch them count the eggs- nineteen eggs.

Joe- the lizards had a bunch of babies!

H- they had nineteen babies!

They are turning the characters into a story.

Sadi- the policeman is going to take them into the lizard thing. Those other animals are mean, so the people can't go near them.

H, as a little girl character- oh no! A tarantula escaped! 

Sadi's policeman attacks the giant tarantula and gets it back into it's cage, saving the day.

Sadi- The babies will die if you open that cage!

Teacher- why?

Sadi- because they hate sun!

Joe- that doesn't make sense because lizards are cold-blooded so they need sun. I know all about lizards and every animal.

Sadi- I think it's too hot out here in the sun for them

Joe- I watch animal planet every single morning. They said that lizards are cold-blooded and they need sun, but sometimes they need to go in the water when they get too hot. When they get too cold, they need sun.

Sadi- I don't think so.

Joe- I'm right and he won't listen to me!

Teacher- Would you like me to look it up?

They both want me to. I look it up on google and we learn that lizards can get too hot,  so they will go in the shade, but it takes an awfully high temperature to get to that point. They were both somewhat right, so they were happy. They went back to playing.

You can see that this investigation included their previous study of community places and community helpers. There was a scientific component with the discussion of the lizards.  We're going to use the block area to introduce a scientific and artistic exploration of habitats next.  I think the students have been leading up to the idea of habitats, after fully comprehending and enjoying the study of community, and we happen to have access to a science kit themed around habitats that will fit in perfectly at this point.

118- We read the Navy Seals story that the boys wrote with me to the rest of their class.  The students were impressed!  They couldn't believe their classmates were capable of writing at such a level.  "This needs to be a movie!" "We should turn it into a play!" "This could be a puppet show!" The ideas started flowing.  I can't wait to see what the students do at the block area now that they've had this inspiration. I took the boys back to the studio to add color to their drawings.  When the drawings are completed, I'm going to let them make a photobook out of the story and have it printed, so they can bring it back to their classroom and the children can read it and be inspired by it.

102- I brought half of the class to the studio.  The students chose wood blocks from the wood shelf that would represent their houses. Each child chose a color of paint that best matched the real color of their house and painted a base coat on their blocks.

101- The students continued to work on their acetate mural about Springtime.