Week Thirty Five: Butterflies
Week Thirty Five: Butterflies
It has been a week filled with returning to favourite centres and activities, getting outside as much as we can, and finding new ways to represent butterflies. Enjoy our photo story!
S is creating a unique butterfly design on the Light Table. Carefully, she selects her materials and places them into position. She comments that her butterfly is identical on both sides, and I remind her that that's called symmetry.
K plays a big game of Sight Word Bingo with M (out of frame). She picks a card, reads the word, matches it to the tracking grid, and then works with M to find as many as they can on their cards. There is a lot of working memory involved in this activity.
S spends time creating plasticine butterflies at the Art Centre. Again, she wants to ensure that her butterfly is the same on both sides. She tells me that she is folding it down the middle because that's what butterflies look like.
We have a visitor today, K, who will be joining us in September for SK. Z eager welcomes K into the classroom and is showing her the ropes at the Building Centre. Together, the girls build some pretty impressive structures, and later add gems to make them beautiful.
After spending some time practicing her addition, G decides to arrange the ants. I am constantly impressed by her spatial awareness, and the ways in which she is able to create geometric designs with any material she finds.
G is working at the Light Table to create another type of butterfly. This one has antennas, eyes, and beautiful wings. The care that she takes as she designs is incredible, and demonstrates such growth from September.
Z is designing her own plasticine butterfly, and is using our National Geographic: Bugs book for inspiration. It is obvious that she is also working toward creating a symmetrical design. I love how she brought toothpicks over to the table to help her add details to the different colours. She inspired a lot of girls to try this technique as well.
G uses a toothpick to add details to her butterfly design. She has a vision, and she is finding ways to realize it. I love all of the beautiful colours on her butterfly.
S is hard at work at the Building Centre. She challenges herself as she creates a structure that requires balance and patience. Her structure ends up toppling over a couple of times, but she is quick to rebuild it and try again!
M is working on Scratch Jr. and adding to her story. Here, she is selecting a character for a new scene. Her story depicts characters moving through the seasons, and she intentionally includes objects as well as people and animals.
G and Z work together at the coding board game. They decide to include more than two animals and end up telling a story with the pieces. I am amazed at how quickly and easily these girls have understood pathways and sequencing. We have some early coders on our hands!
S shows me her geoboard design. She was excited to use this material and explore the ways in which she could position the elastic bands to create unique shapes and patterns.
K is working on making a butterfly for our Imaginary Garden wall in the classroom. G shows her the shape that she needs to draw on her folded paper, and then K gets to work cutting it out. The girls learn so much from each other every day.
We have decided to take Writer's Workshop outside and bring our books to the park. G is mesmerized by the "helicopters" falling out of the trees, and the ways in which they spin to the ground. She is fully engaged in writing a piece about this experience.
G is in charge of creating our June calendar. Inspired by the bubble numbers that Z used last month, she tries writing them out herself. Eventually, she doesn't even need to trace our magnetic numbers!
K and G spot an inchworm on the bridge down in the ravine. They quickly call me over, and we all watch it move its body along the bridge. Nature is a beautiful thing.