Exploring Lines

H was carefully drawing lines. 

She made little curve with her felt.

                                               They are going to the water Park.

                                        Mama Mermaid, Dada Mermaid and baby Mermaid.

                                         There is a monster.

•My Reflection :

This is a completely new concept for me to encourage children with drawing lines. I was wondering how I can introduce this activity to my preschoolers. What will they do –will they stick to just drawing lines?  Will they scribble or draw something else? It filled all of  my thoughts this wonder and I was curious to observe them. Morning Class –when all of the children came -I sat down with them and on a large paper drew a line with a felt and told them ,”This is a line.” I Also  encouraged them to find some lines from around our class room. They all were excited to find lines –they pointed table edge, poster  , ceiling, door - everywhere they found lines. Once we finished our line hunting adventure, I set the art table with felts and large white paper for each child.

•I was observing all of them and they all were drawing lines carefully .Some of them were interested to change the felt color as well. “H” was using brown felt for her lines-she drew a few lines and told me –Teacher, look, water –I was wondering what she was trying to draw. I said, I can see you drew some lines –I can see that its look like water. She made a little curve with the felt which gave the water little wave .She was changing her felt color, sometimes she picked green and sometimes yellow. She was enthusiastically drawing and took a long time to finish her art. Once she was done, she said—inside the water there are Mama Mermaid, dada mermaid and baby Mermaid. They are  going to the water park .I noticed that all of them were holding hands-she said ,they are holding hands or they will be lost. Finally she drew another figure and said –look this is sea monster-all mermaid need to hide now.

DADDY FOUND A TREASURE

I am making a boat.

                                          A said, "My water is green." M said, "My one is blue."

                                               I am making big red boats-too many waves.

                                           H said, "red ship will save your boat!"

                                             My dad found treasure.

MY REFLECTION:

•Children were excited to share what they were doing with the felt pens and drawing lines.When I showed the photos of their activities they really enjoyed looking at them.  It was amazing to observe their conversation and sharing with each other. They were reminding their peers and recalling information about the activity.

•I set up the activity on a large paper for a small group of children. I had a great time observing the way they were interacting with each other.

•M was drawing a boat and other girls drew boats as well using different colours. They were talking and helping  each other .M said her dad pressed the green button and he found lots of treasure from the sea. He found it a long time ago .H joined with us while we were sharing the photos-she said a Red ship helped your boat-because sea monster will come soon.

•I think this group activity was helping the children communicate and share the experience with each other. They were respectful ,cooperative and enthusiastic while doing this activity I was glad to observe how drawing lines  took the children to a detailed imaginary world!

Seeds Grow

We have been  learning about plants for the past two weeks. It was a huge and interesting  topics to covered with the preschoolers.  I encouraged the children to collect seeds and branches from home and outside while we were walking. We were sharing our thoughts and ideas about seeds and fruit when we were having our morning and afternoon snacks. Planting is a very interesting activity for most of the children.They feel valued and respectful when they have the opportunity to engage with this practical activity. I grabbed some Mung bean from my home and saved some avocado seeds for our science experiments in the classroom. Once I placed them with the magnifying glasses,Alhamdulillah, it was amazing to observe  how excited and curious the children were.They were putting the seeds in the cup with soaked cotton balls, they also buried the seeds inside the pot with soil.  All of them were so excited to pour water into the pot. They were sharing their ideas about what they have in their back yards, what they have seen in the garden, what kind of fruit they love to eat, etc. I asked who created all the plants for us, and they said Allah!