cool stuff on the web

First of all,
I'm hoping you'll check out this kickstarter campaign for a little forest school near to me in Virginia. I had seen the blog before I met Ruth at the Sabot Institute- maybe some of you were there too? She was really nice and got me excited about her quilted yurt project. I really want this to happen because I want to visit and learn how to make a yurt at Sabot school!
check it out here;
kickstarter.com/projects/quilted-yurt-classroom-in-the-forest


Allie of Bakers and Astronauts invited me to join 
Making Learning Connected (#clmooc)
A Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration  on Google+. I am curious to see what a massive online learning community is all about! Mostly I'm excited to use it as an opportunity to try all of the web tools that I've never found time to try, starting with spending a little time with google+. I've already made an avatar on  www.bitstrips.com/
and a picasso head painting picassohead.com.
Go ahead and take a look- maybe we can figure it out together.

Heroes of Love

The children in kindergarten painted a mural as a backdrop to go along with their connection sculpture. Since the sculpture represented personal relationships, the mural was meant to 'zoom out' and show some of the people who change the whole world with love. 

These are the people who make the world better and who teach people about love. "How did you decide who to draw?" a parent asked. "We thought about our greatest heroes" said Ian. "I drew Susan because I love her", Mathilda added. 

The children presented their work to their families on the second to last day of school, right before the portfolio picnic, when parents come to listen to their children read them their portfolios. It's one of the nicest days of the year.

be sure to check out gleaningskindergarten.blogspot.com
to see more of this story

Love

One of the best things about the school year ending is sifting through the little traces of the children's and teachers' thinking. From the studio, I have the chance to help in many classrooms, and one of my main jobs is keeping up with the umbrella project. In case you don't know, Sabot's Umbrella project is a meta project- a way for the whole school to think about an idea together. This year, we thought about relationship.
The Kindergarteners started thinking about love on Martin Luther King day, and explored love's many aspects including the anatomical, the poetic, the different kinds of love...love of family, friends, classmates, and love in a community.

They bagan a relationship with a group of preschool children from another school, sharing hand-made gifts and visiting back and forth. On one of these visits, the children played a game taught to them  by Sabot's P.E. teacher Renee. In the game, you throw a ball of yarn back and forth across a circle of people, forming a web of connections.
The Kindergarten commemorated this experience by making a sculpture. The children started by creating wooden self portraits, and then added other figures like the teachers, parents, brothers and sisters. Then they decided to make figures of their preschool friends and some beloved pets as well. Finally they connected the figures with red yarn stung with hearts.

check out gleaningskindergarten.blogspot.com to learn more about kindergarten at Sabot