Rearranged Art Area

In my first post this school year, when I talked about setting up the classroom, I mentioned how much time I put in to thinking about the arrangement.  How can each area be improved?  How were the children playing in that area last year?  Did it meet their needs?

Over the past few years I collected and expanded the 'loose parts' available for the children to create with but I couldn't figure out, till nearly the end of last year, why they weren't using them as much as I had expected.

It was because I didn't give them enough table surface to create.

This year's new art area is shown in the above picture.  

I changed the long table, from last year, with two smaller tables.

One table will hold an art idea that I provide for the children to explore.

The other is left clear for them to use.

In the first three days of school it has been used almost constantly.

Going with my focus on opening the areas, I moved the easel away from the wall and set it between the art area and the next.  The shelf that was there is now along the wall.

With one simple move and the children are using the easel far more than they have it the past.

Summer is Over

Hope you have enjoyed summer vacation.

My husband and I did a bit of traveling, camping and hiking.

One new thing that we started this summer

was a blog for my husband's garden railway.

The railway takes up our whole back yard.  He has done a wonderful job

of winding it through the plants and trees that are well established.

When he was building it and looking for buildings he realized that Playmobil people

fit to scale.  So we started to find it at thrift stores and on swap pages.

It's amazing the many, many scenarios that Playmobil have created.

He based his layout after the old TV show called Petticoat Junction.

And the stars of this railway are Opa and Nana 

(which will be us once our first grandchild is born)

 so we called it Opananaland.

This summer Opa and Nana traveled with us and when we saw trains or models

they posed for some pictures and then blogged about it.

It's been fun creating stories and posing these two.

If you want to follow along or just take a peek you can find it at

https://opananaland.wordpress.com/

Setting Up

Every year my classroom looks different. 

It starts in June when I'm giving everything a thorough cleaning.  I'm thinking to myself what worked (with the set up), what didn't, what were the children interested in most, what area did I see that only girls were using, or mainly boys were using.

I don't know if you go through a similar thought process but it helps me look at the class fresh and answer the question "How best can I use this space?"

And I know the smaller spaces will change throughout the year but generally where I set the large furniture in September is where it will stay till June.

This is last year

This is this year.

Can you see the biggest difference I made?

I moved all the big shelves to the walls to open up the space.

I'm hoping to encourage the children to feel free to move materials between the areas.

There are more changes too but I'll get into those another time.

What do you think of the set up?  Does it look inviting?  Does it look open or cluttered?

Any suggestions?

Thanks

From Frogs to Fishing

I try to use our toys, materials and equipment in a variety of ways.

Last week I shared the children playing Frogs on a Log.

Once we released our live frogs I changed the frogs to fish.

Turning the half round over and it became a boat.

Going fishing went well with our camping play.

After they caught what they wanted the fish disappeared

to the campfire for a fish fry.

Plastercine Play

While we were studying frogs I put plastercine out on the art table.

I moved our aquarium with the frogs and tadpoles to the table

and added some toy frogs for models.

Great fine motor work as well as expressing their creativity.

The end result - lots of frogs and maybe a tadpole or two.

Cottonball Painting

I'm always looking for new methods of painting and while browsing Pinterest

I found, on various sites, cottonball painting.

Over at Domestic Mommyhood I liked how they set it up in muffin tins

and used clothespins as handles.

The cottonballs work really well to hold the paint and they don't fall apart,

which I thought they would.

This is some of the children's work.

With just a few tins of paint the children created a lot of paintings.

Frogs on a Log

The play started with a book Five Little Frogs Sitting on a Log.

A book that we created several years ago.

A few children sat to read it

while others used the toy frogs to help tell the story.

Then the children became the frogs.

First making headbands to get into character.

Then becoming the frogs.

They crawled or walked across the 'log' then jumped off the end.

Then I saw some children jumping into the pool.

Under the water they went.

Having fun discovering new ways to play, exploring the materials

and learning from each other.