Arriving at school this morning, the teachers read an email invitation which asked the Cardinal class to join lower school for assembly to hear about Martin Luther King Day, as well as watch a video and slide show montage of the beautiful Winter Program. The children eagerly walked over to the Muller Auditorium and listened as Andrea, a fourth grade teacher at AFS, showed different materials and described what we could do with them as an introduction to the concept of Community Service. This helped the children to begin to look at the small ways that they can show acts of kindness to people and places in our community. We are becoming more aware of the world and are expanding our views as we are introduced to what each one of us can do in terms of community service, such as using fabric to create hats or blankets for people who may need protection from the cold!
Next, Jason introduced the work of Michelle Podulka, one of our technology teachers and experts here, by explaining that she had created a video showcasing the different parts of the Winter Program. The children watched in awe as they saw how the lighting, dancing, costumes and music all came together during each performance. This built a sense of pride and accomplishment in what all the practice and work of the Cardinals and the rest of the school had helped to create! Also, joining the Lower School at assembly is helping the Cardinals to establish a deep connection with their older peers and the school as a whole.
After such a busy start to our day, we headed to visit Jason in the Music Room. We jumped right back into the Music routine joining Jason for the "Boom-Akalay-lay" song and the "Hello" song. The children are following beat and tempo as they listen to Jason and create the patterns of sounds that he shows us during each song.
Next, Jason introduced us to a hand drum. He asked us a very important question: "What do you notice?". As the children shared answers, such as: "It has legs", "It is a circle", "It has a white part around it", they began to acquire information about the instrument and understand how a performer would play it. The hand drum could either be held or placed on the ground for an impromptu performance. After becoming more comfortable with the instrument, the children joined Jason in playing and creating different sounds as they experimented with tapping, scraping lightly, and patting on its smooth fabric-like surface. This created musical and rhythmic patterns demonstrating volume, beat, and tempo. The children were challenged in an Echo-Response game as we listened to Jason make certain sounds of a song and then tried each part out on our own drum. At the end, we became one large musical ensemble as we all played the song together.
Our day continued to flow as the children came back to the classroom. After observing the children with water over the past few days, the teachers set up the water center with some extensions such as glass jars, eye droppers, and bins of water colored with water colors. These small extensions allowed the children to experiment with properties of a liquid such as fluidity and density. They watched as the substance could be squeezed into small eye droppers and how easily the water could move around in the larger bin. Also, the children noticed how the watercolor began in only a certain spot in the liquid as it was dropped, in but then quickly spread creating colorful water all throughout.
Building continues to be an interest in the classroom as the children often work in small groups creating buildings and larger depictions or sculptures. Today, they assembled wooden blocks, Magna Tiles and added beads to our metal trashcan sculpture. This has stimulated collaboration and cooperation in the class as the children work together to come up with a plan for their creations.
During our Center Time, the Cardinals welcomed a new visitor in our classroom with open arms. They showed their caring personalities as they introduced themselves and took the boy by the hand to the different centers and included him in various activities. His face lit up as he began building and took in all of the excitement of the classroom.
The Cardinal classroom is a place where kindness, curiosity, patience, and knowledge spread each and every day. As the group grows closer to each other in the classroom, they are becoming more confident and independent in special events that may not be a part of our everyday routine. This tremendous growth shows that we are ready for new explorations that lie ahead.
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