This is a just a quick post to share some images from this week...
I am helping out some days at a local preschool on the days that I am not writing or travelling to Gävle...
The preschool has a space project happening at the moment... so the two days I was there this week I took in some of my materials for the children to experience a sensory approach to space...
The first session the children got to play with small lights, loose parts and coloured rice on a tray I brought back from Palestine (it is big with large sides, so perfect for sensory play on a small scale). The children were engrossed in the play... exploring how light went round planets from what they have already learned about space - but mostly it was about feeling the rice, experimenting with the lights and interacting with the materials... it was about filling and emptying and not so much about designing patterns... but I also think this indicates what their needs are right now... they have a hunger for sensory play. The play was peaceful, the children talked with each other, and it was enthusiastic... peaceful in the sense that they were able to sort out differences through their words (and well chosen words) rather than using their bodies...
Today I hung up two semi-transparent curtains with a small space in between so that I could project images of space onto it... going through the first then the second and then onto the wall... each layer also displaying the image projected... it gave the feel of being in space. I put a big mirror on the floor too, in order to give it a more infinite sort of feel. I would have liked the room to have been darker to get a bigger impact of being in space... so maybe waiting to do this in the afternoon would be better - as it is dark by 15:20 here in Stockholm at the moment (it will be earlier than that before long!)
The children came in groups of four to be able to explore the experience... and once they had the chance to do this they could come back and start using construction materials to create a space station... the images being caught on the materials... the shadows found themselves in outer space.
Enjoy the photos and films...
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| spreading out the coloured rice... blue and black... |
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| experimenting with light |
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| light from the bottom |
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| light from the top |
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| the rice was out of date... I had bought it for my daughter over a year ago... cheap rice for her student days... but being a family of rice snobs this was not yummy rice and she did not like it all, so she let it just sit at her student home... I rescued it and it is now being used for a much needed sensory activity |
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| glass beads and light exploration |
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| some of the loose parts that could be used |
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| experimenting with light and movement |
The next session
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| the set up |
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| one of the teachers needed to test to it too! |
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| we dressed a duplo figure (female one) as an astronaut... using silver tape |
Wow!
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