November Philosofairy

Here are the notes from this last week's philosophy sessions - as we have returned to fairies again...

Are fairies real?

• no, they are not
• yes, pretend fairies are real
• no (changes to yes by the end of the session)
• yes
• no (mentions something about her grandparents)
• no
• yes!
• yes but they can't live. They can talk and can run and they can travel.

Why do you think that fairies are/are not real?

• they don't even live (who sent the letters then) I don't know
• they are not real but they become real when mummy and daddy are at work
• because they can - er - do - because you can play with fairies (how do you play with fairies?) you fly and climb and dig (have you met fairies?) they are in fairy land
• because I like fairies (have you seen a fairy) (nods) (where?) boot (and points up to the fairy boot on the shelf)
• because they like me (have you seen a fairy, what does it look like?) Yes, it looked like this white because it had painted itself. Up there in fairyland, there are fairies up there that are real (points to the roof) Watch out for them! (Do we need to watch out?) because they are scary, they can scratch us so that my trousers break.
• pretend they are real and for real they are pretend. (when you play fairies do you play with real or pretend fairies?) real. (do the fairies talk to you?) "what a beautiful house you have" they say and I say "its not just my house but also (lists family members) too"
• because they like my home. If they want to be real they will be real, if they don't want to be real they won't. (Have you met fairies?) I went far far away and they were in a car (did they drive a car?) yes (how do you know that they are real?) look there are fairies in here - on XX heart. There is the treasure (describing the decoration on the top of a child opposite)

On the second day I read up the fairy letter where there were thanks for taking care of the forest as well as the statement "The door is broken on your side" the day's question was what does this mean?

• the fairydoor, we need to take some nails and fix the door in fairyland and then we can go throuh the door and find the fairies. There, there will be a daddy fairy that was also stuck in fairy land. (is there another door?) Yes, in fairyland
• I don't know (can you guess or make something up?) imagine if the fairies are stuck so that it became destroyed (is it broken somewhere else?) no
• err - they try to hide the key and try to hide it on our side. They try to hide both the door and the key so that Minnie Mouse hid the door - the fairies broke the door (child is wearing a Minnie Mouse top with a key on it) (on our side?) the fairies did not think about which side it happened by accident they thought that it was our side and not their side.
• it means that we must fix it.  XX take a stick, AA take a stick, BB take a screw, CC take a hammer and then AA takes a fairy, DD takes a leaf and I will take... a screw (what are you going to do with all those things?) we are going to let everyone build build build, we are going to build a little house (does everyone think that this sounds like a good idea to build a fairy house or door? - all nod) and then we need to take a star that is there (point to the star on the flag of Chile) (do you mean that we need a lot of things to build a fairy door?) (nods)
• we can make a black fairy door (can we all make our own fairy doors so that there will be many doors - eleven doors - wow did you notice eleven (elva in Swedish) sounds the same as fairy (älva in swedish - pronouced the same as elva) how do we build the doors?)
• we can take a drinking straw each and we can... we can... we can... a board also (why?) because that is how you build a fairy door you need a board like that (point to the half wall) and we can build a fairydoor with glass
• is there anyone who would like to add something more about why the fairy door is broken on our side?
• because because we can have sticks and build a fairy door, lots of fairy doors and therefore they must be in the house.
• D you want to build a fairy house too?
• yes, a hammeer bang bang bang because the fairydoor is broken and we can drill.

So as you see there will be a few projects going off in the coming weeks -

the ceramic art that the children have chosen - the idea being that they draw what they see and then we make a clay model (the ceramic art had many areas that looked like fairies and this is why it was chosen to stimulate the children's thinking and also to introduce a new medium)

creating a winter fairyland for small world play

the opportunity for those children who have not drawn their self portrait to have a go

creating fairy doors - and possibly a fairy house (need to collects lots of material - screws, nails sticks and hammers seem essential)

and some fairy inspired Christmas activities...

Looks like the children have filled my planning and reflection time with enough ideas not only to fill the weeks leading up to Christmas but longer than that... we will just have to see how it goes...