creativity Archives - Playful Directions

Pre-K Movie First Draft

Posted on March 6, 2018 by forstm

Oh my! I can’t believe it’s this time of year already. We began creating stories for our script early in January and have now come down to what I think will be our final direction. This in no way ensures that changes won’t be made. In fact, if history has taught us anything in Pre-K, the characters are sure to change in these last two weeks of writing. Remember, this story is written by the Pre-K students. You’ll find all sorts of silliness and that is just the way we like it. Here is a copy of our draft thus far. We’ll figure out a title, change the format to look more like a play, and begin planning costumes and sets once we return from Spring Break.

Once upon a time, there were 2 little pigeons playing basketball. Two Big Baby Ducklings came along and said, “What are you doing?” Then the 2 pigeons ran into their house. The BBDs were very hungry and now they were grumpy. They tried to blow down the house.

2 police officers came. “Halt!” They captured the 2 BBDs and took them to the police car.

The 2 pigeons decide to watch tv. They were watching The Pigeon on the bus.

(On the tv.)
Pigeon decides to drive somewhere and get some mac and cheese. Then pigeon gets dressed in blue stuff. Then she puts on some make-up. She has to go to an important meeting with her friend Red Panda. They drive to the meeting.

Penguin, Rainbow Spring, and Grape are at the meeting. They are talking about work. (work talk). Rainbow Spring and Grape accidentally end the meeting by being too silly. Penguin, Red Panda, and Pigeon get back on the bus and leave. After they drive for a while, they stop and go to sleep.

(Back at the pigeon house)
The 2 pigeons go back out to play basketball again. Everyone that isn’t BBDs or police slowly comes over and says, “Can we play, too?”

Then they all get tired and fall asleep in a heap.

—–

The police officers drive the BBDs to jail. The BBDs say, “We just wanted some food!” “O.K.,” says the police, “we have a cage that can help you with that!” The cage is made out of bananas, so the BBDs eat the banana jail. The police say, “We’ll drive you back if you say please.” The BBDs say, “Please drive us back.” The police drive them back to the pigeons’ home.

Everyone was inside when they arrived. The BBDs knock on the pigeons’ door. “Who’s there?” says the pigeons. “The BBDs, can we please have some food?” replied the ducklings. “Sure!” said the pigeons, “Here’s an apple.” “Come in guys, we have some yummy food in here.” “You can have as much as you want.”

Everyone has a party at the pigeon house.

A Change of Perspective

Posted on January 29, 2018 by forstm

Our cup creations have evolved from balancing to creating large scale pictures. As the children were building this image, they discussed the placement of the colors to create a shark. I noticed something a bit different when looking from my head height.

P1230469

When the children realized what I was smiling about, they wished to see from my perspective as well.

Now much of our building must be viewed from “up high.”

On the Big Blue Sea

Posted on October 26, 2017 by forstm

Language and Beading

Posted on September 1, 2015 by forstm

Beads were one of the many materials we introduced last week. While a small group was creating bracelets, I overheard this conversation regarding the available shapes. (The names are not real.)

Henry: I need a cube.

Henry: Can you hand me a cube?

Harriette: What’s a cube?

Henry: This. (points to a cube shaped bead)

Esther: I have a sphere.

Harriette: I found a cone.

Please remember P1050324 this was the very first introduction to beads on the second day of school. We have not had any discussions pertaining to geometric properties or three-dimensional shapes. This is an excellent example of spontaneous peer teaching and learning.

Our Furry Friends

Posted on January 18, 2012 by forstm

Following many play scenarios involving pets, we decided to focus more directly on this topic. We began the study by creating a list of all of our favorite animals. (We tried to include some animals we didn’t love as much, too.) Next, each child helped sort the collection into two groups: Pets and Not Pets. After a lengthy discussion, it was concluded that some animals can be considered to be both. For instance, a fish can be a pet, but if you catch one in a pond, it is a wild fish and needs to be free in the pond. (Luckily, no one had recently eaten freshly caught fish, or I would have been having a completely different conversation.)

Each child then imagined what it would be like to have the pet of their dreams. Using a few prompts for help, the children answered such questions as: What does your pet like to eat? Where does it sleep? What does it like to do? The plan is to use these answers to create a book.

20120111_9144 — Writing about my imaginary pet.

One of the conversations we heard in play centered around taking care of sick animals. We chose to revisit their beloved potion making station and create medicinal potions for sick pets. We took this activity one step further this time, building off of our previous week’s introduction to recipes.

20120111_9150 — How do you write a recipe?

20120113_9079 — Choosing ingredients for our pet-medicine-potion recipes.

Mystery Project on Wednesday provided the children with a chance to design their own pet using random art supplies. Watching them plan, glue, change, re-glue, demolish, and recreate a variety of animals was almost as much fun as making them ourselves.

20120111_9130 — "Build Your Own Pet" Workshop (otherwise known as Mystery Project)

Of course, once you have a pet, you need to have someplace for it to live.

20120113_9093 — Our pets need cages to live in.

And we can’t forget that we’ll need someplace to shop for all of our pets’ needs. Our simple cardboard pet shop was instantly transformed with tables, beds, more cages and kennels, food dishes, decorations and a large selection of aquariums.