Grazy The Pig

So, Grazy the Pig came to visit us at school back in the beginning of June.  At this point in time, Grazy has More than doubled her size pictured here.  I wanted to post this, albeit late, because I felt the pictures were precious.

Grazy belongs to one of the students at school, and when her mother offered to bring her, I jumped on the opportunity.  There is nothing like hands on experience with animals, especially little piglets!  though Grazy was known to be a "squealer" I think she did wonderfully.

To think of how quickly these piglets grow is amazing, here you can see how little she was beside

these little booted legs, but now....well, lets just say Grazy is living up to her name.

Prior to the piglet coming to school we had read several books about pigs that we had gotten out of the library, but by far our favorite story was "Piggie Wig and Piggie Wee," a finger-play we all learned.  You can find this finger play in a previous post under finger-plays.

Our art project for the day was to make piglet finger puppets.

I simply cut the fingers off a pair of garden gloves I got at the dollar store.

The children then added googly eyes and used cork stickers for noses and ears.

The magic of the pigs coming to life happened right away.

I love how the children go right into stories and performance when a puppet is put on their hands.

The piglets lined up complete with there little squiggly tales which the children made using pink pipe cleaner, and wrapping them around a pen.  I then poked them through the fabric so they could stay on. 

Watermelon Mint Pops

I wanted to make a tasty, cool treat for the kids, but didn't want the sugar and the hyperactivity that comes along with the sugar.  One of my favorite refreshers for the summer is to make a watermelon, mint, and honey smoothly, and I thought that would be great for a pop for the kids.

I start by filling up the cup of my rocket blender with watermelon,

I add a couple fresh mint leaves, and a teaspoon of honey.  The mint gives it an extra cooling quality

so it is a nice add in.  Then I blend.

I added the watermelon mixture to small plastic Dixie cup and freeze for at least 1/2 hour before placing pop cycle sticks in.

I add the sticks when the pops are frozen enough to hold them up.  I then cover with plastic wrap and freeze over night.

When you are ready to enjoy them, just warm the cup with your hands, then squeeze and they release from the cups.  Enjoy!

Projects converge

I have fallen very far behind on my posts for the blog.  I hope to make up some of that time in the next couple days.

Recently we had two projects we have been working on come together as one.  My last post was about our project on Africa, and in that post we made painted sticks.  Simultaneously, we have been working on our school garden.  The entrance way to this garden use to have an arch, but Hurricane Irene took it out.  I asked the children what they wanted to do with their painted sticks, they were not sure, so I suggested that we make an arch for the fence.  They loved this idea and we got right to work.

Our first step was to drill holes in the sticks so that the children could screw them together.

They love using the old handheld drills.

While some of the kids drilled their holes in their sticks, others began measuring the fence with measuring tapes.  We discovered that the arch would need to be 42" long to span the width of the entrance way.

We all worked on laying out the sticks to see what they would look like together

The next day the children took screw drivers and screwed the sticks together.

It was amazing watching them assemble the arch.  I was there to assist with layout and

explaining to them how and what to do, but they were the ones who did the actual work.

It was hard to get a picture, but here is the arch after it was attached to the

door posts

Because the sticks are painted, my assistant said "wouldn't it be great to paint the fence."

And so, the project continued with the children painting the garden fence.

They had a ball doing this, and some even managed to paint themselves.

Our fence and arch, as well as painted pine cones that the children did on another day. 

I love it!

Here is a close up of the pine cones, they beaded the cords to hang them and they

make a great addition.

 I am happy to say the garden is thriving as well. We have already been enjoying our sugar and
 snap peas!

Our other vegetable plants are small but doing well, and the lemon balm, lavender, roses, sage, mustard greens, and rosemary already need to be cut back!  Lovely.

Playing in Africa

For a while now the children have been creating their play in Africa.

Taking their cue, I decided to introduced some projects, stories, and songs into the school that take place in Africa or that are influenced by Africa.

It is encouraging to see how their interests fuel further learning.

We have talked about the animals of Africa.  That Africa is actually a continent, which to preschoolers is a broad concept, but we talked in terms of it being a large piece of land with lots of little parts in it that are called countries. 

We have also been learning a song, which I learned from African dance with Elena and Greg Mosley.  They love this song, which is from Nigeria and is called Funga Alafia, and we have also been working on our African  drumming and singing along.  Below are the lyrics to the song and their meaning.

Fungu Alafia is a traditional song from Western Africa (Nigeria) sung in the Yoruba language and means "welcomes and blessings".

Funga Alafia

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay.

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay.

Drum solo and ¼ turns around in a circle.

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay.

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay.

(With my thoughts, I welcome you.

With my words, I welcome you.

With my heart I welcome you.

See, I have nothing up my sleeve.)

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay.

Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay. Funga alafia, Ah-shay Ah-shay

 Painting Sticks

There are many art projects from Africa that I could have chosen for the children to learn, however I wanted to relate the art to their play in some way.  I wanted them to have an authentic relationship with their play and learning about this continent that they have been playing in for the last couple of months.  They love playing with sticks, so I looked into the significance of sticks in African culture.  Interestingly, I found an online book called African Material Culture by Amoldi, Geany, and Hardin, which is a textbook, but had a chapter on sticks in African culture, namely the Booram Oromo Society. 

The Booram Oromo is a society in Africa that stretches from parts of Ethiopia to Mombosa and Kenya and parts of Somalia.  Sticks symbolize the the structural changes in different levels of society and different significant stages of life.  They also symbolize a link to the past and present and grounding an individual.  Keeping them connected to the natural forces of life and creation.  All a little bit heady to explain to a preschooler, however still significant.  They can understand the concept that a stick symbolizes an important part in a persons life, that in Africa people get a special stick when they get married, or perhaps when they are sick, or just when they are getting older.  They also can understand the importance of staying grounded and connected to nature, and that a special stick can do this for us.

With this explained to the children, they chose their own sticks they would like to make special.

They then painted their sticks for our art project.

The sticks are beautiful, but what I loved the most was the the authenticity of their play and their joy in learning about Africa.  We still play regularly in Africa and look for more posts because I am sure we will continue to learn more about Africa together.

Learning About Sound and Vibration

This week we explored the concept of sound and vibration.  We also talked about what media the children are aware of that produces sound.  We heard answers such as; radio, Cds, and Ipods, but only a couple knew what a record album was or even a cassette tape.  These are defiantly modern times.  I showed the children a record and then we did a fabulous experiment my husband taught me.  We placed the album on his turntables and using a sewing needle placed through a tunnel of construction paper, the children heard music coming from the cone of paper.

the children were transfixed as they heard music come
 out of a piece of paper. and we talked about how the vibration of sound is what is traveling through the cone.

Here I am showing them, but then they each took turns.  It is a little tricky so they need some assistance, and if you try this at home, use a record you do not mind getting scratched.

Click on the play button below to hear the music

We also played with a tuning fork, which the children enjoyed hitting on the floor and then shaking to get an altering sound.  From this, our conversation on vibration continued.  We talked about other things that vibrate, such as our tongues when we all would say buzz, or on this particular day it was raining, so we pounded on the floor like thunder and one of the children pointed out that the floor was vibrating.  We also talked about instruments that make sounds when things vibrate, such as guitar strings.  It was a neat conversation because we sing and create music a lot at school, but we never really talked about the creation of sound.

After our discussion we went into art time where we set the children up with acrylic paints and

discarded records.  I then put on a mix of different styles of music.  The children were invited to paint on their records in the rhythm of the sounds they were hearing.  We saw things like swirling motions for soft music such as Celtic music and drumming  and dabbing motions when the African drumming and Herbie Hancock were played.

Click play on the picture below to see the process:

A finished Album

"So, what do they do?"

When I tell people I run a preschool out of the house I am often asked; "So, what do they do?"

We pack so much into the three hours a day I have with the kids, I find that I sometimes don't know how to answer that question. Below is a series of pictures of the children at play over the past couple of weeks, perhaps through these the question of what they do can best be answered.

We play, a lot. 

 I believe in the power of play.  It enhances imagination and it

often emulates life which brings into their experience social skills and learning.

Here we have a day at the beach.  They went diving and lounged on beach chairs they made out of couch cushions

We create magic, for instance we planted jelly beans and grew a "Jelly bean tree!"

We explore with our senses

We discover. 

Here we are observing the birds building a nest in a hole in the porch.

Examining an abandoned nest from last Spring.

We investigate, 

such as when mysterious objects appear on the ceiling and we discover that it is coming from a

bowl of water that is reflecting sunshine.

We make friends

We Create!

We Swing

We Do Experiments

We Move and Sing

We Get Wild!

We Build

We concoct things

We Work together and share

We learn about the world

We weave in and out of moments.

We make Masterpieces

We Enjoy

And we care for each other.