Wet Feet Find Winter Inspiration: Tales of Rain-filled Days in January

The arrival of winter storms drew us indoors and under the waves to explore the world of aquatic-mystique, coastal marine ecology and powerful unruly weather. Curriculum themes emerged from tidepools, kelp forests, fantastical fisheries, colossal thoughts of squids, whales, great whites, and strange uncategorized creatures of the deep. Wall by wall our classroom transformed to reflect the wonder and curiosity of life beneath the surface. 

One Monday the art table held a display of tidepool treasures for a hands-on exploration of the inhabitants uncovered during the king tide. Students explored sea snails, purple urchins, hermit crabs, kelp crabs, mussels, limpets, chitons, and a variety of different types of seaweed, rocks and shells… to name just a few! Students relished the sensory novelty and all creatures were returned safely to their pools the same afternoon. 

We have been so lucky to continue our programming complemented by a few amazing program specialists. Jan Henley comes every other week to offer K-1 pre-academic activity for our older students, still utilizing a play-based approach with an emphasis on pre-literacy. In January we worked with Jan on a collaborative performance wherein students acted out an Eric Carle classic, ‘A House for Hermit Crab’. She selected this story to highlight more elements of our theme, with a cast list featuring sea anemones, starfish, coral, snails, seaweed, sea urchins, lantern fish, smooth pebbles, and of course a couple of Hermit crabs. 

Jan notes on her process, “Reading a book develops a child's skill of listening and focus, acting out the story helps develop memory and sequence. The variety of props allows for choice, and there is time spent on taking turns and sharing ideas. We always end up acting out the story two or three times to give the students a chance to be different characters. I encourage everyone to say their lines however everyone participates regardless because each child is in charge of a prop.”  

For preschool age children this practice allows the messages of the story to be brought into view through action and fun. From here we were so inspired that we also worked on a few entirely student lead productions - creating a script derived from their stories dictated during descanso/rest time. The dictated stories offer another opportunity for self-expression and confidence building, as their words are written verbatim and character actions specific to their direction and costume preference. Thank you Jan!