January 7th, 2010

Blog Manager:

“We did centers. We did the fish game. We used blue and yellow to make green. The hardest part of painting was when I first started doing it cause I’ve never did that before. Because my mommy never thought I could paint. The only thing I’ve did else painting is coloring. It made a tons of green.” –Jelani

“(In my story) I was working the ice princess. I couldn’t find the ice princess." -Lhitzy

Today we read another book about color mixing! In the atelier, we used cyan/blue and yellow to mix different hues of green. Instead of just paint brushes, we also experimented with sponges, foam wedges and rollers to mix the paint.

We were able to create amazing texture with our various painting tools!

We experimented and found out that if we added extra blue to our paintings, it made darker greens. If we added more yellow to our paintings it made lighter greens. Who knew!?

Since two artists had to share both an easel and paint cups, this activity provided an opportunity to practice our negotiation skills. We practiced asking, "May I have the yellow when you are done?" and responding, "Yes, as soon as I am finished with it!" We also practiced patience as we waited for the sponges and rollers.

We continued to write down our precious stories today! Some of us wrote about rats, some of us wrote about our parents, and some of us made up stories about other types of animals. We are real authors and it is important to tell our stories through pictures and words.

We discussed and practiced strategies to spell words we don't know. We realized that there are commonly spelled words all around our classroom (like on the mailboxes) that can help us with our writing!

Some authors just use illustrations to tell their stories, some use words. Both are great techniques to communicate our ideas!

Some of us are ready to add letters or words to our writing! We use our alphabet sheets to help us identify and form the letters we hear.

We use other tools such as puzzles, word cards and sand letter cards to expand our understanding of written language, as well!

We discuss the shape, names and sounds of letters as we play with alphabet puzzles!

Word cards with bright pictures help us realize that print holds meaning and that objects can be described by words! They also help us solidify our identity as readers and we develop self-efficacy by "reading" the cards by looking at the illustrations.