Castle – the Design Stage

In the next four of five posts I'll be sharing our latest project.

Before Christmas I noticed that there were a group of children playing
with the swords, shields, dragons and king outfits.  After we returned
from the two week holiday the play continued.
                 
I wanted to understand what the children's interests were about that era,
about castles, and about knights.   Was it more than knights fighting?

            

I invited the children to draw what they know about castles with the
prompt, “If we were to build a castle what would it look like?” 
Books from the library were provided for further investigation.

     
   
 
  
Over the past two weeks we’ve had several discussions of what is needed for a castle.
          
They came up with lots of ideas for protection of the castle.  Next we will take our ideas from print to building.

Sticky Easel

I popped over to Pink Stripey Socks awhile back and was inspired by a craft they
                  did.  It was simple; add yarn to faces for hair. 
          
Instead of doing it as a craft I set it up on the easel with sticky paper.  The
sticky paper is mac tac and it’s facing out so the yarn will stick to it but can be
                             peeled off again and again.
 
           I used the lower easel so the toddlers could reach it.
       
It gave us an opportunity to talk about hair.  About different colours, where it
              grows on different faces and is all hair straight.

                       Each day the faces looked different.

Love Bomb

                Have you seen No Time For Flashcards “Love Bomb”? 

                      When I saw it I knew we would have to try it.
    
                             We did it as a cooperative art project. 
The children spent half the morning using scissors and hole punches to make the
                        pieces of paper to put in the paper bags. 

 Thankfully a few adults helped out too.

           
I prepped the canvas differently by taping our hearts down first and then letting
                                  the children spread glue all over.
        
                               Then we started popping the bags.
       
          Popping and popping.  Almost every child, that wanted to, had a turn.
 
Sometimes it was hard to pop the bag but once it was the bits of paper were
                                    sprinkled all over the canvas.  

We put it aside to dry for a bit.

  
Then  it was time to peel off the green hearts.  We had to find them first, hiding
                                  under all the coloured bits.
      
         This is our Love Bomb, even the green hearts look splendid.

 I took some time this afternoon to document and post it in the hall way. 
            Maybe to inspire other classes to give it a try.

A Home for Groundhogs

Today we modified our igloo into a home for groundhogs by throwing a couple
                                    of sheets over the top.
              
                          It’s now a cozy, darker hide-a-way. 
     
A basket of flashlights were waiting inside for the children to play with light
                                             and shadows.
 
The shadowy home drew the children in or was it the idea that they could play
                                        with the flashlights?
   
They experimented shining the light on the jugs, on themselves and on each other.
  
Shining the light on the fabric above looked like stars in the sky.  One parent shone the flashlight from the outside through the jugs and made it glow.   She also tried it through the fabric but it was too thick and didn’t let the light come through.
  
Several grown ups squeezed inside to enjoy the exploration with their child.

I wonder what else we can use our milk jug igloo for.   Any ideas?

Pegkin Project - The Book

   
The children continue to play and enjoy the Pegkins that we made in December.  To put the project altogether I created a book using an on-line site called Blurb.
        
The book is a record of the order that the Pegkins arrived at school and with
                the story that was created for each.
 
                             The families enjoy finding each Pegkin
        
                              and reading the stories together.
              
The book is creating a connection to each Pegkin and their creators.
It’s encouraging a love of storytelling and reading.
It’s honouring the children’s work.
It’s a matching game.
It's a keepsake that we'll enjoy for a long time.