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Weekly Update March 20 - Noodles, Dragons and Leprechauns, Oh My!



Reminders:




Creating a Chinese Dragon Dance: Hands-On Preschool Art & Teamwork


We finished up our adventure in China with a bang! We tried a taste of China with some yummy noodles (Ramen!) at snack time; they were a fan favorite. We also used our fine motor skills to work on observational art by replicating the Chinese symbol for the Year of the Horse with black watercolor. We practiced to "see" like an artist does and break down the image into basic lines and patterns. Then bring those smaller lines to paper with our paint brush one line at a time until we made the symbol. Last week we learned that this symbol signifies hard work, perseverance, innovation, and ambition. Why not put this symbolism into action and build our own Chinese New Year Parade Dragon!


While the Chinese New Year festival originated in China 3,500 years ago, we learned that it has been celebrated all over the world through lively street parades since 1860 in places such as London, Singapore and San Fransico. To gain inspiration to create our own FHS dragons, we watched the Chinese New Year Parade that happened in Chinatown in New York City. Watching the parade provided visual, auditory, and cultural inspiration. As a group, we reflected on what we saw that could inspire us. We observed the movement of the dragon to the lively drumming music and the vibrant red and gold colors. We also noticed the structure of its shape and the need for lots of people to bring the dragon to life. Together, we brainstormed how to make this beautiful moving artwork come alive so we could put on a dragon dance in our classroom!


Time for some teamwork! Working together to create one piece of art helps develop essential social, emotional, and cognitive skills that are more difficult to practice during individual activities. This helps children move from parallel play to genuine collaboration. Teamwork helps them navigate turn-taking, compromise, and problem-solving. Together in small groups, we all worked on different parts of building our 2 dragons. We explored what recyclable materials we could use, such as boxes, egg cartons and fruit cups, we used one of our paint cloths as the body. Who would have thought our table protectors could be art we were unknowingly making all year! We used our fine and gross motor skills to paint, glue, build and create texture and 3-dimensional art. Both of our dragons were beautiful and unique and brought a great sense of pride to our friends.


Time to dance! We listened to some traditional Chinese dragon dancing music and took turns being the head and body of the dragon. Since our friends couldn't see well under the dragon body as we danced and marched, they needed to use all their senses and spatial awareness to work together not to fall down. This was a wonderful display of art and cooperation.


Off to Ireland we go: St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Activities Inspired by Ireland!


What better place to travel to for St. Patrick's Day than Ireland! We looked at our globe and world map to learn that we cannot drive there from Fox Hill School, we must take a plane or boat. We explored books and photos to learn that Ireland is very green from all the rain. A shamrock is Ireland's most famous plant and represents luck. Our friends learned the tricolors of the flag and practiced painting it on our easel.


For art this week, we created a negative space four leaf clovers with paint daubbers. This focuses on creating the art background in order to create a blank image. Our friends practiced grasping the large daubers and focusing on filling in the area against and around the clover. We also practiced stamping corks in paint to create clovers and then paint fine lines for the stems. We created a Blarney Stone with paint to look like limestone. Our friends followed the legand to recieve the "gift of gab" by leaning back and putting a hand kiss on the stone.


In music, we explored the Irish music through the sounds of fiddles, whistles and bagpipes. We watched a video to learn about the Irish step dancing and then practiced on our own. This type of dance takes lots of coordination, spatial awareness and gross motor skills as you keep your arms down to your side while you quickly move your feet on your toes and perform high knees and kicks.


Leprechaun Shenanigans: A Fun, Play-Based Learning Experience!


Uh oh! Good thing we read " The Night Before St. Patrick's Day" by Natasha Wing on Monday becuase something happened to our classrooms on St. Patrick's Day Eve overnight. Our friends found that some mischief had occurred. Little green footprints covered our school, markers were out of sorts, pictures were upside down, coins were everywhere and the toilet water was green!! Hmmmm, Who could have done this?! A leprechaun perhaps. Well, now we have lots of work to do! We used our sorting skills to put all of our markers back in the correct color cups and our tray materials back on the right shelf. We used our magnifying glasses to look for all the coins and return them to the sensory table. We also used our counting skills to see how many footprints we could find.




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