Colour in Nature: Where Do You Find Nature?

Yesterday while the children were playing with clay they spontaneously began to create nature scenes. Today we discussed all the places they know where nature can be found and chose a scene to create.

Here are their ideas:
"An earthquake forest" - Ryleigh
"A forest" - Tyreese
"A broken down forest" - Michael
"A zoo because tigers and lions are nature" - Billy
"A forest" - Chloe
"A forest" - Bela
"A forest with a castle made of forest stuff" - Sofia

 

 

Colour in Nature: Using Clay to Represent Nature

We've spent a lot of time exploring paint mediums and techniques to represent nature, today the children explored ways they can represent nature with clay. 

I gave the children some time to explore the clay. Ryleigh began making a snowman based on her theory "Snowmen are part of nature because you use snow to make it" Sofia agreed and tried the idea.

Sofie's snowman

It's an elephant snowman

The children followed the steps to make a disc of clay and selected things from nature to make a print. When they were finished they requested more time to play with the clay and proceeded to make scenes: a forest, the beach and a garden. What a great idea to extend! Tomorrow we will make clay nature scenes.

 

Colour in Nature: Exploring Artistic Styles and Rainbows

 RAINBOW

"Twirling Rainbow" by Ryleigh

Last week the children investigated the colours of the rainbow with Deb and they were very eager to recall what they know today! The children used the 3 primary colours to mix secondary colours so that everyone had a palette with the colours of the rainbow. Sofia's request to make red led us to discuss how the 3 primary colours can't be made from other colours but other colours can be made from mixing primary colours.

After examining a photograph of a rainbow in nature we investigated how people use different artistic styles to represent rainbows. We looked at Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract, and Expressive Abstract.

"I'm painting Moobolist"

The children painted several pictures of rainbows and you can see from the photos that they are amazing! Ryleigh noticed that her painting was similar to Cubism and Billy developed a name for his own artistic style, he said, "I'm painting Moobolist"

Several of the children enjoyed giving their painting a name:
"Cross Dotted Amazed Rainbow" - Sofia
"Thunderstorm Rainbow" - William
"Twirling Rainbow" - Ryleigh

Colour in Nature: Artist Technique Comparison

Artist Technique Comparison:

Winslow and Gauguin

On Monday the children explored the works of Winslow Homer, an artist who enjoyed painting the outdoors. He used watercolours for perspective - to create the feeling that some things in the painting were far away while other things are closer and he used colours that are true to nature.  The children experimented with the technique of wet-on-wet watercolour, painting a grassy field with mountains and sky in the background, experiencing Homer's style.

On Tuesday the children explored the works of Paul Gauguin, another artist to enjoyed painting the outdoors. The difference is that Gauguin sometimes used unusual colours to represent nature. The children experienced this by painting the same landscape they did yesterday but choosing unusual colours. Except Bela, who chose to paint in the style of Winslow because "I like real life"

Landscape with water colours

Blue grass, purple mountains and green sky

I used a Venn Diagram to compare the two artists. They both died over a hundred years ago and Michael wanted to know how they died and we learned that Winslow died quietly in his home from old age and Gauguin died from taking too much medicine by accident.

Colour in Nature: Maple Leaves

All around us leaves are changing from green to vibrant colours, 

the colours inspire the creation of many beautiful paintings such as this one by Martha Zuasmer

 

The children examined maple leaves that had been collected from  outside and labelled the colours they saw: red, light red, dark red, black and orange.

Knowing how to mix paints to created desired colours is necessary if we want to reproduce the amazing colours we see in nature. The children helped mix paint and then used the paint to make leaf prints. 

Colour In Nature: What is Nature?

Last week while the children responded to my question "What colours do you see in nature?" it became clear they didn't have a good understanding of what nature is and isn't. Debbie continued this idea and observed that some of the children were generalizing that anything outside is nature.

The children and I worked at developing criteria for nature on Monday and they sorted through pictures classifying them as nature or not nature.  I heard a side conversation by Ryleigh and Sofia who were debating if Santa Clause was nature or not nature. Ryleigh thought Santa was nature. The debate was getting heated as Sofia tried to convince Ryleigh of her opinion and said in exasperation "Well does it grow on a tree??!!"

Today we fine-tuned the criteria and came up with  . . . 

It's nature if:

it comes from a plant
it's an animal
it comes from or is part of the earth

It's not nature if:

people have made it

The children took a camera outside and had an opportunity to take 2 photos: one of nature and one not nature. I put these pictures into a power point presentation and the children presented it to the others. Sadly I don't know if there's a way to attach the Power Point onto the blog!!

Colour in Nature: New Unit Starts This Week

Central Idea:

Learning about colours helps build awareness of colours in nature

Lines of Inquiry

Colour mixing (change)

Colours in nature (connection)

People have often represented nature through the colourful, visual arts

During formative week the teachers are collecting the children's prior knowledge.  

I made an interesting observation today when I asked "Where do you find colour in nature?" 

It soon became evident that not everyone was familiar with the word nature and further discussion prompted the question "Are people a part of nature?" 

I told the children we could find out the answer and Bela suggested "Ya, look on the internet." 

So I did and found this definition of nature . . . 

the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.

So people are not nature.  

The children responded to the video we watched by noticing that 

some things in nature come in more than one colour. 

Colour in Nature

The children made a memory matching game in which they drew something from nature in one colour and then matched it to the same colour card. When Chloe drew a pink pony the children noticed that not everything in nature comes in all colours

Friendship: Summative Project

After 7 weeks of investigating How We Organize Ourselves and the role friendship plays in our lives the children are preparing for the final summative project to show what they've learned.

They've explored the qualities of a friend, what it means to be a friend and the importance of friends in their lives. They've also explored who and what can be a friend and how they know someone or something is their friend.


Rock Friends

Byrd Baylor's Everybody Needs A Rock was the catalyst to the final project. The children listened carefully to Byrd's 10 rules in selecting a rock and then chose the rock that was special to them. This week the the children are working on creating a friend in their rock and Deb will continue the process asking them specific questions that they will reflect on and respond to.

Friendship: A Friend Can Be . . .

Mem Fox's "Henwick's Egg" is about a little bandicoot who finds an egg that doesn't seem to belong to anyone. He takes it home and cares for it and soon the egg becomes his friend. Why did Henwick think the egg was his friend? Because the egg listened to Henwick's stories and when he shared his troubles. Soon Henwick figures out that the egg is actually a stone but he doesn't care, he loves it and it's his friend.

What Can Be A Friend and What Can't Be A Friend

The purpose of this activity was not to have our ideas be right or wrong but to think about our thinking.  The children looked at a variety of pictures; a baby, a teacher, a dog, a slide, a teddy bear, a tree, and I asked . . .

"Can this be your friend?"

"Why do you think this?"

It was interesting as the children identified their own criteria of what makes a something a friend.

"A dog can't be your friend because it can't smile, a teddy bear can be 

your friend because it's smiling" - Billy

"A tree can be your friend because it gives us apples." Michael

"A teddy bear can't be a friend because it can't talk" - Ryleigh

"A baby can be your friend because you can snuggle them" - Sofia

"A dog can be your friend because you can play ball with it" - Bela

"A slide can be a friend because I like it" - Chloe

Friends Criteria

they smile at me

they give me things

they talk with me

they snuggle me

they play with me

they like me

Friendship: Joining In

The story "Say Hello" by Jack and Michael Foreman is about two different approaches to joining in a game. A group of children are playing ball at the playground when a dog comes along and wants to play. At first the dog feels left out and lonely but then asks if he can play and joins in. Next comes a boy who wants to play. He feels left out and alone and watches and watches.

Tyreese had an idea "He forgot to ask!"

In the end the dog notices the boy standing alone and invites him to play and he joins in.

Joining a group of playing children is an important skill.
Why do you suppose the boy didn't ask if he could join in?
"He didn't think about it"
"He was scared"

Maybe he didn't know what to say. We played a game of Ring Around the Rosie with two people. The children practiced asking if they could join one by one.

Playing Ring Around the Rosy

"Can I play with you?"

Joining in!

Friendship: Is Sharing Easy or Hard?

Yesterday I asked the children what friendship means.

"Sharing"- Ryleigh

"Making bracelets" - Sofia

"Racing" - William

I used their ideas to plan todays group time. "The Best Gift of All" is a story that identifies friendship being the best gift of all rather than material things.

The children made bead bracelets. As they exercised hand-eye co-ordination and focused on stringing the tiny beads I asked if they would share their bracelets or keep them. At first everyone except Tyreese said they would keep their bracelets. After a reminder that sharing is different than giving away they decided they would share their bracelet.

Who will you share it with?

My little brother - Bela

My brother - Michael

My mom and my brother even though he's mean to me - Ryleigh

My dad - Billy

My sister - Chloe

Later in the day, I noticed that some chose to share with other children at school.

Is sharing hard or easy?

The children reflected on this and had 4 choices; easy, hard, a little bit easy or a little bit hard 

A little bit hard - Bela and Ryleigh

A little bit easy - Billy and Chloe

Easy - Tyreese

Hard - Michael