solving problems

Day 2 of "walking the beat"....much better concentration from the whole group, although we are still working on complete focus and not yelling at eachother to "watch out" or "move!" every two seconds. The primates (of course) are anxious to be the drummer, but that only comes after we master the beat walk. I think this activity is a good exercise in focus and concentration, which are essential skills in any area of learning.

We added paper weaving as an after snack choice today, and to my surprise, it was a big hit with the boys. They are weaving strips of Bon Appetit magazine into construction paper, and this produces an interesting pattern, but as I watched them weave, I realized it is too difficult to plan clear patterns using the magazine strips. So the focus of this activity using these materials will be on the skill of weaving, and once we've messed about with that enough, I'll switch to solid color strips so we can focus on color patterns. Perhaps then we'll switch back to the magazines, or at least add them as a choice with the stipulation that they must use them carefully and thoughtfully to create a clear pattern. That will definitely require strong spatial and logical skills.

Our fairy houses survived the night, and walking past them this morning, I was truly impressed. One primate led a small group in making a "fairy forest"--which looks fantastic. He wanted to write the words "fairy forest" on a shell so people would know what it is, but we are sticking to the fairy house rule of using only natural materials. I suggested using pine needles, but wondered what we could use to stick them to the shell. Sap was suggested by another primate, but we were unsure of where to get sap. Today I brought in pine needles and will bring in some natural beeswax I got from a beekeeper so we can try that as an adhesive. The forest primate is a strong reader, very linguistic, so it's interesting that he felt so strongly about adding words to his creation.

We also discussed the meaning of "traditions", and I introduced an annual tradition in my class. Every year we have a huge, whole school celebration called "Stew Day" on the day before Thanksgiving. It is my favorite day of the school year--all about community. My class has performed the story, "Twas the night before Thanksgiving" for the past 3 years, and this year I told them I'd like to act out the story to a song...the theme from Superman--really a great piece of music. I've been thinking about it for awhile and have some ideas of how we will map out the story to match the music, but the primates will choose their parts, create props, and we will collaborate on the dance. We've done some work in the past with Captain Carl, the dance man, and I hope the primates will use what they learned from him--I know I will--as we create this piece together. They are excited about the song (I played it for them), and creating the props. We'll read the story every day for the rest of the week and collect ideas on chart paper. Monday afternoon we will choose parts and begin rehearsing. We discussed how traditions evolve over time as they are passed on to different groups. Real world learning at it's best!