7: The Gifts of Nature

The source of my work is nature. I use it with respect and freedom. 

I use materials, ideas, movement and time to express a whole view of my art in the world. 

-Richard Long

Nature is the main source of the materials that we use in our daily life. From trees that provide us with wood to plants that give us cotton for our clothes and food for our table -- nature is a gift that keeps on giving to help us survive and thrive. 

This week, we explored the bountiful gifts of nature through the materials that we use in our everyday life. We began our inquiry by putting on our scientist hats once again. Apart from wood, we learned new materials that we encounter on a daily basis:

paper

metal

glass

cloth

plastic 

To explore and get to know these materials better, we used our five senses to come up with certain properties that we can use to describe or characterize the different things around us. 

These are the characteristics that we came up with:

It was amazing to see how many words the children came up with to describe different things using their senses! 

Afterwards, we worked in pairs to color small posters that show our five senses. We will use them in our future experiments to describe the different materials that we will be using.

During outdoor play or in any other opportunity that the children have to play in nature, two of the main materials that they love collecting are sticks and stones. Since these are materials that they connect with, we shared a wonderful story that use these materials as main characters to teach them an essential lesson in life: to be kind.

This is a beautiful story to remind the children about the importance of friendship and kindness -- as well as the idea that when you combine two materials together, sometimes they create something wonderful. The story began with two main characters -- Stick and Stone -- who were alone. Somewhere along the way, they met each other and developed a wonderful friendship through kind actions.

After reading this story, the children had the chance to use the sticks and the stones they collected in the past (oftentimes perceived as something that can hurt us -- "stick and stones may break my bones...") as a token of kindness for their friends. The activity may not have been preserved in pictures, but what the children said to one another while sharing the sticks and stones with each other was truly heartwarming.

"Thank you for sitting with me all the time."

"Thank you for playing with me."

"Thank you for sharing your toy with me."

"Thank you for your drawing."

These are small gestures but through the eyes of the children, they matter. 

This week, we also had an opportunity to truly go out into nature and see some of the materials in their source. Peace and Nature has always been one of our favorite places to visit, especially since it provides the children with hands on experiences to connect with and just be in nature. Here is a glimpse of the children's experiences of our trip:

Next week, we will be experimenting on the materials that they collected in the farm to create something beautiful.

Nature's abundance of materials plays an important role in our daily lives. We are gifted with a world that truly keeps on giving. I hope that through these experiences, the children will see the value of the blessings that we are given everyday, learn to take good care of them and give back in their own little ways.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Your Kindergarten teacher, 

Pam

P.S. Welcome to DSKI and Kindergarten 2, Lucky!