Creative Minds: Purple Room: Building, Team work, and Letter 'K'

Last week all the Purple Room friends got super interested in playing and building with "Magna Tiles." What was more special about this play was that it gradually built from solo to more of a collaborative and team play style. It felt good to see them pass tiles to each other and hear them invite a friend to join in or welcome a friend who seemed interested to join.

From solo...

to team...

During the week, we took out many such activities to build up on teamwork.

Puzzles...
Lot of teamwork was reflected while we did puzzles. Teachers usually refrain from helping them with floor puzzles, and rather suggest them to invite a friend who might be interested in working together. This has opened doors to more playing and collaborating with new friends beyond the friends they usually are comfortable with.

Class Collage...
It was fascinating to see them work together in a limited space on the poster board collage where many hands worked at ones.

They squirted glue all over and the glue left tracks. Some choose to randomly put the materials on the board, while some chose to put them one by one following the glue track. Pretty neat. Check it out on the easel at the purple room doorway!

This week we did a science experiment about "What level is it?" where we used honey, water and oil to make three layers/levels in a clear bowl. then we took out random materials like nuts and bolts, dried pasta, grapes, blueberries, shells, marbles, etc and discovered at what level the materials would sink or float. It was interesting to see how different liquids have different density and we saw how honey settled at the bottom layer, water in middle and oil floated on top. We made our own guesses and explored the results.

For letter 'K', we made K collages using pictures of kiwi, kangaroo, key, and koala bear.

Teacher Kristina got her inflatable 'K'ayak for show and tell!

Friends got a chance to pump it up and see it grow. We also talked about the different parts and some of their own boat experiences.

Pumping with one foot...

Pretending to go Kayaking...

We also sang the rhyme, "Row row row your boat" and added some silly version of it filled with utmost expressions! The most loved ones were,
"Row row row your boat,
gently down the stream,
if you see a crocodile ,
don't forget to scream!" and
"Row row row your boat,
gently down the shore,
if you see a lion,
don't forget to roar!"

Later we made fruit 'K'abobs.
It was wonderful to see some make patterns with fruits or divide their stick into three different kinds of fruits; others simply made them in their own unique ways!

We did a fun activity with locks and 'K'eys where they discovered their expertise with different sizes of keys. It was an activity where they had to match the key with the lock. They tried different combinations and then BINGO! The right key would pop the lock and our friends would cheer. They were so so excited to see the lock click open!