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from the atelier 11/29/07

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Hi, everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!!


Just a reminder to parents who want to schedule conferences with me: please email me at jguillory@midpac.edu. I'll be looking foward to hearing from you and meeting with you.

During the past few weeks, the preschool has been busy working with clay, watercolors, observational painting, and mixing paint. 

Three-year-old class

At right above, a student works on an observational painitng of a poinsettia.  How can the three-year-old class really do observational work?  Are they really able to pay attention to color and detail?  Can they really make it look like the actual flower?  These things might be running through your head, but exposing our children to these ideas at an early age opens the door to many developmental thoughts, dispositions, and creativity.  The point is that wherever that child is developmentally, they will take what they want from their observation.  One child might just layer color, while another defines shapes and lines.  Each unique perspective lends itself to building on that child's relationship with the medium and his or her own disposition.

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The threes have been adding water to the clay at the suggestion of one of the students, again transforming this material.  The children have begun to extend their knowledge and relationship with the clay. 
As the children add water, they notice the ways that clay changes; e.g., the color, the feel, the way they can smooth it, and the way it can be attached and manipulated.  The water has added a whole new set of ideas and understandings about this material.  A favorite activity has been to step and and stomp on the wet clay, creating squishing sounds for everyone to giggle at. The children have now discovered that clay has sound!


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Four-year-old-class

The children have also been busy, working with paint, both watercolor and tempera.  The children have been exploring the way the watercolor mixes and changes color.  The children were fascinated with gold and silver colors and continue to mix these on top of the rest.  Along with this, children have continued to work on observational paintings. We have now begun to focus on the reflection process, which as teachers we know is when children deepen their learning and understanding of what they are doing.  The children reflect on the paintings, what they liked or what they might change when they make the next one. Today we saw some wonderful examples of observation when the children went back to their first flower paintings -- many of them noticed new details about the flower that they hadn't noticed the day before, such as the presence of  black splotches, its shape, or even its color.  Today they added these discoveries on a new painting.
 
Kindergarten

The kinders have continued with their sketching unit and are now working on a photograghy/drawing/painting project to commemorate MPI's 100th birthday. Below is one of the student's photos.
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Posted on November 29, 2007 8:20 AM | Permalink

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