Exploring Reflective and Translucent Materials Part One

We’ve recently acquired a huge lot of scrapbook paper and in it I found some really cool reflective card stock and velum paper for the kids to explore. As I was playing with it and thinking of how to introduce the materials to the children, I discovered that the reflective surface of the card stock bounces light onto the velum in an interesting way so that it casts some really cool light patterns on paper. I was thinking the kids might want to use these materials to create some structures.

As I worked one of the children noticed my little experiment and asked if she could play with the paper too. Then everyone wanted some reflective paper so I invited all the kids to come over and see what I was doing. I demonstrated how they could catch light, bounce it off the reflective surface and cast pools of light on the wall. Then we discussed how the bouncing light is different from casting shadows but both require movement and light.

Pretty soon they were experimenting with pieces of reflective card stock in different ways. They chose various sizes and shapes to see how each one bounced light. We experimented by changing the level of the light in the room to see how the ambient light affected the intensity reflections cast on the walls. As they worked the children discovered that larger pieces of card stock were easier to capture and move light. We also noticed that the bounced light was easier to see when half of the room was darkened and that the shape of the light was effected by the size of the reflective surface.

After our work I decided to extend their thinking about reflective and translucent materials by setting up this provocation:

Materials:

Metal lids, Plastic lids, Reflective paper, Translucent paper, Iridescent paper Wax paper, Flash lights, Scotch tape, Scissors

The idea of translucent and reflective surfaces is not entirely new to the children as we have explored these concepts many times before, however its been a while and the concepts were a little foggy for some. As a refresher I demonstrated the words “translucent” and “reflective” by using a flashlight and translucent / reflective objects.

During our breakfast discussion we used the flashlights to determine which objects were translucent and which objects were reflective. Later the children sorted items in both categories according to their properties. As they worked they used flashlights to shine on the surface of their choosing, if the light beam penetrated the surface it was deemed translucent and if the light beam bounced off the surface it was reflective. 

Some of the things the children discovered in their play:

Carmen was really interested in the way the tinfoil held its shape. She collected a huge quantity of it after all the kids left and wrapped it around several things on the table then shined her flashlight on the sculptures. As she worked she peeked in the holes of her wrapped objects then shined her light in the holes to see how they looked.

Yoli seemed to be interested in the way light and color bounced around on the iridescent cellophane as she crumpled it in her hands. Most of her exploring was done using only the ambient light in the room. She and the other girls got to work making a collage of iridescent cellophane and scotch tape on the reflective card stock.  

Will experimented by covering his flash light beam with wax paper and colored plastic. He was also really fascinated by the reflective surface inside my studio lights. His questions sparked an in depth conversation that brought all of the boys out of the building area to investigate. We opened up the studio lights and talked about how the reflective surface around the bulb bounces light and the cover of the soft box softens it.

Playing with Packing Peanuts

A while back we worked on this foam project with hammers, wooden beads and tiny colored rods. The kids had such a great time constructing and deconstructing it that I wanted to revisit foam sculptures another day. After the kids explored the materials for a week or so, we hung up the foam with the pieces that remained stuck in its surface to serve as an abstract art piece in the building area. 

Then we did about a thousand other projects while we waited for inspiration to strike again.  

As luck would have it my neighbor Roselyn saved us a huge stash of packing peanuts, and delivered them right to our front porch just before spring break. After the kids came back we got a second great gift; a big bin of really cool scrapbook paper from my friend Colleen. Our storage space is limited so I wanted to come up with some way to use large quantities of both items fairly quickly. Meanwhile I kept moving this annoying little surplus supply of toothpicks around the room because I hadn’t quite found a home for it then I remembered how much the kids liked stabbing things in foam so we got to work seeing what the kiddies could come up with using all three things. Then I tossed in some bamboo skewers just because they were taking up space too.

The introduction for this project was pretty simple I demonstrated how we could use toothpicks to attach paper to our already existing foam sculpture, I was thinking they might want to continue building “a town” as an extension of something they were working on in the building area.  

I asked the kids what they knew about toothpicks and bamboo skewers.

Sam said “They are pokey and if you don’t be careful you will hurt yourself.”

Enough said. Without further instruction I turned them loose on the project. The kids were pretty careful with all the “pokey” stuff, they only needed a reminder or two not to get the sticks too close to their faces when they became so absorbed in their work that they weren’t paying attention to where their body was in relation to the skewers. 

Sam made a boat with pedals.

Addie and Logan made trees.

Carmen practiced poking a lot of toothpicks in foam and paper, she seemed fascinated by the process.

Will made a “forest” of bamboo skewer trees.

At some point in their work the kids discovered that packing peanuts are super fun to throw around the room. 

Ms. Geraldine did not agree with them but in the interest of avoiding the role of fun governor I simply reminded them that it would be their responsibility to pick it all up. Those magic words ended the building part of our foam exploration and started a rollicking game of EXCAVATOR....

Apparently the only rules to the game of excavator are:

1. The participants must throw ALL of the packing peanuts as far and as high as they can go by making their arms in the shape of an excavator bucket. 

1. Everyone must scream really loud and run really fast despite several warnings of impending death or maiming by the fun governor.

1. Once you are finished playing “EXCAVATOR” you must wander off and pretend you weren’t playing that game so that you aren’t responsible for cleaning up any of the mess.

Needless to say I am not cool with cleaning up little people’s messes so we had to revise rule number three.

3.) Find a fun and interesting way to clean up the packing peanuts so Ms. Geraldine’s head doesn’t spin off of her shoulders. 

Turns out that was an awesome rule change because everyone enjoyed at least an extra half hour scooping packing peanuts up into dump trucks and using various items to create makeshift “garbage trucks”. Once most of foam was cleaned up I decided to reward their efforts by giving them the blow dryer to experiment with the last few peanuts.

It was a blast!

Fine motor fun

The kiddies are back from spring break and I whipped up these little guys in a matter of minutes for some fine motor fun. All you need to make a fun little fine motor friend of your own are some small beads, goggly eyes, pipe cleaners, mustaches / mouths and some recycled plant containers.

Directions: 

Push two pipe cleaners through the bottom of the pot so that they are form an X inside the bottom of the container then secure it with tape.

Flip the pot upside down and attach googly eyes and a mouth or a mustache to make a face. (I used a glue gun for the eyes and the mouths were left over foam stickers from Valentine’s day.)

Place a small cup full of beads and your fine motor friend in a rimmed tray to catch any fallen beads then let your little go to town!

The kids worked at this for quite some time. They took turns filling the pipe cleaners up with beads then pulling them all off again and watching them scatter on the tray.

Super heros are here to save the day!

We recently inherited a large collection of super heros and villains which the children very quickly fell in love with. They wanted me to answer all sorts of super hero questions like: who are they? what are their super powers? How do they fight the bad guys? Alas I am only a girl and I wasn’t really allowed to watch much T.V. as a kid, so I really didn’t have very many answers for them. I told them what I knew about Bat Man and Spider Man, then I encouraged them to imagine their own super powers. They were pretty content with that for a while but as they imagined questions kept coming.  

Since they were so interested I decided we should consult the internet to to a little research to fuel their imaginations. 

Mostly we searched for the early versions of super hero cartoon trailers in hopes of avoiding anything too violent or scary. The kids were in love with all the cheezy 60’s jingles and they were awed by the super hero costumes. 

During our youtube research we watched as Wonder Woman received her magic bracelets and tiara from her mother then Captain America demonstrated his ability to toss his shield in the air to stop evil doers and Spider Man shot his webs to swing from rooftops and catch thieves. My personal favorite were the wonder twins because they could turn into anything and they used team work to solve problems.

The crowd favorites are spiderman, batman and Wonder Woman (otherwise known as Womanlady by Will).

During one of our group discussions the kids revealed what they already know about super heros and this is what they had to say: 

As superhero is someone who saves someone else - sam

Sometimes bad guys will fight em’  - Jackson

Woman - lady pushes bad guys. - will

Super heros save the day! - Logan

Wonder woman spins and turns into magic. - Sam

She has magic bracelets and a magic bathing suit.  Will

Captain America has a magic cape. - Will

He has magic shoes and a magic mask and a magic had and floppy ears.  - Jackson

Spiderman sprays houses with his magic webs. - Logan

Spiderman swings form his web. Then he shoots the web from his hand then he swinged on it. Then he jumped from one building to another. - Sam

Then he saved a car. - Jackson

Addie and Carmen did not have much to say on the subject but they thought the songs and woman - lady’s sparkly go go boots and “swimsuit” were pretty cool.

As we talked about super heros I introduced some new concepts and words to spark their imaginations. We talked about lairs and fortresses, ways to capture an evil doer and the many ways a super hero could rescue a victim ensuring justice is served. 

After our group discussion and research about super heros we set up a super hero play scene so the children could continue developing stories of their own. As they worked they built lairs for the evil doers, fortresses for the good guys and tissue paper fireballs to toss between the two. They were very animated and involved in their play but not once did anyone so carried away with their characters that they actually hurt anyone. 

When it was all said and done I asked the children, “What were you imagining in the super hero area?”

Logan - I made a big tower for batman. The bad guys knocked over his house and Batman yelled at him. He has wings and he flies.

Sam - I was building towers for bad guys and super heros for them to knock down. The only superhero I like is superman - not superman but spiderman. Spiderman is my favorite superhero.

Spiderman was fighting the bad guys so they don’t do any more evil stuff. 

Will -  I was building a bad guy and I knocked the bad guy down and I screamed at him. Cuz he was pushing me. 

I asked the children, “Does hitting and screaming at people solve problems in real life?”

“No, they will get hurt.” - Sam 

“If somebody pushes you and hits you in real life you will walk away.” - Logan

“You can just fly up you can change into a rocket ship and fly away from the bad guy.” Jackson

“I would say No! I don’t like it.” -  Addie

 “And when somebody hits you I not hitting somebody. I say I don’t like it!!!! and get patience.” Logan

 “If somebody is hitting me I would say apologize!”  - Sam

Spin Art

We are eagerly awaiting spring! If it can't be springish outside we will make it spring inside with spin art.

Materials: baby food jars, small spoons, white, blue, red and yellow paints, Salad spinner

First we mixed up our own pastel paints by adding white to the primary colors and stirring them in baby food jars. As the colors mixed, the children watched the paint became lighter and lighter with each extra glop of white paint until it was a lovely shade of pastel pink, pastel blue, pastel yellow or pastel green. 

We took turns placing a piece of paper in the salad spinner then dropping scoops of paint in the center of the paper.

The children all gathered around to watch as the colors splattered on the inside of the spinner leaving a lovely striped pattern all along the outside of the salad spinner. It took a lot of upper body strength to push the spinner down! 

Once we were finished, our projects had a beautiful marbled effect. 

Happy Spring!

Day Two: Working with Mosaic Tiles

Yesterday we worked with mosaics and the children figured out how to use a square and a triangle to create a house. One house turned into a neighborhood, one neighborhood turned into several neighborhoods and the final result included backyards, garages and an ever evolving story about the people who lived there. 

Taking a cue from the kids work, I decided to continue their understanding about shapes and patterns by setting up stations to practice replicating more complex patterns. I knew the task was going to be pretty tricky for them because it involved a lot of complex mental work. First the children had to determine the kind of tiles needed, then they had to choose correct number of shapes to complete the project. After that they had to take the image apart in their minds and then recreate it on paper. I’m exhausted just thinking about all that thinking!

Before starting the project I asked the children not to take the teacher made designs apart so that everyone would have a chance to try all of the designs. I also set up a few other projects so that they could choose to work somewhere else if they needed a break from our complicated task. 

Our original set up:

Watching the kids, I discovered that some of the designs were too difficult for them to recreate so I reconfigured them into simpler designs. When the children got stuck in their work I talked them through the process of recreating the design. 

Some of the questions I asked to provoke their thinking included:

“What shape do you think you will need next?”

“How many triangles do you notice?”

“Hmmm it looks like your design is not quite the same, what do you think is different?” 

Some of the children were really into the project and they were focused like laser beams in their work. Other children floated in and out of the area working for a while, then moving on to try something else. When one of the main builders in the mosaic area had a breakthrough, the others came flocking back to see the new idea or experiment with the new information.

While Addie was working on this rocket ship she became frustrated that she couldn't quite figure it out. She paced around the table rubbing her eyes, and wringing her hands as she puzzled over what was wrong with her copy of the design. She walked away from the table for a few minutes looking pretty frazzled. Since she seemed to be working through her frustration on her own I sat back and let her to her figure it out on her own. After a few minutes she came back to take another look at the two designs. Sam watched Addie then studied the two rockets for a moment. A look of surprise crossed his face as he realized the problem. He offered to fix her trapezoid so that she could complete the design, Addie accepted his help gratefully then continued her work. 

Once everyone had decided they were done recreating patterns, I opened the area up to allow them to generate their own designs. I found it interesting that all of the children tended to choose one or two kinds of tiles to work with. I wondered if they were trying to gain a better understanding of how to use specific shapes, or perhaps they were continuing the sorting project we had done the day before.

Carmen seemed particularly interested in the green triangles. As she worked she stood them upright - this was unlike any of the work the other children were doing at the time. She accidentally knocked them over several times as she reached for more triangles, then she patiently stood them back up again and counted them by placing a finger on each one, saying random numbers.

Logan watched her for a moment then added some standing mosaics to his work.

Sam watched Carmen and Logan then decided he wanted to make a “domino” game.  

After some experimenting with standing tiles, all of the other children moved on to various different projects and Sam was left to continue his work alone. 

Using what he had learned from our force and motion projects, Sam devised a domino game that involved shooting a marble at a row of dominoes. He tried straight rows and then curved rows. As he worked I overheard him saying things like “Grrrr!!! I keep knocking them down but I’m not going to give up Ms. Geraldine.” 

Eventually Sam’s hard work paid off and he created a cause and effect game in which the marble pushed a row of dominoes, that pushed the end domino off the table and into a bucket. When he was finally successful, he enthusiastically shared his discovery with all the other children. 

Everyone came running back to the table begging for marbles and buckets so they could recreate the domino project for themselves. Sam offered to let the other children try his “invention”, then he taught them how to set their dominoes and buckets up for themselves. He also helped the other children figure out what went wrong when their projects didn’t give the desired dropping in the bucket grand finale.  

As for Carmen, she watched all the excitement for a few minutes then settled in for a nice quiet story time with her baby - completely unaware of all the domino fun she had instigated with her upright green triangles. 

Colored Mosaic Tiles

Shape sorting

Materials: Colored mosaic tiles, lazy susan, sorting tray, smaller trays, 6 sheets plain white paper, one piece paper for recording the number of tiles in each group

Set up:

• Place sorting tray in the center of the table on top of the lazy susan and place one mosaic piece in each compartment. 
• Tape piece of white paper in each work space and set out a marker.
• Place a small container with a few handfuls of tiles for sorting.

Step one: Sort

We worked together to sort the mosaic pieces according to color and shape. As the children worked, they needed to be patient with peers and take turns to spin the lazy susan to reach the compartment they needed to put their pieces in. We also worked on identifying each color / shape and reconfiguring the shapes to make larger shapes.

Step two: Count

We emptied each collection of tiles into a container and counted them. When we were finished counting, I placed a tile on a piece of paper and wrote the number next to it. As we worked the children made guesses as to which pile contained the most or least numbers of tiles in it.

Step three: Design and Draw

Each child had a piece of paper taped on the table in front of them to create designs and a marker to add details. The theme most of the children chose was “bad guy traps” - a carry over from something they were working on with larger building materials during free play. As they worked a story about bad guys unfolded in which the bad guys needed to be trapped. 

Some of the children had other ideas about things they would like to create with the tiles, but they were interested in the bad guy trap story and asked questions as they worked on their own designs. 

Sam made a fox and a lotus flower.

Carmen sorted her pieces into loose piles around her paper and colored between the tiles. She also worked on naming the colors and shapes on her paper.

Step Four: take a break and revisit

After concentrating for quite a while, the children moved on to jumping, running and dancing around the room. (This is a very important part of their work children because it gives them a chance to process what they already learned so that they can come back to the activity focused and ready to learn more.) 

Later Sam looked interested in building again so I showed him how to build a house using the mosaics. He came up with an alternate plan using one square and one triangle, then he added “driveways” by drawing two parallel lines in front of the “houses” and “garages” on his page.

Step Five: Teach a friend what you know

After watching Sam’s work I called the other children over to see his plan for buildng a house. We talked about how a collection of houses is called a neighborhood. I asked Sam to explain what he was doing so that other people might be able to make houses if they wanted to. Sam walked the other children through the step by step process he used to create his project, then he recreated some houses on the paper of the children who were still confused by the process. After watching Sam’s demonstration, the girls decided to make some houses for themselves. 

Logan, Jackson, Will and Carmen on the other hand, were engrossed in their animal dress up game so they decided they didn’t want to make any more houses. They did stick around to watch as Sam worked with the other children. Later we all took turns counting the houses on each paper and we compared the numbers of houses to see who had drawn the most in their neighborhood.