Kindergarten and Preschool Ateliers 10/05/06

Kindergarten

Ms. Hoddick's class (The Human Body Project):

This week the children finished up their human body projects by labeling their pages and titling their books. The children decided that it would be a good idea to make covers for their books. Next week we will work on mixing colors.

Ms. Hitomi's class (The Human Museum Project):

("I found the heart!")

This week the children finished up their drawings and recipe cards for their human body museum. The two groups next week will take turns trying out each other's concoctions and guessing what the other group came up with. We also fine-tuned some of the recipes because some of the children decided what they had made to represent the veins needed to be thinner and more slimy...i.e., skinny spaghetti and more starch in the water.

Preschool

3-year-olds (Clay):

This week we continued with our exploration of clay. The clay had begun to harden and some pieces were also completely dried out. The children wanted to add water to these pieces because this might make the clay soft again. We did this experiment both in small jars and with big pieces of clay. The children noticed that the clay began to get very soft and mushy. After touching, standing, and sitting in the clay, we mixed up three containers of the mushy clay to dry out. We now will wait and see what happens to it.

4-year-olds (Rainbow Exploration):

(Becoming part of a rainbow)

Since the begining of the year, the 4-year-old classroom has had a fascination with rainbows! The teachers wondered what would happen if we continued this exploration by providing a place to experience the light of the rainbow. This week we transformed the atelier into a rainbow room using the overhead projecter and a transparency. We posed questions to the class like,"What would it be like in a place that was made out of rainbows? How would we get there? What would we do there?" Each small group that has come in to the rainbow room has had a different experience. These experiences have been very meaningful to the children. (Look at the gallery for more details.)

In the classroom, we also continued our exploration of color and painting techniques.

(Color through mixing)

(Techniques that the preschool students have discovered)

Posted on October 5, 2006 8:39 AM | Permalink