What we did at the beach
In conjunction with their study of sea life, it was off to Spa Beach for the Junior Kindergartners. There they met four graduate students from USF who, using a giant seine net, helped the children collect sea life specimen. In addition to examining what they found, the children had a job to do - collecting seaweed that will be used to fertilize their garden beds over the summer. Additional fun included wading in the water, playing in the sand and picnicking on the beach.
à la Jackson Pollock
With the help of guest expert Mrs. Rawls, the Alpha students learned about artist Jackson Pollock. After they learned about the artist’s splatter technique, paint flew as the children put it into action by splattering T-shirts that will be worn during their end-of-the-year party. They even used a variation of the technique to prepare their snack by using squeeze bottles to drizzle icing onto their cookies !
Swat that fly
That pesky fly, the one on the string held by Ms. Wiltshire, just wouldn’t stop jumping on the paper, but the children in Alpha were persistent in their efforts to stop it. Of course, in the process, the fact that the swatters were dipped in paint added to the excitement and hilarity!
No obstacle too great
Enter the sea by passing through the hanging seaweed, travel through the bioluminescent underwater cave on a body scooter, then carefully cross over the alligator infested waters by balancing on the stumps protruding above the “water” surface. What fun it was to navigate their way through the “underwater” obstacle course while avoiding the extra hazard of the alligator drawn by one of the students!
Trash or beautiful stuff?
For the last few weeks, the Alpha students have been engaged with beautiful stuff - the broken jewelry, buttons, recycled material and more they’d brought in to share. After talking about about ththem, the children discovered there were many ways to sort the items, and spent time organizing them into groups of similar attribute. The “stuff” was used to create temporary arrangements pleasing to their eyes before choosing what they thought would be the perfect items to replicate their own faces. After the faces were dry and mounted on paper, the children engaged in the final step of creating their bodies to complete these unique self portraits!
More of this week’s fun
Engaging in free creative art with dimension, building unique fish sculptures, creating people from the Handwriting pieces and observing their caterpillars and chrysalises were just some of other experiences in Alpha this week.
In JK, the children enjoyed participating in our first Senior Celebration March - high-fiving the seniors two days before graduating, creating an octopus for snack from hot dogs and pasta, hunting for buried treasure with their toes and using marine life manipulatives in the water table during last week’s exploring.
