Colour Song Writing

Lately, my kids have been completely enthralled with music, instruments, and singing. They've created stages to perform songs, recorded themselves playing instruments, and sang at the top of their lungs.

Today, we used the old water-in-jars trick to create our own tunes, but with an extra twist. We added food colouring to the jars so each was a different colour.

Next, each child got a card with circles on it. They "composed" a song by colouring in the circles according to the colour of the water in the jar they wanted to "play."

When they were finished, they played their song!

We used a recordable photo album to record our songs. We took photos of ourselves playing our songs so we could put them in the photo album with our recorded songs.

Our song cards, photos, and album are now on display just outside the classroom for others to see and listen to.

This project was pretty successful. Both boys and girls were interested in taking part, even for just a few short minutes. My class is mostly boys, so I'm often trying to figure out ways to get them to do mark making and art projects. Since they've been so interested in music lately, I thought this would be a great way to get a crayon in their hand, while engaging their interest in music. The recordable album was a big hit too. They loved listening to their song (and in some cases, their voices as well!). They thought it was pretty funny to hear themselves; some were convinced it wasn't them because it didn't quite sound right. All in all, Colour Song Writing was a loud, colourful, and engaging activity!

I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

Mrs. C brought in a coconut this week, and what a great learning experience it was! Unusual fruits and veggies are a great stimulus for dialogue and exploration, and you get to have a wee bite of something new!

First, we shook the coconut to find out what we could hear, and we guessed what was inside:

Some of their ideas:
-milk
-water
-juice
-nothing

Next, we inspected the coconut to figure out how we could open it:

L said the three darker spots on the coconut looked like a face, and suggested we stab it. Good idea! With help, we poked a hole through one of the dark weak spots at the top of coconut. Then, we shook all the liquid out into a cup. K was right about the milk!

We passed the cup around so we could have a wee sniff. According to S, it smells "disgusting."

L, on the other hand, absolutely loved the smell of the milk, and asked multiple times if he could drink it. After getting permission to have only one sip so that others could have a try, he gulped it all back in one fell swoop. That was the end of our coconut milk!

Good thing we still had all the coconut "meat" to get to! We came up with ideas of how we could break open the coconut. Eventually, we wrapped it in a towel and gave it some big whacks with a pair of heavy pliers (I couldn't find the hammer!).

When that didn't quite work, Mrs. C popped the coconut into a shopping bag, waltzed outside and swung the bag against the wall. Voila! Worked like a charm. We cut up the coconut meat into little bits to try and touched the shell to see what it felt like inside (I didn't get any pictures of this, because we were too busy eating coconut!). Not everyone wanted to try it, but L and Y made up for the rest of them! Y said he likes to suck on it to get all the sugar out. Interesting tactic!

Next week, I'll be bringing in some other interesting fruit to try. Any suggestions?

Exploration

Kids are naturally curious. Give them a box, they'll open it; give them playdough, they'll squish it, roll it, smell it (taste it!). They want to know how many sponges they can fit in a measuring cup. They want to know what it sounds like when they pop a balloon. This natural curiosity is something any good teacher will tap into to provide meaningful and engaging learning experiences. As frustrating, or loud, or messy as it may be, these experiences will help shape children's ideas about their world, how they affect that world, and where they fit into it all. I have to remind myself of that every time one of my little guys paints his hands and splatters paint all over the classroom, or takes a bucket of water and pours it into the sand tray. They are not doing these things to be defiant, but to explore their world to make sense of it. My kids have only been on this earth for 3 or 4 years. That's it. To them, everything is new and exciting.

These two girls are inspecting our white carnations. We spent some time smelling them, cutting them, and putting them in water the other day. According to M, they smell pretty. According to A, they smell like green grass. The kids were talking about how the flowers were white, but that they'd seen purple and yellow flowers outside (yes, flowers are blooming in bonnie Scotland already!). We decided to make our flowers change colour by putting food colouring into the water! Nothing has happened yet, but we're hoping that the flowers will have had plenty of time to soak up the colour over the weekend!

Creativity Takes Courage - Henri Matisse

As a teacher, I am always on the lookout for interesting resources to bring into my classroom to inspire the children's curiosity and learning experiences. Honestly, it doesn't take much sometimes! Kids are resourceful, imaginative, and creative. They can take a wooden block and make it into a walkie-talkie:

Or even a pair of shoes:

When I put out resources in the morning, I may have some preconceived idea of how they will use them, but they always surprise and impress me with their ingenuity and creativity. When things have become a little silly, sometimes I have found myself saying, "that's not what that is for." Shame on me for curbing their play!

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.
-Abdul Kalam

Art Gallery

I recently came across this blog post over at Budget Wise Home on how to make an art gallery that can easily be changed on a regular basis without ruining your walls. As a teacher, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas to incorporate into my classroom, especially if those ideas make my job just that much easier.

One of the many bulletin boards in my class is dedicated as an Art Gallery to showcase the children's projects. Sadly, the bulletin boards in my class are as hard as stone (they really should be replaced - hint hint), so using pins is out of the question (I've lost count of how many push pins I've snapped and how many fingernails I've broken). So I've used blue tack instead, but that rips the backing paper or the children's work when it comes down.

Imagine my glee when I came across this idea to use painted baking sheets and magnets to mount artwork easily and painlessly! I like to be able to change up the gallery work on a regular basis to keep the children interested, plus they love seeing their work on the wall.

After a weekend of painting baking sheets, a little trial and error with the mounting process, voila! A brand new Art Gallery.





Tip: I mounted the baking sheets with sticky glue dots to begin with, but they fell down. I reinforced the baking sheets with sticky-backed velcro. Worked perfectly.

Scrapbook Display

I recently came across a teaching blog written by teaching consultant Alistair Bryce-Clegg called ABC Does.... I have found it to be quite inspiring in my Nursery endeavors. In a recent post, Alistair talks about using a scrapbook approach to doing displays. They include photos of the children their comments and dialogue, teacher input, or any other products created by the children to show the process of their learning. I decided to take this idea on board with my class. We have been learning about dinosaurs, and the kids have shown an interest in volcanoes. This display shows the process of the children making volcanoes and other interests the stemmed from that.

Scurvy Dog

It has been a while since I've posted anything on my teaching blog. Shame on me. I've been very busy with my classes, and now I can't believe that it is only 3 weeks until the Christmas holidays! I have so much to do and so little time to achieve it.

Recently, my nursery class has been interested in Pirates, so, as you do, we have been reading Pirate stories, making a pirate ship, dressing up, making treasure maps, and following treasure maps to "x marks the spot." I don't have the photos at home with me just now, but I'll try to post some later. Our role-play area is set up as a shop, and the other day the money was "stolen" and a treasure map left behind. The children had to follow the footsteps on the map to retrieve the money - and a few other goodies. A teacher friend of mine had this fantastic treasure chest she let me borrow for the event. The children loved following the map and finally seeing what was hidden in the chest.

Pirates is such a fun and rich theme to use as a springboard for children's learning. Directional language with maps, mapping skills practiced by making their own maps and following others, sorting out treasure, experimenting with boats that float/don't float... the list could go on and on. And let's be honest: who doesn't like to talk like a Pirate?