The Tape Machine's 2010-2011 Debut

The tape machine made it's debut in the 3-5's class yesterday, featuring 5 rolls of 1/2" colored masking tape. It's a new product from Discount School Supply, less expensive than the traditional 1" and 3/4" inch, which is a big deal given the amount of tape we go through in a typical school year. If you don't know what I'm talking about click here and read from the bottom up.

This was sort of a training camp for the upcoming taping season, with many of the younger children having their first taste of "The Show."

The veterans started slowly, carefully cutting short pieces to stick on the sheet of butcher paper I'd hung on our wall easels, Charlie L. proudly using it to form letters like his signature letter "L." They then moved on to decorating a few of the other classroom surfaces.

But then they got busy wrapping themselves.

This guy, who chose to keep his rain coat on all day, is modeling this season's home uniform, complete, apparently, with cod piece.

This fellow started with a nifty belt . . .

. . . that got a little out of control, becoming a sort of straight jacket. There was a moment of panic as he realized he no longer had use for his arms, especially when he found himself on the floor, with no way to push himself back into a standing position.

But he didn't want the help we offered and after several minutes of Great Houdini-like struggle, he freed himself.

He then collected his tape into a kind of wad and carefully wrapped the door knob. We went through 5 of the 20 rolls of tape I'd purchased to start the year. I see great things in our future.

There's No Telling What I Might Do (And Tape-Off Update)

Isn't this lovely?

I'm rarely conscious any more of the fact that I'm a grown man who spends large chunks of his life in paint besmirched clothing, with glitter in his beard, and stickers on his butt. Most of my pants have holes in the knees. When I get undressed at night, sand, coffee beans, and other debris form a circle on the floor around my bare feet. When I reach into my pocket for change, I pull out a fistful of marbles, rubber bands, and hair clips along with my pennies, nickels and dimes.

I arrived home yesterday to discover that I had made a deposit at my usual bank branch, shopped at my usual grocery store, bought coffee at my usual coffee shop, walked the dogs, helped a stranger jump start his car, and chatted with the parents of my daughter's classmates while waiting to pick her up after school, all while wearing this delightful piece of jewelry. I was wearing short sleeves.

That I forgot to remove this item that Charlie L. urged me to wear as part of our superhero play (it's my power braclet) isn't all that surprising. That all those people saw it on my wrist, some of whom know me quite well, and didn't say a thing, even sarcastically, has me wondering about how others see me. I mean, it's not the kind of thing you wouldn't notice, right? They thought I was wearing it on purpose! And not as a joke, but as an intentional accessory to my jeans-and-t-shirt ensemble.

What others think about me, I know, is none of my business, but knowing that I can wear something like this without comment, now that I'm over the initial shock, as me wondering what else can I get away with. Maybe I can wear my kilt in public . . .

If I didn't have a teenager to keep me in check, there's no telling what I might do.



International Tape-Off Update

Things have been quiet lately on the International Tape-Off front, that is until Kirstin over at preschool daze "submitted" her last two posts (here and here). In fact, her kids are so far out in front of the rest of us in terms of variety and creativity that I'm tempted to simply concede! (Type "tape" into her search box to see what I mean.)

If you want to get fully up to speed on the "tape-off," click here and read from the bottom up. Let me know if you think your kids have what it takes to compete in this very, very important event.

The Little World Experiment, V (And Tape-Off Update)

If you've not been following along and want to catch up, here are my posts on our Little World experiment so far in order of appearance:

Our First Fairy Garden, Isak's Maps, And Tape-Off Update
The Little World Experiment
Little World Experiment, Part III
Little World Experiment, Part IV

After two full weeks of Little World play in the 3-5's class, I'd have to call it a qualified success. As I've documented here, I had to work pretty hard at first to convince some of the kids that our Little World materials were not mere fodder for the various mud pits and mud soups being created in our water play area, not to mention persuading the brigades of bucket-of-water wielding boys that it was not acceptable to turn Little World into an extension of their mud play.

On Wednesday last week, Orlando, one of our most avid mud players walked up to the bins of moss, sticks, figurines, and broken pottery, surveyed it momentarily, and declared to no one in particular, "This stuff stays here," then put his shovel on his shoulder and headed out to the mud pits. Lachlan, another of our 3-year-olds found an old brass bell in Little World and walked around the courtyard ringing it for several minutes. I was tempted to remind him where it belonged, but held my tongue long enough for him to take it back to Little World when he was finished, without any prompting.

In other words, the kids seem to be on board with the concept now. The circle of children trying it out last week expanded slightly, and for the first time since Little World has been in existence, Annabelle didn't spend her entire outdoor time playing there.

We're out of school this week for mid-Winter break, so we'll probably leave things as they are next week as the kids settle back into school, then start adding simple outdoor art projects. I think we'll start with a ball of twine and learn the fine art of twig-and-twine construction. Ultimately, I'm hoping to get some sturdy grasses established in the garden to use in place of twine.

When I last wrote about the experiment, I finished by expressing some trepidation about turning the 2-year-olds loose in there, largely due to their scattering tendencies. As I've learned to do inside the classroom, I provided a fairly limited collection of Little World materials, excluding the glass and broken pottery entirely because a 2-year-old might very well try the experiment of shoving her hand into the bin of sharp shards. Again, I seriously doubt she'd get cut, but it might hurt.

I could not have been more wrong about how they played there. Jasper almost tip-toed through the gap in the tree rounds surrounding the area. She carefully peered into the nooks a crannies, stooping to look inside the bird houses, keeping her hands studiously at her sides. Aedan took a similar approach, pointedly holding the shovel he clenched in his fist away from the materials as if he were concerned he'd break them. Charlie was excited by the little metal dragon he found (a bauble from one of my daughter's old necklaces) but insisted "it lives here" and returned it exactly where he'd found it. They were all so spontaneously "good" that I felt compelled to stir things up.

"Hey, I found a bunny!" I picked up the small cast-concrete figurine and put it atop a stump. The children gathered around to look at it, but not a single hand touched it. Hmm.

I picked up a small "cat table" and put it over the bunny saying, "This can be the bunny's house." The children all squatted down to peer at the bunny in its house, but still not a single hand reached out. This was absolutely bizarre.

I grabbed a cork, "This can be the bunny's table." Interest, but still no touching.

I'd not spoken to any of them about Little World. I'd not given them any warning, cautions, or words of guidance, yet they seemed to be treating it with a gentle reverence. I plucked a piece of lichen from our pile of mossy materials, saying, "This can be bunny food," and shoved it in next to the statue.

That was the signal they were waiting for, I guess, as feeding the bunny seemed to break them out of their contemplation and into action. Soon our bunny had plenty to eat.

Here's what I'm talking about:

Our parent community is spending our break planning our playground overhaul, of which Little World is  but a small part, and gathering materials we're going to need. A work party is planned for the end of the month, during which we're hoping take the first step in transforming our outdoor space.

In the meantime, as the teacher, I need to keep experimenting. I think I have a handle on Little World now, and given that I've started turning my attentions to the "Construction Station experiment." This is what we have so far:

We've been playing with these materials for about a week now. We don't have our tools yet, so it's mostly resembled block play so far. I can't wait to see how it evolves.

Stay tuned!

Tape-Off Update

Maria's class in Indiana has submitted a rather impressive and intimidating entry in the International Tape-Off Competition. Check out this tape dinosaur:

If you haven't been following along, here are the tape-off posts in order of appearance:

The Tape Machine

The Tape Machine And Fire Safety: A Couple Of Updates

International "Tape-Off" Challenge: Woodland Park Vs. Alderwood House

New Years Dragons And Tape-Off Update

Our First Fairy Garden, Isak's Maps, and Tape-Off Update

Our Tape Dragon (Tape-Off Update)

If you have some tape creations to share in our odd-ball competition/exhibition let me know!

Our Tape Dragon (Tape-Off Update)

It all started several months ago when I unveiled Woodland Park's game changing tape machine. Perhaps it was cocky of me to share this technology with the world, but soon not only did other schools have their own machines, but they had improved upon it. To their credit, they found new and exciting ways to take the use of these humble materials to new levels, and the internet preschool intelligencia even chimed in, giving our pursuits a shiny veneer of credibility.

Still, technology can only carry us as far as its human masters are able to take it and we were confident in our ability to step up our game in this increasingly competitive field.

Then, from out of no where, we found ourselves challenged to a tape-off by an upstart team from Canada who had clearly been training in secret for an opportunity to take us down. This snowballed into the advent of additional challengers from Australia and Europe, as well as across the US.

When I shared these developments with the children of Woodland Park, they were (frankly) blase, even when I showed them where these other kids lived on our classroom globe, but they were enthusiastic about the idea of making something "huge" from tape. The debate about what that thing might be raged for a number of days, some wanting a Chinese New Year dragon, others advocating for a "house we can go inside." Finally, we compromised on a dragon that could later be made into a house.

I hung four large squares of chicken wire fencing on our wall easels and the back of the door, broke out the old tape machine, and let them go for the past couple weeks. I knew we were finished yesterday when instead of working on the project at hand they began intentionally sticking their own bodies to the tape-covered chicken wire, then letting their friends finish the job of taping them to the wall, before cutting themselves out in a frenzy of claustrophobia. Then doing it again.

And besides, the tape machine, having dispensed 17+ rolls of tape, was exhausted:

And our taping energies had been diverted away from the task at hand to the impromptu project of decorating my circle time stool in preparation for the new year.

Note the inclusion of a pair of "Chinese" lanterns which we were

making at the art table yesterday

Every year we make some sort of classroom dragon body to go along with the dragon head we acquired several years ago from the sublime Archie McPhee, which has its only retail store within 5 minutes of our school:

After a week of looking at books about Chinese

New Year, the Pre-K kids are convinced that

this is really a Chinese lion head, but are willing

to pretend it's a dragon head.

I examined our body parts carefully before installing them yesterday afternoon:

I rescued this pair of scissors

Several of our lanterns wound up on the dragon body as well

From head to tail our dragon is about 10 feet long, its body undulating between 2-3 feet wide. Next week I'll wear the head, we'll add sticks to the body and attempt to carry it around the classroom for our annual classroom parade.

Without further ado, here is what the children will find in the classroom when they arrive this morning:

Once our new year's celebrations are over, it will be time to convert our dragon into a house.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

(Note: If your class wants to take part in the tape-off, post your pics somewhere on the internet where I can link to them -- and let me know.)

Our First Fairy Garden, Isak's Maps, And Tape-Off Update

Our first fairy garden

We have recently begun the process of re-designing our small, urban playground to give the children a more varied and naturalistic experience. As part of this process, I've been experimenting with ideas I've found on the web. Jenny at Let The Children Play is way ahead of us on this exploration and has introduced me to the concept of fairy gardens. We built our first fairy garden in an old diaper changing table:

I liked using this multi-level table of baskets. Some of the kids started calling it the "fairy apartments." What I learned is that it will take some pretty assertive adult supervision until the children get used to the idea of these outdoor doll houses. There was a contingent of younger boys who just wanted to start dumping buckets of water over everything, which would have been fun, I'm sure, but would have also turned it into a muddy mess. Instead, I directed them to our pumpkin rotting bed where they made some nice, gooey mud, which they called the "fairy swimming pool." (Josephine quietly told me that no fairy would actually swim in mud.)

Ultimately, I'm hoping that we can create an area of these container fairy garden plots adjacent to where we do our outdoor art projects. But first we need to teach the children to respect one another's creations. They already do it in the block area. We just need to transfer that ethic to the outdoors.

Isak's maps

We celebrate birthdays and half-birthdays by having the children bringing in a piece of poster board with pictures that they choose to illustrate the important people and things in their lives. They get to sit in our special birthday throne and tell us about their pictures.

Isak has a special relationship with maps and decided to augment his "special day board" with a drawing of a map of the world and a map of the U.S. His mother told me that he really wanted to draw his own maps, but would get frustrated when he couldn't reliably recreate the geographic shapes. He then had the idea of taking his map puzzle pieces and tracing them. Pretty clever. (Sorry about the poor photos, but you get the idea.)

The world

The United States of America

Tape-off Update

Allie over at Baker's And Astronauts has posted her classes entry in the international tape-off. Very impressive! I believe she's over in Europe. The tape-off is truly worldwide.

And Miss Pamela has just posted a terrific update on the Alderwood House Shool's  efforts, including an expose on the benefits of using scissors. Woodland Park's secret is out! 

This is getting exciting!

New Years Dragons and Tape-Off Update

Yesterday I wrote about our classroom Chinese dragon discussion and the idea that these powerful mythological creatures are "flowing through our minds" as we engage with the world. I like to use this discussion as an inspiration for painting our own dragons for Chinese New Year.

As the children arrived in class, they found easels with pre-drawn dragon faces like this:

I only do this twice a year, pre-drawing figures to serve as targets for paint. (We also spend an art session just before Halloween painting jack-o-lantern faces.) I have mixed feelings about this, of course, coming from the perspective that the best preschool art projects tend to be those that involve a certain set of supplies and a place to work, then letting the children do with them what they will. On the other hand, I've found that providing "targets" like this often attracts kids to the art station who don't ordinarily take the time.

I've experimented with pre-drawing various styles of dragons over the years, finally settling on this loose, cartoon-y version. The more artful and fierce looking types made some of the kids uneasy, and the ones with identifiable emotional expressions seemed to steer their imaginations too much. I like that some children see this as a happy face, others an angry one, some surprised. It's not exactly a blank canvas, but close.

Whatever it's relative merits as an art project, the real purpose of this activity is get the children dreaming up their own dragons.

We used my favorite undiluted liquid watercolor and regular, fat classroom brushes. I posted the book Demi's Dragons And Fantastic Creatures on the wall, open to the four-page fold out of the Heavenly Dragon to remind the children of our conversation. In a comment to yesterday's post, Maya reminded me of what Katherine said about this particular dragon: "Maybe that's the dragon that keeps all of our memories." What an amazing thought.

Anyway, on to the paintings.

Ella has been the leader of our superhero play this year along with Josephine who dressed as a "purple superhero" for Halloween. We have caped crusaders in class every year, but this is the first time it's been driven by the dramatic play of girls. Ever since the swim goggles, faux mobile phones, and electric tea candles came into the class room last week, the "princess pony" game has been entirely supplanted by superheroes. Ella painted a number of dragons, but it's no surprise that her first one was the Superhero Dragon:

Finn V. likes his dramatic play action-packed. His prolific storytelling is full of tanks, monster trucks and jets. It's fitting that he painted the Lightening Dragon:

Lachlan has always been a guy deeply interested in and connected to emotions. His Storm Dragon may have been inpired by Finn V.'s dragon, but I also want to consider his piece in the context of emotion. I'm interested in how carefully he painted to the edge of his paper on one side, while leaving the other side virtually untouched.

Chalie L., however, did paint an emotional piece, in this case the Mad Dragon. I like the angry energy of his brushwork.

Dennis' Silly Dragon inspired several other silly dragon paintings. He also left one side of the paper white. He was painting on the same easel as Lachlan did. I wonder if it is something about that particular easel that leads to this. In any event, I'd have to say that this painting expresses Dennis, who loves silliness, quite well:

Sarah painted two Daisy Dragons, both of which were heavily worked canvases, using a lot of dark, cool colors. Daisy, she explained, is the name of her "favorite" stuffed doggy.

Here is Anjali's version of the Storm Dragon. That fiercely orange mouth is amazing:

Here is another one by Anjali, the Ship Dragon. I like the way she used similar colors, but sort of reversed their positions on the paper:

Finn P.'s purposeful use of color here is impressive. It's difficult to keep these paints, especially when applied to a vertical surface, from running down the paper, but he obviously took great pains to segregate his colors and change brushes. Unlike many of the kids, he only painted one dragon, but he clearly took his time on it. This is the Fighting Dragon:

But lest you fear that princesses have disappeared from our classroom, Alex came through with her Princess Dragon, making sure that everything is right in our preschool world:

Tape-Off Update:

Our international tape-off challenge has moved onto another continent. Check out this entry from Australia. As you'll note Jenny has a clear advantage in terms of "length" of tape being used given that she's moved the playing field outdoors (where she likes everything). This might prove to be an insurmountable development.

The Woodland Park kids continue to debate about whether they are making a tape dragon or a tape house. I've given them several squares of chicken wire to use as targets, which I'm assuming can at some point in the future be shaped into whatever we want.

International “Tape-Off” Challenge: Woodland Park Vs. Alderwood House

I was planning to use my post today to detail the 100 percent guaranteed Teacher Tom 3-Easy-Step Program for gently and joyfully getting children to eat their vegetables, take their naps, stop whining, play nicely, use indoor voices, keep their fingers out of light sockets, and grow into teenagers who will willingly mow your lawn and wash your car. But something far more important came up.

There comes a time in every teacher’s life, I suppose, when everything he has worked for, everything he believes, everything he has tried to create for himself and the children he lovingly teaches is tested, and he finds the very ramparts of his soul besieged. To be honest, I haven’t felt this way since Bill Broom suggested that he was rubber and I was glue, causing, in his devilish formulation, my words to bounce off him and stick to me. Of course, I want to howl into the abyss at my fate, but just the way I pulled myself together to answer Bill Broom with a decisive, “Uh uh, you’re glue!” I will rally to face this new trial.

It seems that Miss Pamela, writing over at Leaves & Branches, Trunk & Roots has challenged Woodland Park to a “tape-off!”.

I mean, she’s seen the tape machine:

And she knows our capabilities:

Yet still she issues this international challenge. I’ll admit, she has reason for confidence. That tape bench/train they’ve created up there at Alderwood House is pretty impressive and has me a bit intimidated:

Even so, I'm placing my tape order with Discount School Supply today, hoping that our depleted cache of rainbow tape holds out until it arrives. (Be forewarned Miss Pamela, I’m ordering the ¾” tape instead of the more expensive 1” so I can afford to buy MORE!)

Like I said, I can be competitive about important stuff.

It is so on!

The Tape Machine And Fire Safety: A Couple Of Updates

Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the results of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. –Ivan Illich, theologian

Let (your scholar) know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learned it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. –Jean-Jaques Rousseau, philosopher

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. –John Dewey, educator

Tape machine update

After class last Friday, our classroom door looked like this:

When I left school this Friday, it looked like this:

The tape machine resided in our do-it-yourself area all week. The 4-5 year olds really got things going last Thursday, while the 3-year-olds took things to the next level on Monday. It was fun to sit back and watch Ariya and Charlie B., in particular, pull out 6-8 foot lengths of tape only to find themselves that far away from the scissors. Both of them tried the technique of putting their end of the tape down while they retrieved the scissors only to return to find it stuck to the floor. It was a dilemma they both tried solving by carrying a pair of scissors with them as they unfurled their next length of tape, but both found that they could only cut off a piece as long as their own reach – less than a foot – while the rest fell to the floor, again getting stuck there. They were performing these experiments simultaneously, both making similar discoveries. Neither seemed frustrated, just deeply engaged in the process of problem-solving.

My attentions were needed elsewhere for a time so I don’t know how it came about, but when I returned the boys had figured out that they could stick the ends of their long pieces of tape to a cabinet or chair, which held it off the floor while they decided just how long they wanted to cut it. By this time, they had joined forces and were playing their tape game together. Soon they weren’t cutting the tape at all, but rather just filling up that corner of the room with a spider web of tape.

The Pre-3’s also had access to the tape machine this week, but most of the focus was on making their “scissor machines” work. I prefer to let the 2-year-olds experiment with these vital early childhood tools before putting any emphasis on the “proper” way to hold them. This leads almost invariably to the discovery of the two-fisted cutting technique, and while they all seem to grasp the idea that scissors are for cutting, many are still trying to figure out physics of it.

Owen in particular seemed both fascinated and mystified by the process. He employed a hit-or-miss approach, snipping his scissors above, below and beside the tape, every now and then hitting it just right. Then with the look of concentration never leaving his face, he would abandon his tiny bit of tape to the nearest surface and get right back to his trail-and-error experiment with the scissors. He’s teaching himself to use scissors.

Fire safety update

When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped. –Marcel Archard, filmmaker

I like most of the fire safety curriculum the Seattle Fire Department expects us to run through in preparation for classroom visits. It contains important safety information and many parents have, over the years, told me that their child has brought their newly acquired fire safety information home.

The weak link, especially for a class of 3-5 year olds, is that there’s a little too much Circle Time talking involved for the youngest kids, while it stimulates the older kids to want to engage in a deeper dialog. I’m going to guess that this is because many of the 3’s aren’t quite yet ready to make the connection between our theoretical discussion about fire safety and their own lives, while it’s exactly the kind of bridge between abstraction and the concrete that our older children are eager to cross. While the older kids told us, often in great detail, about the location, color and sounds of every smoke detector in their homes or the minutia of their family escape plans, many of their classmates squirmed around like they were sitting in a fire. When I looked out over the kids, half had their hands emphatically raised, while the others were busy using their hands for everything but getting my attention.

It helped to interrupt the discussion to move our bodies by practicing the “Stop, Drop and Roll” method of putting out a fire on oneself. Showing off our siren sounds also helped focus the group’s attention. And our fire drill was a kind of "reward" for the kids who had worked so hard to sit still while we talked.

The firefighters visit our school on Monday. As I had done in our Pre-K class, I asked the larger group of children if they’re “excited” about it. About a third of them raised their hands. Then I asked if they were “a little nervous” about it. About a third raised their hands again, with quite a bit of overlap. As Ella put it, “I’m excited and nervous.” If you’ve followed the math in this paragraph, you’ll note that many of them didn’t raise their hands at all.

They must have been checking their watches.