Hi Everyone!

Thank you to those of you who were able to come to the Children's Art Show last Thursday. The class was so excited to have their family and friends see what they had been working so hard on these last several weeks. The process was an incredible learning experience with each project they did.

The piece de resistance, I believe, was the flower canvas paintings. This piece was composed of several steps. We began discussing painting "en plein air", or in the open air, with the introduction of Claude Monet's Water Lilies. Afterwards, we planned a trip to the community garden to study the flowers there by drawing them and finding a flower that was most special to them. Once they found their flower, they took their own photograph of it which they would later represent on their canvas using pencil. When drawing, they observed all forms from the stem to the petals to the rocks on the ground. They counted petals, noticed if there was a lot of grass or a little grass, if there was a stem taller than the rest, or how the leaves look different from each other. There was not a detail overlooked. Finally it was time to add color. They observed what they learned to be shadows, highlights and low lights. They learned how to make a color lighter and darker or how to make a color more green or more orange. The also observed that a single petal or leaf is not necessarily one single color. This entire process took weeks to complete and all of the kids took great pride in what they accomplished.

The Still Life was also a very intricate observational process. The children each chose three items from our still life objects and arranged them any way they'd like under a lamp. The lamp was used to create more intense shadows and highlights. This project had the children become extremely careful observers. They were asked several questions to become very aware of each and every line they were about to draw, and took careful consideration of the relationships between their three objects. "is this taller or shorter than that? Is this touching that? Is this rounder than that? Is this closer to you than that?" An incredible amount of time was put into this project-- It is my hope that the relentless questioning of form has turned the class into keen observers!

On Friday when the kids came in to a classroom that was blank on Thursday, they were in total awe when they saw everything up on the walls... and were especially engaged in the fashion show video as most of the audience was. With the rearranging of some of the shelves to better display their work, this presented an opportunity to do some rearranging of the classroom. The kids liked the changes so we made a few more. Our classroom now seems brighter and more spacious. We also had Barbarah Denham come in on Friday to bake her famous Zucchini Bread with the class during freeplay. The kids worked in small groups to add ingredients, grease the pans and shred the zucchini. After gym, we had a little picnic outside and the kids DEVOURED the bread. Thanks Barbara!

As most of you know, we've been incubating chick eggs for almost 2 weeks, 13 days to be exact. This year all of the eggs are being kept in McKenzie's class (just for the incubation process) because our class's incubator was not able to maintain the temperature needed for the embryos to develop. Even thought it was a little disappointing, the kids used this experience to learn that sometimes with science experiments, things may break or not work the way you think they're going to work. We found a solution to the problem by fitting all of the eggs into one incubator instead. And, even though our eggs are not with us in our classroom, we are still keeping track of the process. The kids put together a paper chain of 21 links that they each decorated, and we also made a chart that consists of 21 squares. Each day we remove one chain link to keep track of how many days are left until the eggs are hatched. We also tape one feather to one box to keep track of how many days the eggs have been in the incubator. The kids noticed that the number of empty boxes is the same number of chain links that are left.

Tomorrow there will be a workshop for the kids given by the actors of the New Victory Theater to prepare for our trip next Tuesday. They will talk to the kids about the show and give them opportunities to act things out themselves. We will be leaving for the trip promptly at 9:30 and will return around 12:00 for lunch at school.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great evening!

Amanda