Back to the fairies...

During our philosphical dialogue yesterday about darkness - and whether we can see things in the dark the topic of fairies re-surfaced again (it keeps popping up) - but this time the energy and enthusiasm surrounding the fairies indicated to us as teachers that we need to return to our fairy project of August and September... the children had questions... lots in fact... for example...


where did the fairy door go?
Where are the fairies now?
were the fairies dead?

So I asked if the children would like to write a letter to the fairies to see if we would get an answer - the children got excited at this idea and we left a letter for the fairies attached to the fairy lights in the hope that they would read the letter...

we voted on the colour of the paper and the colour of the pen - and then discussed which questions should be put in the letter. Dear Fairies, Can you come and live at preschool Filosofiska again? Are you dead? We don't want you to leave again. Why did you go away and where did you go? Where is the fairy door? the children then all signed their names. One child looked at me and said "but I can't write my name" so I wrote his name down on a piece of paper for him to try and copy and used words of encouragement that the fairies would probably understand all symbols. His first two letters were perfect, although done with ENORMOUS concentration, and his last two letter were placed randomly on the paper and randomly formed. He looked at them and then looked at me and said with a wrinkled nose "but that's not my name, those are not my letters". I looked back and said "but this is just your first time, it takes many many practices before we can write our letters and make words". He looked back at me and seemed satisfied with the answer - and now i look forward to next time he tries to write his name...

Today Ellen and I had out planning/reflection time together - it was a busy half hour throwing around ideas and developing the potential project of a penfriend relationship with the fairies that were trapped in fairyland and needed the children's help... but I am not going to reveal more than that... as the children do not yet know anything - and we still have to see if the children will be interested in following this idea (but I have my suspicions they will...)

The letter we wrote was still there... and I asked the children why they thought it was still there - we hadn't posted it! Do we need to post it to reach fairies... no-one was sure, but maybe we needed some kind of stamp - so a stamp made of glitter was decided upon and was then left high up in the hope that the fairies would find it...

Tomorrow it will not be there...

Tomorrow it will be gone...

But there will be no letter in return... we want a pause in communication until next week - as in real life the post takes a day or two.

BUT - I do have some special paper, glitter pens and some small wings ready for the answer... and next week they will get to find out the first step in their quest...

I am soooo excited - and its not easy to sit here and not share... because its totally bubbling away with ideas and it covers so much of the curriculum that I am positively singing with playful joy - I just love it when learning and play weave so perfectly together ...

So more fairies will be coming your way....

and if you are wondering how exploring fear and the dark could end up in fairies - well it is just to return to the original fairy dialogues... the children said that fairies came out in the dark of night... a perfect logical connection!