New and exciting

Sometimes brand new things can be exciting, but in our classroom it's more likely that something old is made to seem new.

Yesterday I introduced a new aspect to the clay work. Up to this point our clay has been just the ball of clay and some small wooden shapes. I noticed that the children were not really using the shapes and decided to mix it up some by introducing some tools to add textures to the clay. And the kids took off with it. That clay work was THE work to have. Everyone wanted to use it, they all wanted to observe the other children using it, there were negotiations about who would use it next. With one simple change that work has become of the utmost interest to children who could have cared less about it a week ago.

Hopefully I can snap a picture tomorrow of how interested they have been.

Another old material that became new today was the pink tower and the brown stair. A couple of children where being a little silly with the material and the other classroom teacher gave them a little direction. She showed how they could combine them into a tower and then carefully remove the cube of the pink tower (kind of like jenga). They thought that was just the coolest thing and another child who had just been watching was so excited that he asked to join them. Together the three of them started really exploring different ways to build the tower.

After a while though I noticed they were just sitting talking, and when I heard that they were talking to each other about who was the baby, the daddy, the mommy, etc. I stepped in and asked what they were going to build next. They looked a little lost and I suggested that maybe they could build something long instead of tall. Their eyes lit up and one immediately jumped up to go and get another mat.

The next time I looked they were screeching in delight as they rolled out a 4th mat in order to accommodate the growing 'snake' they had built from the blocks. Their excitement drew a crowd and other children started marveling at how long the work was. Unfortunately it did ramp up the noise level of the room and I felt like I need to ask them to contain the work back on one mat so there was room to walk around again. Luckily they were pretty happy to do so, especially because they each had their own mat to roll up because they had taken out so many.

And when they finally put it away, guess what happened? Someone else immediately took it out and started exploring for themselves. Success.