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.

Following the interest

And I'm back! Between winter break, snow/cold days and weekends we have had only 2 days of school over the last 2 1/2 weeks. It's gotten to the point were not going in to work feels more normal, and the sleepy children today convinced me that it was true for them too. The classroom volume level was higher than normal too, with a few children even coming and telling me it was too loud for them to concentrate. I made an announcement to the entire class the first time, and then encourage the children to go and speak with specific children who were being extra loud. They were....semi-successful.

Not that there wasn't any work happening. N was painting at the easel and requested that I get him some red and white paint so he could make an American flag. Not only did he do the stripes and blue field, but he painted on a few stars as well. After getting him the paint I told him to come find me when he was done and I'd show him some new work to do with flags.

Now most children love getting presentations, working one on one with an adult is really special to them. N is no exception, but he usually doesn't continue the work for too long after the adult leaves.

I worked with his younger cousin for a little bit, showing her the constructive triangles. Part way through N wander over, done with his painting and clean up. He had not only remembered that I wanted to show him something, but he was excited to. I took N over to the flags and had him choose one. I helped him get set up with paper and colored pencils to make a replica while I checked in on his little cousin working with the triangles. When N showed me his colored flag we went to work looking it up in the new flag book.

Now this flag book was brand new, N was the first child to use it. I had made it over the break because our original flag book from the store didn't have some of the flags we have in our classroom. It also just had a lot of dry facts, or historical facts of the flag that really weren't interesting to the children. So I had made a small booklet that had just the flags we had in the room, and wrote just a short paragraph with some facts. Things like what the color represent and how the flag was designed and has changed over the years. Over the cold days when there was no school I had bound the laminated pages and was getting really excited to have the children use it.

Well, N used it and we discovered that I had missed a flag. Oops. Of course it would have been the one that he chose. Oh well. He managed to find it in the big book and we wrote the name down. Then N decided that he wanted to do another flag.

That was awesome. Like I said earlier, N isn't one to keep working on something new without an audience. And I had left him to work independently for a good chunk of the flag work. N successfully made an American flag and then brought me over the book to read the story of it. The fact that not only did he work alone, but wanted to continue showed me how interested he really was in the flags.

Now I just need to figure out how to turn that interest to helping work on his handwriting.....