Imagine

We have been talking a lot about feelings and trying to choose the appropriate words to express our emotions. We decided to try to draw our feelings and make them into "feeling cards," to keep on our peace table. We got a lot of "happy" and "sad," but also "frustrated," "excited," "angry" and "silly."

We had a bunch of really fun days exploring our shadows using the overhead projector. We asked the children the question, "what's the best part of you?" Then we tried to find the shadow of that part. We talked about that body part and what it does. We asked each child why that was their favorite part. We invited the children to draw their favorite body part. In many cases there was a good deal of observation and conversation centered around this body part. We noticed things like eyes have "round circles in the middle" and noses have "nostrils" and there are two of them.  All the children's work is hanging in our work room. Use your legs to walk there and your eyes to have a look!

We've been talking a lot about "me" and what makes "me" special. We realized that something everyone has and makes them special is a name!  We asked "why do we have names?"  One friend said "So we know who we are talking about." We started working on recognizing our name and the  letters that make up our names. We started by writing the children's names on a chalkboard and having them slowly follow the shape of the letters with a wet paint brush.  Next we brought out clay and let them use letter stamps. We focused on starting on the left side of our paper and pointing out the "first" and "last" letters in our names. We talked about how the letters in words go next to each other and not on top or on the bottom. Using clay allowed us to restart as many times as needed easily.  Finally, the children were invited to use the stamps again, this time using ink. They made name labels that will be displayed with their  "me

We made a photo copy of each child's "me" composition and set up a provocation that invited the children to draw themselves.  We provide the photo copied compositions to serve as a guide for the children who might be doing their first representational art. This visual aid reminds them which body parts to draw and where those body parts are located. When they were happy with their drawing they added color using tempera paint. Their beautiful creations are proudly displayed along with a quote telling us what they like about themselves and their printed or written name.

  We have been talking about community, working together, and what it means to be a friend. Today we started a conversation about ourselves. Who am I?  I'm a part of this classroom community and a friend to my classmates. I'm also a singular person with feelings, desires, and preferences. What are the things that are important to me? What are the things I like about me?  We set up a provocation that consisted of a basket of collected nature items: leaves, rocks, moss, and sticks. We invited the children to create a representation of themselves using these found materials. "I have a head, and on my face I have eyes and a nose", "my mouth is under my nose".  Using loose parts allows the children to manipulate the materials easily and get the parts in the " right" places. 

We wanted to create something special to foster both old and budding friendships among our children, as well as represent our classroom community as a whole.  We had the children work in pairs to trace each other's hands and decorate them with bright water colors. We encouraged them to work with friends they might not usually play with. We grouped our older "seniors" with our new younger children and had the seniors support the younger ones with their drawing and painting.  Next we asked everyone for some examples of what a great friend might say or do to be added along with our collaboration.