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Wednesday 21 August 2013

More fairy philosophy...

Day two.
Another question to continue yesterday's philosophical session about fairies. Again the chairs were set up in a circle andd there was a bowl of yellow water this time with candles floating in it.

We started up with asking what the children remembered about yesterday's philosophical talk -

"moose" was the answer... not such a strange answer when you realise that the Swedish word for moose (plural) "älgarna" is not so dissimilar from the Swedish word for fairies - "älvorna".

We did the warm up session again... this time the ring was passsed round and the children answered the question - "where do you live"... (to tie in loosely with the fairy question to come)
it was interesting to hear their answers, those who knew the name of the area they lived in, those that described their house,  the child that said Morocco (as we had just been informed by the parent that morning that they will be going there in December so it was an important subject for the child) and the child who was the neighbour of this child who tried to make sense of her neighbour's answer by adding Morocco to her street name...

Today's fairy question was...

"Where do fairies come from?"
  • from the forest
  • really far away, you have travel by underground train, bus and then car
  • from the forest and they hide in a smart smart way... because they are teeny tiny small... and there are some that do not have wings and live in water.
  • in the forest
  • the forest
  • I think they come from Enskede (where the preschool is located) but then I did not have place there... there is traffic.
  • from traffic lights
  • from the forest
  • they live in a little house far away in a beautiful day - there live the fairies...
  • they usually live in the forest and fly... they live in a tree, they have their own tree. Some can fly and some cannot.
  • they come from Morocco and then they travel by boat to the city... and with a swim-ring in the water... and then the sharks come and eat up all the fairies... and then they get to the city.
At the end I re-read their word back to them, laying the talking ring on the paper... as it was the paper now saying the words that the children had said. Several of the children said "I said that" as I read it, with a BIG proud smile on their face.
the fairy door - right above where we had our philosphical dialogue

 Most of the children showed improved listening skills today... and in ALL children wanted to participate in answering the fairy question - yesterday two of the children did not wish to.

The forest is popping up again, as well as more talk about wings and flying ... so I see some art possibilities there, as well as trips to the forest and some flying experiments. I also see some possibilities to do some light experiments too if fairies come from traffic lights...? Far away was mentioned as well as Morocco... so we could weave some concepts of distance... what is far away? Morocco is much further than a underground train and a bus away... and Morocco allows us to explore another country and culture, one that belongs to one of our preschool families, so this could be an excellent way of allowing them to share their culture with all the children...

As yet the fairy door that I put up yesterday when all the children were out has not been noticed...
I planted a seed in one child... at the end of the day... and it is to see if how this seed will grow and devlop tomorrow, if at all...

So my mind is spinning for the art session on Tuesday that will be based on these dialogues, tomorrow will be our last dialogue for the week and then it will be time to gather materials and see what we can create with all their ideas...

In my mind now is a seed growing of creating a BIG painting to represent Morroco... have some more thinking to do though...

1 comment:

  1. I love your ideas and the fairy unit is such a wonderful one to explore. We enjoyed a fairy unit in my preschool classroom as well and had an amazing time of it! After the children created his/her own unique fairy house, I photographed each child individually dressed up in a fairy costume. I had the photos developed, and then I cut out the child from the photo. I clipped them into a binder clip so they could stand, and voilá! the children were fairies living in their own fairy house! The kids had such a great time playing with these paper doll images of themselves as fairies - it made for hours and hours of fun, imaginative, cooperative play.

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