Sparkly Rainbow Whales – Music

The Sparkly Rainbow Whales continued exploring the language of music on Wednesday and Thursday. Children reviewed the concept of beat, and then began learning about rhythm. Claire asked children to describe beat and how it might be different from rhythm. 

“Beat is when you sing something over and over and over again.” -Maxwell 

“Beet is also a vegetable.”-Greta 

As an activity, Claire printed out pictures of fruits – each one representing a different rhythm. Peach represents a quarter note,  ap-ple represents an eighth note, and wa-ter-mel-on represents a sixteenth note. Children were prompted to create their own rhythmic patterns using pictures of fruit (i.e. peach, apple, watermelon, peach), and clap out the rhythm while chanting their pattern. 

Claire asked children to explain this activity called Fruit Salad Rhythms. 

“We’re talking about melons…? and fruits.” -Leo 

“Beat is slower and rhythm is a little faster!” -Lilly 

“We can change them! And we can make our own patten!” -Paige

Dancing Rainbow Bears – Exploring Pastels

Today the Dancing Rainbow Bears were introduced to the language of pastels. During focused explorations they were invited into the studio and had the opportunity to play and engage with this new medium. When asked what they thought about them here is what children had to say…

“Well, I kind of think they look like some chalk but I notice they are a lot more smoother.” -Theo C. 

“I like that I can make a rainbow with them and then rub it all together.” -Theo S. 

“When I move the pastels like this it makes it look bumpy!” -Evelyn

“I’m going to add colors on colors on colors, see?” -Addie

“I like to put these three colors together and then use my hands to see what happens!” -Louisa

“Maybe I will do another one!” -George

Sparkly Rainbow Bears – Collage and Meeting Bugsy

During morning meeting the Sparkly Rainbow Whales had the opportunity to meet Bugsy, after they discovered that he had munched and crunched many of the letters making up our morning message. 

“Oh my gosh, the message isn’t supposed to say ‘Ood ‘Orning “Riends. It needs to say Good Morning Friends!” -Rowan exclaimed laughing. 

Bugsy is a hungry caterpillar who loves to eat letters, but luckily the Whales were able to figure out which letters he had eaten and put them back in the right spot. 

“You need a “G” to make good!” -Tommy

“Yah, and G has a curvy line and a straight line!” -Rowan

“I know you need an “M” for morning and that has some diagonal lines in it!” -Maxwell

“And it’s not ‘Riends silly Bugsy it’s Friends! That is called the “F” and it has a lot of straight lines!” -Paige 

During focused explorations Sayle, Hanna and Etta joined Rowan’s birthday committee. They spent the morning working on the perfect collage for our friend Rowan. 

“It has to be lots and lots of rainbows because that is what Rowan will like and he is our best friend so we want it to be just what he hopes for!” -Sayle

Children decided to use scraps of paper, ribbon and feathers to create the perfect rainbow mixture!

Outdoor Explorations

In outdoor explorations today, children read the book Henry Builds a Cabin, written by D. B. Johnson, in which Henry the bear uses a variety of different tools to build himself a new cabin. This got friends excited to zoom over to the play yard and move “tool talk” from around the fire to its new location at the beginning of our new tool bench! Over the next week, children will be slowly building up their tool bench work space adding new magic there each day. While exploring tools today, children expressed the following thoughts:

“I got the nail out of the stump!” – Rowan

“It opens and closes and slides back and forth.” – Tommy

“I need the safety glasses.” – Consuelito

“I’m going to whack snow down with this hammer!” – Etta