More Enveloping
As you know from our most recent update, our children have been showing a collective curiosity around enveloping, layering, wrapping, and filling. We’ve been trying our best to include opportunities for this kind of work each day, and the children have been loving it. We’ve been including lots of stickers, tape, blankets, etc. in our invitations to play.
Here is a glimpse into a couple of our more teacher-facilitated enveloping activities that the children have been loving:
Sewing!
The consistent interest in wrapping/covering combined with the consistent interest in our set of baby dolls inspired us to invite the children to design and create their own doll clothes. We provided them with the outline of a baby on paper and gave them some pencils to begin designing their patterns. Berkeley traced around the baby shape to give her doll a bit of a jumpsuit-like design. Once her pattern was created, she sat down with Lindsey to choose a fabric, work with straight pins, cut her shape and begin sewing! Because we think it looks so industrial, beautiful and inviting, Lindsey chose to bring out her great-grandmother’s vintage sewing machine for the children to use. Berkeley donned her safety goggles (always a favorite when we get to use real tools), learned how to work the lever for raising and lowering the presser foot, and began working with Lindsey to guide her design under the needle until it was complete. She worked her new outfit right-side out and tried it on for size…perfect fit! We must say, our baby looks quite dapper with her new look!
The next day, we upped the stakes and decided to introduce some stuffing. Berkeley, of course, wanted to make another pink creation and got to working on her pattern design quite quickly. She chose to create a “unicorn lovey,” and we followed the steps and skills we remembered from the previous day. This time, when we finished sewing, Berkeley worked hard to stuff her creation with as much stuffing as she could, sometimes using our long wooden stuffing tool for assistance, and we finished by sewing the hole closed! Her hard work inspired Ronin to have a go at lovey design, and he decided to create a “circle pillow.” He made a big circle pattern, learned all about his tools, and got to sewing safely with Lindsey! When it was time to stuff, Lindsey showed him how to “push the stuffing all the way to the edges.” Ronin showed his expertise on shapes, however, and let Lindsey know that “circles don’t have edges.” Touché, Ronin. We then got to talk about what a seam is!
Adelynn was also inspired by the work of the children at the sewing station and decided to create a unicorn design of her own! She drew a big unicorn on her pattern paper, but we unfortunately ran out of time to bring it to life. We hope to return to this work soon!
At nap time, Ronin and Berkeley were very excited and proud to bring their new lovies to their beds and give them lots of snuggles! We love affording our children the empowering opportunities to use real tools for real work. Their pride and self confidence depend on opportunities like these, and they open the doors to so much more learning. In this project, for instance, we get to see the children practicing their planning skills, representational drawing, writing, turn-taking, fine motor skills, communication, reflection, and so much more! Their focus and dedication to the development of these pre-literacy and pre-math skills was beautiful to see.
Hover over each photo in the slideshow as it’s displayed to read its caption:
Burritos!
Well, if we’re so interested in wrapping things up, what could be more exciting than burritos?!
While working on adding some more gross motor invitations that involve enveloping, we’ve of course added our Tubelox car to the mix, and we recently invented our own burrito game! We hadn’t seen our big tortilla blanket in quite some time, so we brought it out of hiding and invited the children to the front yard. This time, along with our tortilla blanket, we included some felt “burrito ingredients” and laid a big tablecloth out on the grass. Our game went like this:
Each child took a turn laying on the tortilla blanket. They let us know if they wanted to be beans or meat, and each of the other children chose an ingredient to add to the big burrito and waited down the yard at the tablecloth. We wrapped up the burrito and cheered, “Roll, burrito, roll!” as our burrito held on tight to their tortilla and log-rolled all the way across the grass. When they reached the “plate,” we all rushed over for a burrito feast filled with tickles and laughter.
These kids were able to cooperate and take turns so well, and we all got lots of big-body exercise and muscle development in the process! After a morning of such rigorous play, we needed a big, nourishing lunch! How about burritos?! We made some bean and cheese burritos and filled our plates with many of the same ingredients as our felt burritos. Many of the children opened up their burritos to add their toppings inside, and many others ate them a la carte, but everyone ate so well at our burrito lunch party. It was a huge hit!
Hover over each photo in the slideshow as it’s displayed to read its caption:
