Tuesday SOL What about snow?

This is a Tuesday "Slice of Life" for Two Writing Teachers. Check out their website for lots more reflections on teaching.

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Happy New Year!
Today was our second day back at school and, much to my surprise when I woke up this morning, it was snowing! I had heard that we might get a dusting, but unfortunately this 'dusting' came during the morning commute…I struggled to get in to my classroom, my typical 30 minute commute tripling in length.

Yes, I was late to school.
I don't think I have ever been late to school.

That slog of a commute gave me so much time to watch the falling snow and plan a snowy extension to today's learning. I always find nature so engaging for children - and isn't it particularly magical when nature is a fresh snow?

After gathering, I took a small group of children outside when it was still snowing, to collect fresh snow for our classroom. We had so much fun!

Back in the classroom, one large tub of snow was dumped onto the sand in the sensory table - snow on a beach! The children were surprised and elated by this combination…making snowballs, trying to build a snow man, watching the sand and snow mix together, surprised by how cold the sand became.

Snow in sand. It was so cold, it started melting... you can make an outside snowball

 (Evan)

There were still three more large containers of snow…and these I added to the art table. The art table had been readied for a process art activity with found objects and paint. What if we used the paint and the found objects with snow? Why not? What might happen? Let's see!



I added a few extra tools - tongs, eyedroppers, tweezers, stirring sticks, spoons. I watered down the paint so that it might be useful with a dropper. Then I stepped back and watched the children explore...

immediately seeing






Excited preschoolers,

touching and squeezing the snow

filling eye droppers with paint, squeezing paint onto the snow

making dots, speckles on the snow

adding spoonfuls of snow into the paint

picking up snow with tongs

I love pink

I love purple

I love blue

Curious preschoolers,

dropping found objects in the snow

retrieving them with tongs

stirring them into the snow

dropping found objects into the paint

adding in more snow, to the paint

I'm making soup

I'm making spaghetti

Look! I got it all gone!

Focused preschoolers,

picking up tongs full of snow,

plopping the snow into the paint,

watching, watching, watching

as the paint moved up the snow ball,

the snow slowly filling with paint color

not melting but growing in color,

Stirring, stirring, stirring

meticulously removing every bit of snow from the containers

We are making snow!

It's turning to dark red

My snow is all pink

This is cold

Feverish preschoolers,

rapid questions, incessant demands

I need tongs!

What about tweezers?

I need another tray!

I need more water!

I need a clean squeeze thing! 

I want pink, too! 

What are those? 

I need something to mix!

Where did you get that?

I need a spoon!

Alert, excited, restless, engaged.

Me,
I was the guide on the side,
moving quickly to support them,
all things at once,

taking pictures,

making notes,

asking questions,

pointing them towards supplies,

encouraging them to resolve problems themselves

Where are they kept?

Has anyone seen where those are kept?

Where did we put them?

What just happened when you did that?! Wow!

What if you ask a friend where she got hers?

How might you get the paint out of the eyedropper?

What happens to the snow when you do that?

Did you ask her if you can have some?

Where might we get water?

Will that fit in there?

What happens to the paint when you put snow in it?

What do you think will happen?

I, too, was alert, excited, restless, engaged.

This is my favorite kind of centers work!

And it sure helped me to forget about that horrid commute.

What can we do with yarn?

During our first trimester this school year, in every classroom (preschool to sixth grade!), students read Extra Yarn, by Mac Barnett. The book tells the story of a child who finds a magical box of yarn that never seems to run out as she knits sweaters to keep everyone in her town warm. Throughout the school, students wondered about their own personal gifts and how might they share these with others. 

Preschoolers used the text as a launching point for an exploration of yarn as a material. We used the yarn in so many different ways:

• Painting with yarn

• Creating mixed media collages, with yarn as one possibility

• Cutting yarn
• Painting yarn lines at the easel
• Tying things with yarn 

• Creating simple machines - yarn as cranes, pulleys, lifts    

• Passing a ball of yarn
• Throwing a ball of yarn
• Measuring things with yarn

• Tracing yarn lines 
• Drawing in and around a 'cobweb' of yarn on the table

• Using yarn as bandages in our doctor's dramatic play
• Making bracelets
• Sewing with yarn

• Using yarn with clay
• Wrapping items in yarn ("yarn bombing")

For a couple of weeks, yarn was in every center of our classroom, to be used and explored in any (safe!) way that the children desired.

My favorite yarn activity was dipping yarn in watercolor paint, changing white yarn into a new color.

We repeated this activity over many days. I set up paint containers with rainbow colors and the children used tweezers to retrieve the yarn from the paint, then laying this bright yarn onto paper which made a yarn print.

I enjoyed watching the children explore the tweezers with the yarn and paint.
Specifically, I enjoyed watching their hands at work.



Truly, it is magical to watch children's hands at work.





I loved watching them try to pick up the yarn with the tweezer…some resorting to lifting the yarn onto the tweezer…



Some worked with two tweezers at a time,




Others used their fingers in the paint, moving the yarn about with their hands.




Some dipped the tweezer into the paint - not the yarn - and dragging this painted tool across the paper.

One young artist dipped the yarn into the watery paint and then pulled the yarn taut, sending sprinkles of paint everywhere.

Many children found mixing the colors together to be an irresistible goal, quickly turning each watercolor paint container into brown.

Starting with the same materials, using these in different ways,
all succeeded in creating magical paintings.

Here are just five:

 

It was so much fun to explore yarn in depth…to see limitless possibilities of this basic material.