Art 1

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