A week in Garnet: 100 Days of School, Simple Machines, Naturescapes, and Holi!

100 Days of School, Simple Machines, Naturescapes, and Holi!

with our Kinder band, Garnet

by Melissa

I can't believe that we have hit our 100th day of school already. We celebrated the day with the Diamond and Citrine bands, enjoying a number of fun 100-related activities. Some of our activities included building structures with 100 cups and 100 blocks, drawing 100 cats, and making necklaces with 100 Cheerios. It was thanks to the kids' days of school record keeping that we do each morning in morning meeting that helped us know the day had arrived.

The Machine Arc is a hit! We have been exploring simple machines: levers, pulleys, wedges, wheels and axles, inclined planes, and screws. The kids have been pointing them out and creating with them constantly. The wood and blue blocks provide so many opportunities for them to explore them. We spent a day observing the shapes that make them up, and created our own out of cardboard on the laser cutter. The kids don't know this yet, but we will be using these explorations and tools to create a simple machine playground for stuffies with the Diamond and Lapis bands. We are excited to see where their imaginations and iterations will take the project.

With Rob, the kids have been working on a multi-week project creating naturescapes out of wood. They began by gluing bits of redwood bark onto wood to create land masses. This past Wednesday, they started painting in the water. Rob provided them with white, light blue, and dark blue paint. The kids very quickly made the observation that darker blue portions mean deeper waters. They are excited to add plants and animals to their projects.

We all had the best time celebrating Holi on Friday. We led up to the day by reading a couple of books about Holi including Festival of Colors. We began our celebration on Friday with a Bollywood dance class that was out of this world. The kids loved it and were so good :) Check them out doing the entire routine with the teacher just giving hints at the moves. I was blown away by the dance teacher who taught 4 classes across all ages with a different dance for each class that all the kids enjoyed! Our afternoon activities included henna, face painting, mandalas, and more, then all culminating in playing Holi. 

This week we will continue our exploration of clocks and telling time and begin our simple machine playground project.