Artists and Architects Day Two!

We finished our small group work on the Story of Black and White. Asking the children, "What happens when black meets white?" they explored the light and dark grays. "I'm an artist," Max declared.

At Morning Meeting, we looked at the xylophone keys. We noticed how there were big, medium, and small rectangles, and how the different sizes made different sounds. Then Tamara played a simple song, Mary Had a Little Lamb, on the three notes. The children are beginning to play with ideas of melody, and we will be bringing in more percussion instruments that we can play melodies on.

At  Choice Time, the children continued their amazing collaborative work on Thomas the Tank Engine.  Yesterday, they had been working in a constricted area that soon became over crowded. Today, we moved the blocks to the big oval rug, and they were able to build wider, more stable structures. We reconvened the Safety Committee to review our work, and we decided that the new building was much safer! The hard hats helped too!

Max's mom Ann read us a wonderful story today. It was call Dahlia by Barbara McClintog.

Leaves Abound

 Today was a leaf-ilicious day! We took a walk in the cemetery with our friends from the Chipmunk Room and enjoyed frolicking in the huge drifts of fall leaves of all shapes and colors.

We also continued to enjoy the easel at Choice Time. Miranda sang us a song:
"When you mix blue and yellow it makes green!"

At Morning Meeting the children helped the teachers tell another Sound Story, using our bodies to make the sound effects for the story, Slider the Turtle encountered David the Duck and they had many adventures.

Studio work continued with The Story of Black and White, which turns into the Story of Many Kinds of Grays... The Turtles are becoming very sophisticated in their use of artistic language to describe their process.

There was lots of Magna-tile construction today, as Turtles worked to build animal houses. When structures fell apart, there were more Turtles who came to rescue and rebuild.

Just as we were getting ready for Morning Meeting, Debbie Green came in and asked if we could have the Music classes in our room, because people were using the Meetinghouse. So we gathered up our snacks and headed to the Chipmunk room. At Morning Meeting, we tried out a call and response clapping game, where each Turtle got a chance to make up a rhythym, and all Turtles followed along. After our bananas and bagels, Tamara read an old favorite (No, David! by David Shannon) and we had a few minutes to play in the Chipmunk room (we were surprised to find that they have dry oatmeal in their sandbox!), before it was time to return to our room for music.

Alison was here with her guitar and led us in many of our favorite songs, as well as some dancing.

Next, we got to go out on the playground for a bit. Then, some kids came back inside to start our next Studio Painting project - The Story of Black and White (all of the kids will be working on this over the next week or so). Meanwhile, many of the Turtles outside continued our percussion study - and we were joined in our drumming by many children from other classes.