Still Life...

Still Life, Active Learning!

As part of our celebration of the season, we gathered together squash, gourds and our pumpkin from the Family Farm that we visited a few weeks ago. Looking them over carefully, we compared shapes, sizes and colors. Using these features, we chose the ones we thought were the most visually interesting. Of course, we had to place our plain, yet beautiful, orange pumpkin in our still life arrangement. Each child drew the forms with a black sharpie on white paper...

and then painted them with liquid watercolors.


Many of the children noted details, such as variations in colors, grooves in the pumpkin shell, and subtle stripes or spots on the gourds, which they incorporated into their artwork.



We flowed into states of deep concentration and relaxed awareness...

And every still life painting was totally different and unique, just as we are!


Meanwhile, the classroom was buzzing with activity...

such as teamwork in the Creation Station,

balancing a tall and narrow structure with the wooden unit blocks,

and a collaborative effort on a "castle." Note the math concepts at work in these two structures: symmetry with flair, the tricky act of finding a balance point, awareness of height, width and depth, building equivalent dimensions using different sizes of blocks... We are literally constructing our "brain power," as well as developing mathematical reasoning skills, when we build with the wooden unit blocks!

We went on a field trip to the Seattle Center and admired the fountain before going to the play at the Seattle Children's Theater. We were delighted with how the spurts of the fountain were synchronized to the music!

After having the time to move our bodies, we were ready to go to the theater for the performance of "Morgan's Journey." This was a vocal, participatory play filled with gentleness and laughter, an exploration of self-discovery and feelings. The play ultimately blossomed into a learning experience of friendship, sharing and caring. It was a timeless theater piece, reaching into the embrace of life, touching young and old. We left the theater feeling connected, renewed and full of hope!

After the play, we had the endearing opportunity to meet Morgan and his puppet, Herkimer, in the lobby. We were enthralled!

Herkimer tickled each of us as he snuggled into our cheeks...

As attention moved, so did Morgan and Herkimer, until we were all watching them tune into the youngest member of the audience.

What a lovely journey we are on together!

Judith

Our First Celebration of Light

El Dia de Los Muertos

For the last 1 1/2 weeks, we have celebrated the joyous Latin American "Day of the Dead." We have learned about how this day is celebrated among the Maya people of Guatemala and Mexico. We have delved into the Mayan culture through reading and discussing stories and myths, tasting some traditional foods, examining and handling some art and textiles of the Maya. This inspired us to have a hand in making some of our own art and foods.

We brought images of "those who have passed before us," including our ancestors--- grandparents and great grandparents, friends, and pets, including our class hamster, Panda Paws. Chubb-Chubb died during the week, so the Explorers brought in his picture for our table. We covered the table with handwoven traditionally handwoven Maya rebosos (shawls), then placed a vase of marigolds on the fabric, the traditional flower for this day, gourds and herbs, the images we had brought, as well as two small books about the Day of the Dead for the children to look at.

In Guatemala, many Maya make beautiful kites carefully constructed from intricately cut tissue paper, which are glued together, then built with bamboo supports. They bring these to the cemetaries and begin to fly them when the breeze begins in the afternoon. As the wind picks up, larger and larger kites are launched, until the wind is strong enough to lift kites that are 12-15 feet in diameter! They shine like stained glass--- "windows to the soul ." Indeed, that is exactly what they represent. The kites are the symbol of the loved one's spirit, the string held in the flyer's hand is the connection between those still on earth and the spirit of the departed.
We made our own simple version of the tissue paper kites and on several sunny days, we were exhilarated by flying them!

We examined a wooden carved and painted Mayan jaquar mask, as well as two more simple masks (another jaquar, and sun/moon) from Mexico. The enthusiastic jaquar roars could be heard all the way to the Guatemalan jungle!

And then we read "Journey of the Nightly Jaquar," a retelling of a Maya myth. It recounted the story of how the Maya believed that the jaquar emerges from the sun at dusk, and returns to the sun at dawn.

In Mexico, the children love to make, decorate and eat sugar skulls for El Dia de Los Muertos. First, we talked about how we all have skulls, we knocked on our foreheads, touched cheekbones and chins, to appreciate how our skulls protect and help us. Despite the prevailing imagery in our American culture, a skull does not have to be scary. We then looked at books that had photos of sugar skulls and the children were intrigued. Would they like to make some? By now they were not thinking primarily of skulls, they were thinking "SUGAR!" Of course, we'd like to make some... one for each of us, one just for me! Luckily,I had some "cute" skull molds, men with top hats and women with bonnets, so they were all dressed up for the occasion.
We needed only three ingredients--- sugar, meringue powder and water. We washed our hands well, measured, poured and gazed fondly at all that sugar. Then we mixed and mixed and mixed... Thank you, Sonja, for your help and good humored laughter about doing this sticky project immediately after taking your boys to have their teeth cleaned at the dentist!

What did people mix with before they had spoons? Yes, their hands...A-h-h, what delight to put one's hands into a whole bowl of sugar! When one child's turn was over, he/she clapped hands over the bowl and waited for the next turn by placing hands together, palms and fingers touching one another.

It was hard to not put our fingers into our mouths...

This provided a taxing opportunity to practice the most serious self discipline and delayed gratification of any task we have done all year! We got through it by imagining the sweetness of what was to come after the mixing and molding... We were reassured by our adult friends that there would be a time for licking!

Our delight with this experience sparkles upon our faces...

and give us pause to problem solve!

Can you not see what our classmate is thinking? "I'll solve the terrible problem of not licking my hands by testing what sweetness may lie within my tongue's reach..."
There are so many ways to solve a problem, especially a lip smacking one!

After many turns of mixing, it was time to press the sugar into the molds. We each chose the mold we liked best, and created a "map" to keep track of which molded sugar skull was whose...

Sweet Relief!

Finally, we could lick our fingers...

Sugar-coated bliss!

One might think that sugar skulls were the highlight... But there was another equally delicious and delectable experience awaiting us! First, we made hot chocolate from Mexico and then Sandra helped us make another version from Colombia.

We counted the bars, doing addition and subraction, to figure out how many bars to break off for our recipe. Cooking provides such great opportunities for math learning!

We measured and poured the milk. We are all so focused on the process!

We mix, using the molinillo...

as we chant,

1,2,3---CHO,

1,2,3---CO,

1,2,3---LA,

1,2,3---TE!

CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE,

BATE, BATE, CHOCOLATE!

And then the taste tests...

We LOVED the hot chocolate from both Colombia and Mexico!

Don't you wish social studies was like this when you were a child? This was literally and figuratively a rich, fun, fascinating glimpse into another culture and a wonder-full way to immerse ourselves in our year's "first" Celebration of Light!

Judith