Felt Rocks!

This morning, Paulina brought in her collection of wool. She led Wee Friends in an exploration on how to transform wool into felt. She describes:

“Continuing our rock sensorial explorations today, we explored the contrast between the cold rocks and warm wool. We also noticed that Fall is near and weather is getting cold. To make our rocks warmer and ready for winter, we learned how to felt wool and shape it into little coats for our rocks. The process involved taking little pieces of wool and laying them out flat on bubble wrap. We then dipped them into warm, soapy water and rubbed it with the bubble wrap. Finally, we let them dry outside in a sunny area.” As Paulina worked with each Wee Friend, she sang along to the action she was performing. (Ex: “rub rub rub-rub a dub dub” as the rocks were rubbed by the bubble wrap.)

This week, Addi has been very interested in the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. Her interest has been contagious and many friends have enjoyed hearing the story read 4-5 times over the last couple days. Yesterday, during an improvisation, Ada laid perfectly still with her arms over her chest, just as Sleeping Beauty did in the book. When asked “What kind of flower is SB holding?” Alexandra exclaimed “A rose!” The parts of the story that have ignited the most interest are the rose that SB holds as she sleeps, Maleficent, the wicked fairy, the prince’s kiss and the sharp needle on the spinning wheel. To our classroom, we added briar roses in the archway, a spinning wheel and a basket of roses. We played Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and let the magic unfold!

Annie’s favorite part was pricking her finger and falling into a deep sleep. Stephen like to hold the rose up to the wheel and see how fast he could spin it!

 

Jane loved holding the roses and dancing. She also enjoyed telling Maleficent “Nothing happens to me when I touch the needle!” Nate willingly wore a black scarf to become Maleficent’s assistant, the black raven. Arleigh loves scary music and wanted to hear the scary beginning of our track over and over. Umi and Alma also love dancing. They found Angelina and the Princess and after hearing it read, pretended to be princess ballerinas.

 

 

 

Kai fully embodied the Prince offering friendly kisses to revive Sleeping Beauty. He noticed how Maleficent puts chains on the Prince and enjoyed the sensation of breaking free from the scarf chains he created. Macy hid all of our roses and led her friends on a Flower Hunt.

 

 

 

Soon we had an entire court of characters telling the story!

 

 

 

 

We ended our Creative Drama experience by gathering on our rose blanket and singing “Lavender Blue” with Paulina!

 

 

 

 

Melinda played “Tingalayo”, “Down by the Bay” and “Shake My Sillies Out” on the accordian. She changed the words to the last song and friends stretched, jumped, wiggled and hopped their sillies out!

 

 

 

 

When things settled and quieted, we connected that Paulina’s wool was the very thing that the spinning wheel could spin! A few older friends explored this further.

For lunch, we served turkey and cheese on whole wheat tortillas, cranberry/pear fruit salad and fresh cherry tomatoes.

Have a great day!