Playground sights

When talking about India I showed the children a little book that names the parts of venomous snakes, namely, the cobra. Mrs. T brought a selection of books on snakes from the library. Closeup pictures of hissing snakes made one child question whether the photographer was still living. After all, being that close to the pictured rattlesnake surely must have resulted in a fatal bite.

She also arranged for another teacher to show the class her two pet snakes as she fed them each a frozen mouse. Some wrote pages about the snakes, painted pictures of them and made origami cobras. Everyone made a painted, cardboard tube wiggly snake.

Then, last Thursday on the playground, a child sited two water snakes lying on plant debris that had fallen into the creek! I love our playground. It has space to run plus a wonderful mix of equipment and nature to play on and around. There's a big old silver maple tree that rains its helicopter seeds upon us. There are small cedar trees and a small Japanese maple to run around. There are piles of mulch, bars, a plastic rock wall, stairs and tree trunks to climb. The creek with its resident fish and ducks flows just outside the fence. One brave duck sits on her nest of eggs in a corner of the playground. There is a deck overlooking the creek, two slides, a sandbox and a train for fanciful adventures. No wonder every child's face is grinning as they run through the gate for recess. Kudos to J.D. for its design and maintenance.

Talking about China and India led the class to the Himalaya Mountains which stand between the two countries. We used my little Mountains book to learn the names for the many parts of mountains. Everyone made their own mountain range with paper mache over paper cones. They were painted with snowy tops and rivers flowing through the valleys.
The enthusiasm didn't stay in the classroom. On the playground the sandbox became a long mountain range. It's so nice when the children come together as a team. And so good to see their smiles of accomplishment.
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Sold!

Last night I went to the auction hosted by PODS. What fun it was! We are grateful to Michele Wahlmark and Paula Hannam for all the work and time they dedicated to this event. As the auctioneer, Paula set the tone for a lively and jovial evening. She pounded the gavel

for numerous benches, chairs, frames, boxes, piggy banks, stepping stones, tea sets, seventeen quilts and a bird house. Michele had the children's work displayed around the room. It brought many oohs and ahhs. In addition, there was a silent auction for gift cards to golf, enjoy a mini facial and have dinner in any of several fine restaurants. We feasted on small sandwiches, shrimp, cheese and pastries. The proceeds will be used to treat the children to a special activity filled day before the end of the school year.

To all who attended, to Michele for the superb job in organizing this, to Paula for auctioneering and for beautifully sewing together all of the children's quilt squares and to all of the children and the teachers who worked together to create all of the objects -

Thank You !

Here is one of the Parts of an Egg books made by many of the children in the class. The first four pages of the book have the individual egg parts pasted in and labeled. This shows the final, completed egg. Each part is again pasted in, one on top of the other. On the last page, this child chose to write her thoughts on eggs. Before presenting this activity, Mrs. T. gave each child a hard boiled egg. Each peeled off their egg's shell, then the membrane, then the albumen and then reached the yolk. The final act in thsi exploration? Eating the egg!
Next, we took our scientific inquisitiveness further by putting a raw egg into vinegar for a few days last week. The acidic vinegar immediately began dissolving the calcium in the shell. This was obvious by all the tiny bubbles of gas covering the egg. By Friday, soft flaps of shell were peeling off the membrane. Upon washing off the rest of the now soft shell, the children got to hold the shelless egg and see the albumen and yolk through the transparant membrane. It was exciting.

We're all welcoming spring and hoping for some warmer days. Birds are avidly visiting the feeders.

All of the benches have been beautifully painted with flowers, pictures and flags of the world. As you can see here, as each child's portion dries, Mrs. T masks it off so the next artist doesn't accidentally paint into or over someone's work. For that reason, the end result looks almost too good to be true, as one parent noted upon seeing the finished benches after her conference with us. We miss seeing them in the classroom, but whoever gets them will have a unique and lovely piece.

Here's the stool ready for PODS. Most of the class worked on just this piece. Mrs. T. showed them some paintings by Kieth Haring. They easily copied some of his images onto the stool. We have one more stool, a box and some frames to be decorated. I can't wait to see what the children come up with next! I suspect paintings may be musically inspired since this month brought all of our class the opportunity to play wind and string instruments and to see a wonderful program combining art with music.

As you see, February was busy. Aside from Valentine's Day, we celebrated Chinese New Year, making Chinese flags and making origami goldfish. We learned about George Washington and Abe Lincoln, who became the subject of some terrific portraits.

We're so thrilled with how well the children are decorating the wooden pieces and ceramic tea set that PODS will auction off.

Earlier this year, I introduced the class to my little How To Draw An Elephant book. Many of their drawings were still posted on our bulletin board when this project came up. Mrs. T asked several of those children to recreate their drawings on this chair (some are on the back). Then I showed the class some examples of patterns in print and on fabrics. After creating their own on paper, some of those children recreated their patterns as borders on the chair.

It's beautiful to see the care and concentration as each takes his/her turn. Currently they are working on the tea set and a step stool covered with frolicking figures.