Poet Workshop

It was such a treat to have Juna's parents come and visit our classroom.  With them we heard, lived, and created poems. 

Jeff read a poem to us about a horse. After listening to the poem, we turned into horses and galloped around the room.  We returned to our human state to listen to another poem about a tiger.  We were a little bit familiar with William Blake's poem The Tyger, because we read it the other day,  but today we got to be the tiger in the poem.  The room filled with roars and claws as the tigers moved around.

After listening to a couple animal poems by other people, we became the authors.  Each child picked an animal and wrote a poem about the animal.  Christine is an expert at drawing out the poet in everyone.  Jeff is taking all of the poems and turning them into a book for us.  I will let you know when you can read them.

If you want to read some of the other poems we have written, they are hanging on the bulletin board in our room.

Puppet Studio

 I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland walking around the Festifools workshop.  Strange huge heads looked down from everywhere.  It was an amazing experience.

Ruth walked us through the studio showing us how a few sticks can be transformed into a puppet.  First, the sticks are covered with a card board skeletal structure.  Then papier mâché is layered over the cardboard, 

finally the structure is painted and the puppet comes to life.

Mark, one of the puppet 
masters, showed us 
a video 
from previous 
Festifools events.

The children's 
curiosity, 

imagination, and 

enthusiasm 

are certainly 
sparked.

They are looking 
forward to 

getting started 

with their own 
creations.

Test:
Which are the puppet heads? 

Alice

We are currently reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  

Alice has been rapidly changing sizes.  We put tape on the floor to show how big she was when she was 9 feet tall, another for when she was 9 inches, and another tape to indicate the inches of tears she cried. 

The 9 foot Alice was bigger than 2 children but not 3 children.  Andrew asked me to lay down with him and found out that together the 2 of us were bigger than Alice.

Invention Connection

 The hallway was buzzing with excitement and energy Friday morning as children walked through the door with their Simple Machine Inventions.

By 9:15 the children had their inventions set up and were split up into 4 multi-aged groups.  During the first part of the morning children shared, explained, and answered questions about their inventions from 2 groups of children.  












After a break for snack and some fresh air, the children came in to see the remaining inventions.  This time it was more of a Science Fair format.  Two groups stood by their projects, while the other children walked around the "Fair" looking at the projects.  Then the roles switched and the second 2 groups traveled around watching demonstrations.


It was impressive to see the children respectfully observe each other's projects and give positive comments to the children of all ages.

Dr Seuss and Shakespeare

What do these two men have in common, besides beards?

They both liked to use iambic meter in their writing.

How serendipitous that Dr Seuss had a birthday on March 2, just as we started a month of Poetry study.  In his honor,  we read  Green Eggs and Ham.  The book lead us to learn the word "iambic".  We beat the "da dum" rhythm on the tables.  Today, we marched in iambic meter around the room as we recited: 

"I do not like green eggs and ham. 

I do not like them Sam I am.  

I will not eat them with a mouse.  

I will not eat them in a house.  

I will not eat them here or there.  

I will not eat the, anywhere."

Next week we will march to a different drummer,  William Shakespeare.  

We will march and recite the witches song:  "Double, double toil and trouble..."