Ship Shape

Friday, at the art table, I placed a book called Ship Shapes and materials to create.

    

The project not only provided a chance to talk about shapes we see when we look at boats but to practice cutting skills.

                         

It also gave me an opportunity to observe how the children were holding markers, crayons, etc.  

So I can plan future activities to strengthen their hand muscles.

                 

The children’s ages range from birth to 5 years of age

 so I provide many opportunities to challenge the skill levels that each are at throughout the entire room.

The fun part, for me, is to find activities that they enjoy doing

 and don’t realize that they are learning a specific skill.

Pickle Boats

I love how that sounds “pickle boats”.

We made them for snack, as well as orange boats,

but that doesn’t sound as funky.

Here’s the recipe -

Building the snack gave us an opportunity to talk about the different parts of the boat;

hull, mast and sail.

        
It was much easier to insert the pretzel into the orange than the dill pickle.
I used processed sliced cheese cut into little triangles and they stuck easily to the pretzel.
         
More children chose oranges over pickles but they all enjoyed the cheese and pretzels.

Boats

We have started the year focused on boats. 

We live on an island, boats are part of life.

This table is set up as the first thing families see when they enter the classroom. 

 I wanted to see if there was enough interest for boats to become a project.

Every child that entered the room stopped to play.

Some were focused just on the boats and others liked the little blue ceramic fish.

So this week we will be using different materials to make boats.

Today the children were provided with corks, toothpicks, string, paper, string, plastercine.

Creating Cork Boats VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I was happy to see the families feeling comfortable enough to use anything they wanted on the shelves.  Some added beads to their boats, while others use toilet paper tubes to extend their play.

They were very excited with the results.

We extended our play to the water table. 

Will our cork boats float?

Yes and no.

What we learned about using paper for the sail? 

When it gets wet it droops and pulls the boat over.

Welcome Back to StrongStart

First day back at school doesn’t mean it was my first day back to work.  I was able to work a couple of days last week to get the room set up.  Here is a peek into my room.
          
This invitation to discover boats is the first thing families see when they enter the room.  I’ll share more about our boat project another time.
 
While the grown ups sign in the children find their photos and sign in by answering a language prompt.  For the next couple of weeks it will be focused on boats.  Each year I take new photos of the children because they grow so much in one year. 

After signing in the children play wherever they wish. 
The grown ups are encouraged to follow their child and to play at the area that is of interest to the child.
    Art     


 

    Explore and discover with nature, water, blocks and light.

                        
 
Dress up area, as well as house area.  (I took the picture at the end of the day that is why there are no chairs out).  And in the corner is the writing table.

See you tomorrow.

Storytime Follow Up

 

Sorry I haven’t done a follow up for sometime but summer has gotten in the way.  I’ve been having a very relaxing time camping, cycling and kayaking.

The first storytime for older children at the library had about a dozen children (1 boy and 11 girls) and average age was about 6.  Not what I was expecting.  I thought they would be older and for some reason thought there would be more boys.

I played down the scary parts of the stories; the children were okay with them but the adults were a little scared.

The children really enjoyed the opportunities to illustrate the stories.

There were two methods.

             

The first was print making using clear acrylic sheets, black tempera paint and paint rollers.

After rolling on the paint they used qtips to draw their pictures.

                    

Then pressed a white sheet of paper on top to lift off their print.

 

This illustration is of the story “There’s Room for One More”.

The other method of illustrating was using coloured scratch paper.

                         

It’s wonderful paper.  I was so happy to find it because I was ready to make my own but that would have taken a lot of time.  As a child did you make this type of paper?  Coloured a sheet of paper with crayons then covered it all with black crayons, ready to scratch.

               

She’s drawing the elevator full of people in the story There’s Room for One More.

Here’s a few more illustrations.

          

Storytelling for Older Children

Our local libraries approached our storytelling group asking if there would be anyone interested in being a guest storyteller during the summer reading program. 

 I said yes.

The age group is 5 – 9 year olds, older than I’m use to. 

The theme of the the reading club is Strange, but True.

So I started searching for stories and found a great resource of audio stories called “Scary Stories” by Alvin Schwartz. A lot of the stories are quite scary for this age group but I did find four that I was comfortable telling and kind of fit in with the theme.

I do one session today then another at a different library on Monday.
But I`ll have a fellow storyteller with me for that one.
I`ll let you know how it went.

Here are the stories…
“There’s Room For One More”

"Bess"

 "Cemetery Soup"

"Cold As Clay"

Drama in Your Classroom

Barbara over at Grade ONEderful is having a linky party.

She asked, "How do you add drama to your classroom?”

Well I love storytelling and having the children participate but also to leave the props and story available for them to reenact over and over or tweak to their delight.

Here are a few examples.

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell  - I’m reading the story and the children have volunteered to act it out.
             
I then leave the book and props for the families to use.
                   

Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina – As I tell the story the children become the monkeys and each get a hat.
               
Here’s a little monkey imitating the man by stomping his feet.
                

We’ve also done The Three Little Pigs several ways.
With large paper props.
 
With big cardboard boxes.
            
And with little cardboard boxes.
 

Of course The Three Bears
            

The Great Big Enormous Potato

That was a lot of fun to do outside and while actually harvesting our potatoes.

And finally Pete the Cat – I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin
               
The children loved using the slippers to walk in a box then out of the box with new coloured slippers.  Each box had a label - red for strawberries, blue for blueberries, brown for mud and then a light blue for the water.