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| Straw bales have added a further exploration space. They arrived after the heavy rain and the kids have enjoyed making mazes, obstacle courses and huts with them. |
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| The kids invented a new game this term, they tie a skipping rope to the handles at the top of the slide and use it to climb up, using this prop to invent all sorts of rescue scenarios with their friends. |
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| Heavy rain and lots of cold meant we stayed inside the tent and turned it into an indoor activity center. The kids used cushions, mattresses and blankets to make ramps and slides. |
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| There is no bad weather only bad clothing! That's a sentiment we try and stick to so the kids get used to being out in all kinds of weather. In the afternoon we followed a nature trail, keeping to narrow paths, avoiding spiky branches, crossing streams and wooden bridges. The kids love to recite 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' when we are out. |
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| Running about - staying warm - looking for that bear! |
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| While the older kids settle down to do an activity sheet, read a book or colour a picture, the little ones get stuck into the water and sand tables. |
With so much time to run about and explore, freedom to choose your activities, to create and think, it's no surprise that the kids are happy to sit down and do literacy and numeracy work and participate in group learning activities during the week:
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| We have been practicing reading small everyday words. Here one of the students uses an activity sheet to reinforce the recognition of words he already knows well. We also hide words on sticky labels all over the garden and farm. The children hunt for them and then when they have worked out the word by sounding out the letters or by asking a friend or teacher for help, they stick the label on to the matching object, person or animal! |
Here one of the students is having a go at adding three numbers together using the abacus to help her keep count and understand number values. This child likes me to sit with her while she is working - she feels more secure and less worried about making mistakes. Other students prefer to work on their own, it's important we know and respect how each child wants to approach their learning.
One of the children practices her writing skills. She enjoys writing stories and has been wanting to develop a handwriting style, she wants her writing to more closely resemble handwriting examples she sees around her.
Another approach we use for having fun with literacy is for the children to choose a word on a card and match the letters on the card with clothing pegs that have letters printed on them. Then the children go through an obstacle course and see if they can remember how to write the word on the board at the end.
One of our topics this term was jobs and the community. The children visited different work environments, tried on different uniforms and used props to demonstrate whether they were a firefighter, a hairdresser or a vet for example. We spoke about why jobs are important to a community of people, why we need people to do these jobs and what kinds of things people had to know to be good at their jobs.
One of the other topics we did this term was on volcanoes and earthquakes. The children are fascinated by natural phenomena and this topic provoked a lot of questions and discussions. Their favourite activity was making a papier mache volcano with an empty bottle hidden inside. We filled it with red-dyed vinegar and then later added bicarbonate of soda to produce an explosion.
Before any of that occurred the children decided as a group to place dinosaurs around the volcano to add an historical and fun dimension to the project! Working together, the group was buzzing with discussion about what happened to the dinosaurs when volcanoes erupted, at what point the volcano would be considered active, dormant or extinct. They made sure to use the correct terminology - magma, lava, ash, eruption - taking joy in their new found knowledge and understanding.
Post-eruption - lava running down the sides of the volcano.
The children also made up their own stories and designed the front covers of their books. They took time thinking about what they wanted their stories to be called first and then created their stories inspired by the titles.
Every morning we set out the discovery table with diverse materials to invite the children to exercise their creativity and their reasoning skills:
Paper plates, watercolour pencils, scissors and ribbons: one of the children tries different designs on a number of plates getting used to the materials and how they behave, experimenting with what she can do with them. She settles on one plate and begins to make concentric circles in pencil, paint and ribbon.
Two children work together on one piece of work - one elected to create designs in pen, the other cut coloured foil and stuck the pieces around the edge of the doily creating a ray effect
Here the children are working together as a team constructing a marble run. They have cardboard tubes, boxes and wooden blocks at their disposal. They experiment with different angles, multiple marbles and work to solve the problems where they arise.
A discovery table
with white sand, orange rice, large pasta shells, sieves, spoons and mirrors.
One child experiments with scooping and mixing the materials. Another asks to
add water and enjoys working with the sticky goop that results.
An array of
colourful string was arranged on the discovery table. The children decided they
wanted to make bracelets, one child ran to the garden to collect wild flowers
to add to her creations and the rest of the children soon followed inspired by
her idea.
Raffia paper of different styles and colours (recycled from Xmas gifts and grocery boxes) with coloured craft sticks, scissors, glue and a box of model animals: the children focus on the frame in front of them and see what kind of 3D picture they can create - will it be abstract, will it tell a story?
One student carefully begins constructing a scene - a river and a grass bank soon to be decorated with pink flowers
Another envisions a park and lies the animals and the trees down to create a portrait - using the materials very differently to her friend
A discovery table to encourage curiosity and focus: flower seeds, buds, branches and almond blossom were arranged on the table along with magnifying glasses to encourage the children to look carefully and take the time to appreciate tiny details - lines, dots, flecks of colour - in the smallest things.
A folder of fabric samples becomes an inviting tool for matching different colour beads or for pouring different colours beads all over it watching how they roll and how the colours contrast against each other.
A student considers what colour she wants to work with to fashion her design
Tubes, funnels, sieves, ladles and coloured sand waiting for busy little hands
Working with patterns, paper plates, glass beads and rocks
A
chain with different kinds of padlocks - can you figure out which key opens
which? Once the children had experimented with opening and closing the
padlocks, they soon set about moving the chain around the school and locking it
around different things - they had to take care to remember which key opened
which lock though!
Another colour matching invitation - when the children had exhausted this way of using the materials they began folding the card to make bridges and getting the objects to slide down them.
Recreating
patterns this time in rice with coloured glass gems
For little ones
this is all about pouring, stirring and enjoying the vibrant colours
We have continued with our weekly excursions to different venues around Marrakech, here is a little taster of where we've been:
Visiting
the Yves Saint Laurent museum - we take our sketching pads along with oil
pastels, pencils and watercolours to recreate images they are interested in or
when they find something inspiring.
Learning about ponies - they learned the vocabulary for the different parts of the horse in French and for the different equipment such as reins and saddle, and they learned to take care of a pony by brushing its hair, cleaning its hooves and mixing the feed.
Pony trekking into the desert
We visited Dar El Bacha - a museum that was once the Pasha's palace showcasing an exhibition about sacred places across the world
The children enjoyed listening to short documentaries - it was fun for them to hear the documentaries in all 3 languages (Arabic, English & French)
Some of the beautiful works exhibited inspired the children to recreate their own in their sketch books
After we took the children to a henna cafe for Moroccan tea and henna fun
After a visit to SPANA (an animal shelter) which was cut short by the rain we found a dry place to eat lunch and finish our drawings. Then when the rain stopped we hopped on to a horse drawn carriage which took us for a tour of the city. The kids learned about the important work SPANA do in the city from taking care of the caleche horses and finding homes for the stray animals around the city.
We also took a trip to the mountains along with the parents to have fun in the snow
Our snowman built with teamwork!
They had a jiu-jitsu workshop - learning how to be flexible and how to use their balance. It also took a lot of discipline and focus which challenged them but they have all been eager to try it again.
The adventure walk was our best outing of all. The children were so elated and alert. We walked along a riverbed - the children jumped in the water, tried to find ways across the river on stepping stones, collected rocks and spotted snapping turtles in the pools.
In case you were getting hungry after all this activity here are a few photos of some yummy food. Making and eating food is a key part of our day!
Fish popcorn for lunch with pumpkin brown rice, cucumber raita, green beans and a tomato salad
Chocolate peanut biscuits for Valentine's Day
Fruit of the forest muffins
Banana cream cupcakes with chocolate almond 'dirt'
Danish butter biscuits with fresh strawberries & bananas & a vegan chocolate shake
After a little siesta following lunch we usually turn to art projects:
After reading The One Hundred Decker Bus the children decided they wanted to create their own many-deckered bus! They collected boxes and began painting them as a team, referring to the book to decide which colour they should be painted and what shape the windows should be.
The nearly finished bus - now a permanent feature in the school. The kids can stack it, disassemble it and reconfigure it as they wish - though balancing it requires effort!
Painting the
hull of a soon-to-be boat
Continuing our topic on transport we made boats - the kids used washi tape and pens to decorate their sails. When they were all stuck together we floated them down the irrigation channel outside the school.
We do love working with washi tape. The kids used the different tapes to fill up a paper plate and coloured in any gaps with pen. Later they cut out their initial and glued it on to their plate making a great decoration for their room.
This was a fun project. We sprayed shaving foam on paper plates and then the students squeezed acrylic paint on to the foam.
Using toothpicks they drew lines through the foam creating beautiful swirling patterns.
When the children were happy with the pattern they had created we pressed down elephants cut out of white card on to the foam for a minute. Afterwards we scraped off the foam revealing the pattern printed on to the elephant.
We've been experimenting a lot with using watercolours. It behaves quite differently to the tempera paint the children have been used to working with. They have been sketching things with pencil and then painting their sketch with watercolours - learning how to mix, blend and control how watery they can make the paint.
One of the children got upset that his box of watercolours became messy and when I showed him how to clean it he spent 20 minutes diligently cleaning each colour. Learning how to look after the materials is also an important part of doing art.
One of the younger students experiments with colour and using two paintbrushes at a time. He is interested to see how applying black paint over different colours obscures the original colour. In the background two of the older students are working on sketches of each other's faces.
We made bracelets from wooden craft sticks by soaking them in water and molding them in mugs. Later the kids decorated them with washi tape, stickers and gems.
This was one of our favourite projects - raised salt painting. The kids used glue to make the patterns they wanted and then poured on salt.
Then they shook off the excess and gently introduced the watercolour paint to the salt. The effect was like magic as the colour shot through the salt following the lines of their pattern.
A beautiful erupting volcano - as the paint dries the salt begins to sparkle, adding another level of magic to the work.
We're off to enjoy the last week of our school holidays before launching into our final school term for the year. For some of the children this will be their final term in the Hayati Homeschool tent having spent the last four years there. But they won't be going too far away! We have an exciting new project in the pipeline which I will write more about very soon. Enjoy the Springtime!
