Making Sense of Our Places

One of these days when we go outside, it is noticeable how the layers of ice have thinly sheltered the ground. Our fingers, sometimes bundled up with mittens or gloves, still try to reach out to pick one by one up and examine its characteristics. The clarity of its texture such as how it keeps its transparency in its thickness catches our sense of sight. We too are intuitive in seeing what is going to happen if we pour some water on it; but wait a minute, any kind of water including cold water?

Our conversation with different weather situation continues. During our group time, a storybook may arouse our senses of the relationships between the rain and its possible environmental impacts. Felix shares of what he sees of the rain and its possible impact of the rain causing the "house is broken". We sometimes bring our stories of observations, experiences, feelings, and conversations into our everyday connections.

If I were rain, how would I move?  Thinking metaphorically about the characteristics of rain excites us in moving our bodies to make connections with the rain to build further understandings. 

"Drip, drop, drip, drop" while jumping her body up and down speaks for Elie.

A similar "drip, drop, drip, drop" bouncing movement for Arjun and George in presenting their thoughts of the movement of the rain.

An interesting idea of the rain's movement comes through Vivaan's twirling body.

"Drip, drop, drip, drop" with a thumpity sound is another way of Brooks in presenting his thought of the movement of the rain.

If I were a rainmaker, what kind of sound would my rain make? Digging deeper into the relationships between the rain and its sound opens up possibilities for our sense of hearing, as our auditory perception, to capture back what we have seen. 

Our senses intertwine through this sound exploration.  Visual cues influence what we think we are hearing. In this way, we can actually shape what we "hear". Brooks and Arjun shape the sound of the rain through their ways of shaking the rainmaker musical instrument to front and back or up and down movements. 

Vivaan shapes the sound of the rain by flipping the bottom to the top to let the the sound of the rain flows down gently.

George chooses to shape the sound of the rain by turning the rainmaker instrument to a 45 degree angle side to side to create a shorter and fuller sound of the rain.

Thinking metaphorically about the relationships between the cloud and the rain, we refer to our  science experiment to notice what happens when the cloud gets too heavy with water droplets?

​Brooks: "The cloud is gong up here."
"What happens under the cloud?"
Brooks mentions after he looks down under the foamy cloud, "It's raining."

Sensing the days get shorter over these past few days, some of us have been fortunate to notice the beauty of the moon during our pick-up times.

Some days the moon can be part of our interesting conversations. Taking note of the moon as our shared interests, we engage our fine motor skills to illustrate the shapes of the moon with the paint software apps. We keep this question in our minds while drawing, "What do we like to imagine of the moon?"

“This is all the family moon, the sister, the brother, the baby, the Mama, the Daddy” - Elie.

"This if Felix's moon and that's my family moon" - Felix.
"Who is in the moon then?"
"Me, grandma, grandpa, and dada, and mommy" - Felix.

Another surprising encounter between us and nature takes place outdoors. A big part of tree is toppled while similar trees in the same area are standing.

What happened to the tree? How would this tree feel? These questions arise in our minds.

J: how does the water move?

G: the water makes a little hole. It twists, twists. Like a commotion.