The learning Languages
As you may already know, the hundred languages is a metaphor used to indicate the plethora of expressive means with which children represent and convey ideas and emotions as well as the multiple ways in which they comprehend the world.
For this week’s post, let us invite you to travel with us through multiple ways children have been learning and having fun the last two weeks at school. This journey will take you into artistic worlds, building worlds for animals, serving society by making our planet a better place to live in, right before going to space.
For every of these activities and diverse contexts, every kid has had a chance to explore in its own personal way what learning is, both by trying or by observing other ones.
We hope you will enjoy these photos, as they represent how much kids do amazing things when they have fun together.
Space is still the place...
The kids were invited to follow-up on the space exhibition they visited earlier in the month with Elizabeth and Laurence.
As you can see on the pictures, even if the teachers were in Reggio Emilia this week, collecting fresh ideas for the school, the interest they created about space is still up. As they were intrigued by how it would be possible to actually go outer-space, they decided to create space rockets. Different groups ans contexts were used to do so: big blocks and artcraft.
...but let's go back on Earth for a while.
Being outside offers many possibilities for children to keep growing up together and learn some more knowledge about the nature around us.
This week, we’d like to present you two different outdoor activities they were invited to do.
The first one is a special one! The children went for a waste collection at Saint-Sulpice and they were surprised by the amount they had to pick up. Or, as Michelle would say: “il y avait vraiment plein de déchets!”. Therefore, this has been an occasion to reflect and to learn what we can do to keep our planet healthy and clean.
Now, since we’re outside, it’s time to have fun during the second outdoor activity! Luckily enough, the beach close to our school is an amazing place to learn, especially when S1 and S2 get to share knowledge together.
For Aaron, filling little glasses became an opportunity to sell ice creams to his friends and the adults. We trained the numbers and did some counting, since every ice cream was 3 CHF (3 little rocks). He had to count if the money (the rocks) given were the right amount, or if there was too much or not enough.
On the other hand, on the following pictures, you will see the kids trying to name the birds resting on the beach, right before starting to play with their favorite sensory matter there: sand. For Amaya and Maia, “le sable est tout doux, il faut le toucher doucement”. Next thing you know, they built an entire tower with the glasses filled with the sand and were really active on trying to find the right balance to make it stand: that’s learning physics mecanisms while playing at its finest right there!
Time to go home
School is home for the children. Take it from Chris: “on dit Preschool et School parce que l’Ecoline, c’est cool”. We definitely agree with you, Chris! With that being said, let us show you how cool the Ecoline can be by ending this weekly post with diverse learning contexts.
Some kids build tower on the beach, other ones create boats to see if they can make them float. That’s how Adya, Dorine, Zelie and Ellie decided to create their own activity. That was a great occasion to be confident in one’s own way to create something personal and unique, for the pleasure to have fun together.
Another building moment happened when the kids remembered they have Kaplas. We can never stress enough how powerful it is to see them gather together to build one thing together. Cooperation, listening to each other, attention and care, psychomotricity: so many abilities are required to reach a goal together, and that’s what they did, as you see in the following pictures. Their happiness at the end was unmatched!
There are many more things to show you from the last two weeks, and choosing which ones is not an easy process.
But we’d like to end this post with the artistic side of l’Ecoline. With Marie-Elodie, the children were invited to do “contact-dancing” with the Atelier “Le tapis roulant”. Helping them to feel comfortable and able in their bodies can be done in multiple ways.
During the last few weeks, Marie-Elodie taught the children to work on their supports, to count them, to move through the space, while the other ones watching draw the course of the ones dancing. That alone teaches them how to locate someone on a map.
With the great work of Marie-Elodie, Coralie is able to put the children in a “show” context. It’s not easy, even for us adults, to be the center of attention.
By impersonating animals, by building stories and with chosen games, the children have been able to have fun and respect each other’s space and fears.
We will leave you with these pictures of them learning about animals while doing the theatre atelier.
Have a great week!
