Dear Parents,
We just began our art unit and we are loving it! This year we are focusing on the "One Hundred Languages of a child". The Reggio philosophy teaches that a child learns through 100 languages and we are attempting to explore art through many of these languages. Each day the children were exposed to a different medium or style of art.
Please take a moment to read this beautiful poem by Loris Mallaguzi the founder of the Reggio Approach. I think this poem sums up everything that we love bout Reggio inspired teaching!
The Hundred Languages
No way. The hundred is there.
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Holidays.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
-Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach
We painted by rolling corn on the cob in paint. Grasping, pushing and rolling are also a great way to strengthen our arm and hand muscles!
We explored the properties of oil and water and noticed that the water paints wouldn't mix with the oil and it made really cool patterns on our paintings!
We got to use read needles to create needle point art! One of our friends was excited to sew like his Savta does. The children all loved the independence that they were given and created beautiful masterpieces!
The last form of art that we explored this week was Mosaic Art.
We explored colour and learned that some colours are primary and others are secondary colours. We tried guessing what colour will appear when mixing different primary colours together. Sometimes we guessed right and other times we were surprised!
We created our own dancing rainbow using the sun's reflection from the mirror onto the wall.
We had a great Yoga class with Catalina.
We shaped our hebrew names with Plasticine and we put the letters of our name in order.
We continued praticed our 1:1 correspondence and number recognition through beading.
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Chayala and Morah Chaya
