The Science of Weather by Eileen Hynes

Windsocks in the Upper Primary Classroom. 

The children at Lake and Park spent the month of December engaged in careful and systematic observation of the weather.  Weather affects us all. It informs what clothes we wear to school, if we bring boots or not, or even what games we play at the park.

In the summer of 2014 I applied for a grant through the NOAA Climate Stewards Education Program.  I had begun working with the Climate Stewards the year before, participating in monthly Webinars with national and international scientists, and monthly regional meetings to discuss science and climate education with other teachers. 

On January 13, 2014 Peg Steffen, of the National Ocean Service, presented a talk titled “Misconceptions and Conceptual Change”.  Prompted by recent research on student misconceptions as well as the desire to improve science education in the United States she informed us that. “A new study finds that what's especially critical to improved science learning is that teachers also know the common misconceptions students have.”

 At Lake and Park teachers work collaboratively to provide relevant and accurate thematic studies which address both student questions and their scientific interests.  Common misconceptions, according to Stephen include:
 • That weather and climate are the same   • That the sun goes around the earth

• Seasons are caused by the Earth’s distance from the Sun.

Primary students explore snowflake designs with the Frobel materials.

As it turned out, December was the ideal month for us to focus on these misconceptions.  The Beginning Class moved into a study of Space inspired by the Native American legend, “ Her Seven Brothers”, retold and illustrated by Paul Goble.  The students learned about major star constellations, the planets in the earth’s solar system, and the important role the sun plays.  Through poetry, music and dance the children acted out the planets spinning in the solar system, orbiting around the sun.  As each child in turn played the role of the sun, they stood firmly fixed in one position as other children went spinning around them.

Students gathered weather data daily.

The Primary, Upper Primary and Intermediate Classes began keeping weather observation charts on December 1.  The goal was to have students record the daily temperature over a period of weeks and then graph the data alongside data provided by the National Weather records that show daily averages for the same period of time.  This task was a concrete way to engage students in understanding the difference between weather and climate.  Along the way many other topics and interests were discussed and discovered.  Every class read many books on related weather topics, including Stars beneath Your Bed: the Surprising Story of Dust, by April Sayre, and Weather and Climate: How Weather Works, by Robin Birch.

Journal entry.

The hydrologic cycle, or water cycle, was discussed and
illustrated throughout the grades. Many
students played a water molecule game to experience the various forms water takes and to understand that water cycles through the planet in many different ways.

With temperatures the first few mornings of December greeting us at -3 or -4 Celsius, the Primary Class quickly became focused on the formation of ice crystals. They asked each other questions about how the ice forms, and how the crystals attach to each other. They were introduced to the concept of ice core research; this raised many more questions about how scientists know: for example, how our knowledge of paleoclimate is based on ice core studies. The Primary Class will be touring the ice core lab at the University of Washington in January and meeting with scientists there. As part of this unit the primary children learned about the geometry of snowflakes, They built sculptures out of ice inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy, and  read about Yupik and Inuit people who call the far northern regions home.

The Upper Primary Class took daily walks as part of  honing one of the major skills of meteorologists throughout history, that of observation.  As they practiced using their senses to observe and then worked to translate these observations into weather reports, the students began to fine-tune their observations, building vocabulary to more accurately express what they were seeing and feeling.  Why are clear days in the winter colder then days with more cloud cover?  Can we tell which way the wind is blowing?  This group wrote winter haiku, experimented with pinwheels, and created windsocks.

Students at all levels worked to collect data and then graph that data and analize it in a meaningful way.

The Intermediate Class worked extensively with data during December; both weather data collection and graphing, as well as tracking and comparing the varried journeys different water molecules made through the water cycle. The complexity of the questions being asked increased throughout the month. (Further research and investigation into what makes wind and how clouds change shape will be included in ongoing studies.)  The Intermediate Class looked at a graph of the average temperature in the US over the last one hundred years, revealing that a warming trend is occurring over extended periods of time.  Students worked together to explain the role the tilt of the axis plays on earth’s changing seasons and we acknowledged the approaching winter solstice.

Students worked to understand various components of the weather
 station through drawing. 

During the last week of class before winter break, students were introduced to the school's new weather station.  Having collected data using thermometers and sensory observations students were excited to figure out what data each component of the weather station was designed to collect.  Everyone agreed collecting data in January was going to be much easier with our new equipment.  Students in the Upper Primary Class and the Intermediate Class will be visiting the NOAA National Weather Station in Seattle in January to learn from the scientists working there about weather data collection, forecasting and other careers in related scientific fields.

The three major misconceptions identified by Peg Steffen were addressed in various ways throughout the classes at Lake and Park, all during the month of December.  Because each of these concepts is complex,  students’ understandings will continue to shift in and out of focus and grow in clarity as children and knowledge both develop.  The confidence a child has in his/her own ability to think and reason scientifically is established through the kinds of activities and discussions that we engaged in so actively this month.  Such activities play a key role in bringing clarity to complex realities.  As Chloe said after she raised her hand to share an explanation with her class of why it is colder and darker in the northern hemisphere in December, “I know I know this!”  and she did.

Summer Camps at Lake and Park School and What They Offer

Each year when the school year is officially over we host our week of school’s out/ summer’s here Transition Camp. This is a special weeklong experience that is exclusive in its audience: only open to children who have attended Lake and Park at some point in the past. The reason being? Because we are all just as comfortable as can be—kicking off our shoes, so to speak, and just being together. Boys and girls from across the grades spend whole days together. Camp begins at nine and ends at five but children want more when five o’clock rolls around. Often Transition Camp begins with breakfast, making this “home away from home” cozier still. Toast and jam and cold cereal is served long into the morning. Children engage in Lego play while others read comics, still others draw and another group works with the Big Blocks. Transition Camp truly is the bridge between school and the vacation that is just around the corner.

This year’s highlights were many, but some that stand out for me:

Everyone downstairs on the last day of Transition Camp enjoying an ample pancake breakfast while the Trike Room was the scene of roller skating and skate boarding. We all watched an impromptu talent show as children showed off their newly acquired or recently honed skills. Children helped with cleaning up the “restaurant” at the end of the pancake breakfast—a meal that went on all morning. Quynh and Tom kept the grill hot. Autumn Taylor Roff found her niche in working with the dishwasher and taking last minute orders, true restaurant style. Clare Conrad and Lee Seese from the church office joined in when new customers were sought after.

At the very end of the very last day I think fondly of Quynh’s lovely reading of Rosemary Well’s little library called The Bunny Planet. A fictional account of rabbit children getting a retake on days that had not gone so well, our children’s amazing scope of knowledge came out strong as children provided similes for the repeat experience: time warp, black hole, alternative reality!


Puppy Camp

The following week we welcomed Kathi Titus and her colleague Mary as they shepherded four dogs up the stairs each morning. Children new to Lake and Park joined with us in learning the basics of puppy training. By the end of the week, children were showing their prowess at getting dogs to sit, come, heel. The interaction between children and animals is a powerful thing to observe; this week long focus allowed children ample time to interact with the dogs.
 

Chaucer Camp

In the afternoons, Grant and I opened the North Room doors to the medieval world of Chaucer’s tales. After learning about the construct of the tales—a trip from an inn to a sacred shrine at a cathedral several days hence and back again—we looked into the Pardoner’s Tale as our beginning point. Art projects and free play in block building as well as a “full on” knightly tournament added to our understanding of the tales and times. On our final day, we simulated the role of pilgrims by entering into the church sanctuary—a perfect place for Thomas Becket’s shrine. Upon leaving, we were wearing the traditional pilgrim cockle shell. We then walked to our own Tabard Inn (Tutta Bella) in Columbia City. After feasting we ended our time together at the Columbia City playground. Several of our group—Rose and George— are actually journeying to Canterbury Cathedral in August; we hope they let us all know about it on their return.


Backyard Games

The following week, we again offered a morning and an afternoon component. Grant and I worked once more as a team throughout the day. In the mornings we engaged a group of children in learning all kinds of backyard games. Grant taught a game called Danish Rounders which offers beginners a way to learn how to engage in the basics of organized sport. Particularly apropos of kickball and baseball, it teaches how to run the bases in a way that allows each child to proceed at her/his own speed. We played hide and seek and sardines, its inverse, sardines. We learned to play hopscotch and made our own on the patio. It came to our attention that hopscotch began as an exercise that the Roman Legionnaires undertook to keep agile and light of foot. They performed wearing armor. A highlight for both of us as teachers was to see how the youngest children were able too join in to teacher directed games with such ease. One morning, while spending time in the Mount Baker Park meadow grasses, we gathered for a quiet break and watched a butterfly make its rounds among us, landing on Harper again and again.


Backyard Creatures

In the afternoons, a final camp was held—Insects and Other Backyard Creatures. We took the time to take a close look at those small animals that live among us—worms and spiders, ladybugs and bees. We used Christina Rossetti’s poem as a touchstone for the class. We learned about animals in order of their complexity—from the simple earthworm to the to the arthropod. Several highlights have to be mentioned: Ardin’s mother gave us six boxes of ladybugs which we released one happy afternoon at Triangle Park. Ted made a “ladybug playground” for them from found objects; children young and old worked together. While learning about spiders, we read Anansi folktales from Africa. (A trickster character, children compared him with other tricksters they have known: Hermes, Loki,Bre’r Rabbit, Coyote, Raven. We acted out the story of Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock. Each child participated in our impromptu theater, each one making a signifiant contribution through drama to all of us watching the performance. We ended the week at the Butterfly House at the Science Center, Tom joined us for this culminating field trip where we looked at butterflies and many other insects with the understanding that our week’s study afforded us.


Hurt No Living Thing

Hurt no living thing,
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.

Christina Rossetti

Taking the Classroom Outdoors

On a sunny, spring morning a 6-year-old boy kneels in the P-patch holding a treasure in his closed hand. The surrounding gardens, forest pathways and native trees block out the noise from the nearby urban streets and make this small garden a quiet and sacred space for the birds, insects, mice and children within. With his free hand, he carefully reaches into a kale plant and removes a plump potato bug from its leaves, placing that one next to the other in his enclosed hand. This young Lake and Parker explained to me that while the “roly poly” bugs meant no harm, they weren’t good for the kale plants and had to be moved to the forest for the birds, which would also keep the birds out of our garden beds. He loved kale, so this type of work was important. From his explanation, it was clear that this boy, growing up in an urban area, understood the complex ecological cycles that connect our tasty kale plants to the insects to their predators, from simply being free to play in a natural space.

                                                                                                      

Earlier this spring, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Richard Louv. Many of you may be familiar with his powerful arguments supporting a movement to connect children, families and their communities to the natural world.  During his lecture, he presented a collection of evidence to illustrate the connection between experience in the natural world and children’s ability to learn.

Many of Louv’s words were inspiring, particularly as he spoke of the benefits of free, unstructured play outdoors. As an educator, one benefit of outdoor play that struck me most was how children’s attention span increases substantially after just 20 minutes of time in the natural world. Stress and anxiety levels also drop within minutes of seeing green spaces. I was alarmed by the ever-increasing statistics of screen time in the United States. With some children spending as few as 30 minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day and up to 7 hours a day in front of a screen, I realized that educators have an incredible responsibility to create successful learning environments outdoors. How can we reconnect to rural life, to the source of our food and to natural cycles? How can we facilitate relationships with the wild?

"I believe that growth is inspired by a sense of wonder. One of the first windows to wonder is the natural world." -Rachel Carson

I thought of Lake and Park School frequently as I listened to Louv’s lecture, and felt proud of our program’s keen understanding of the educational value the outdoors has to offer. Our school is one where children work on their lessons in an outdoor classroom, study rainfall patterns as water flows down the Horton Hill steps and discuss the importance of sustainability as we use recycled materials for our art. Our school is unique in its prioritization of integrating the outdoors into our curricular explorations every day, rain or shine. Our families are also unique in their support and enthusiasm as we continue to develop our rich possibilities for outdoor learning.

While we frequently attempt to create stimulating, inviting, freeing and private places for children to play indoors, the varied environments nearby offer refuge, freedom, discovery, challenge, joy and wonder. In those moments when we realize that nature has a life and structure of its own, independent of the human hand, we are struck with a sense of wonder that begs further inquiry and exploration. There is something about our biology that subconsciously seeks immersion in nature.  As I observe Lake and Park students immerse themselves into our nearby natural worlds and reach a rich and genuine quality of play, I find myself wondering how, as a school, we can continue to nurture and encourage the relationship between the natural world and ourselves. How can we best use our nearby natural environmental to their fullest potential?

Garden Time

We are so fortunate to have a garden within a short bus ride from our school.  As a small part of the greater Coleman Park P-Patch, our experiences at the garden often lead to discussions about the greater community. Last week, the big room students visited the garden and attempted to map the larger P-Patch. Suddenly, the garden as they knew it expanded greatly, as they considered the hundreds of other garden beds, the impressive variety of veggies, herbs and flowers within these plots and the surrounding forest full of native species enclosing us. The development of their sense of place feels invaluable as we continue to interact with our surrounding community.

The garden helps students gain respect for the natural world and one another as they learn how much time and energy it takes each seed to mature and as they learn how different insects, birds and mammals live and interact in our garden and how all are needed to maintain balance.  The students are learning a valuable lesson; that it's possible for land and people to coexist harmoniously to provide food and energy in a sustainable way.

 Park Time

Our most frequently visited outdoor spaces, Mt. Baker Park and Triangle Park,  give us ample opportunity to freely play and explore.  In the fall, I traveled with the Kindergarten class to Mt. Baker Park’s brook after studying the art of Andy Goldsworthy. We were inspired by his place-based natural art and set off to create our own sculptures using treasures from our natural setting. The children’s attention and focus was impressive and inspiration seemed to continually evolve as they found new pieces of nature to integrate. Our understanding of symmetry, balance and color gained an entirely new dimension. 

In early winter, we revisited a forested area near the brook to build fox dens after reading The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  We remembered our nature art as we worked with our fox families to build shelter from sticks, mud and rocks. This endeavor helped us learn how to communicate, develop decision making and problem solving skills, as well as think creatively as we played “foxes”. These are just a few examples of the endless possibilities for art, literature, dramatic play, science and exploration that these nearby green spaces offer. 

Beach Time

While forests, gardens, dirt and grass are so special to play in, playing in water takes on a different quality. There’s something about its unpredictable yet reliable nature that leaves us perpetually wondering and anxious to get our hands and feet wet.

During our nautical explorations, we constructed numerous boats and rafts and tested their strength in Lake Washington's waves. Using shovels, we carved waterways in the sand and let our boats float underneath stick bridges. 

After our study of eagles, we were determined to locate them in our city. Blessed with fish-filled waters nearby, we were thrilled to find a pair of soaring eagles while playing at the beach one afternoon. Not only does the nature of water and sand provide a playful and sometimes therapeutic environment to explore and build, its setting also serves as an excellent place to watch local wildlife.

                                                                                                 

When I reflect back on my own childhood places, I discover key pieces of my identity that were forged by my experience in those early years: an appetite for adventure, a comfort with the unknown, the creativity to make fun with whatever is at hand. And what was at hand? Nothing "special" for many years: trees, water, sand, leaves, mud pies, a tree house. But by todays standards, what was previously seen as common, has become rare. One lesson that frequently sings out is that modest pockets of nature can offer expansive palettes for play involving the opportunity to manipulate and interact with elements in the natural environment.

As spring approaches and we spend more and more time outdoors with the Lake and Parkers, I leave you with this quote by Luther Burbank:

“Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, beeds, butterflies, various animals to pet, hey-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education.”

-Morgan 

Lake and Park Attends Lego League Exposition at Museum of Flight

Lake and Park Lego Team

From teamwork to technology, from brainstorming to building, the students certainly learned a lot. Feel free to ask any one of our participants what a solar flare is.

Our Lego League children attended a gathering of Junior Lego League students at the Museum of Flight on March 9, 2014.  Students from over thirty schools were in attendance.  Each received a medal in recognition of her/his involvement and hard work.

The poster board about our project

Lego model of the Sun, and the Earth with a solar flare

Junior First Lego League is an educational program created to build an interest in science and engineering in children ages six through nine. (There is another program for older children.)   It offers a “hands on” program designed to capture young children’s inherent curiosity and direct it towards discovering the possibilities of improving the world around them.  The theme this academic year was “Disaster Blaster”.  Over 22,000 children nationally learned about disasters; in response to their research, each team collectively came up with a model of a device that would help aid humans facing a crisis.
Throughout the Lego League meetings at the Lake and Park School, we worked to maintain an environment of learning and creating – just like engineers in the field.   As children engaged with a real life problem, they were told to first research, and then build a model in response to a chosen disaster.

At the museum of flight 

The natural disaster that piqued our interest was Solar Flares. After several weeks of research, the students were able to wrap their heads around the concept of a solar flare. The team decided to make a model of the sun, and, in order to offer perspective, also one of the earth.  One session was devoted to sorting through the Legos for one day just to find all of the tiniest red, yellow, blue and green pieces we had. The students began building the sun, then placing it on the standard grey Lego mat that is a requirement set by the First Lego League administrators.

Lake and Park table

It took teamwork as well as critical thinking to be as successful as we were. Parents Roger Capestany and Stephanie Wieland worked together to offer a focus for each session, Thanks to their involvement as well as support from all the Lego league member’s families: numerous amounts of play dates and carpooling made this after school activity possible.

The children made pictures of their plans to build a solar flare and of the completed structure.  They wrote in response to questions asked of them regarding their knowledge of the subject.

With participants from the Downstairs to the Big Room, we had a broad range of children enjoying their late Wednesday afternoons with Lego League from November through March.

Kristina Johnson

The Study of Pinocchio

Study of Pinocchio

We held a two-day multi-age class around the study of Pinocchio.  (We offered the session during Mid Winter Break as we had to cancel two school days in January when our boiler system was shut down for repairs.)  Sixteen children attended.  Quyhn Cao and I were impressed with how much learning and doing took place during  those twelve hours together:  we delved into the original tale and compared that to the aspects of the Disney animated feature.  The story ends with Gepetto being stuck in the belly of a whale.  We made a literary comparison to the Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale.  After making simple marionettes with strings and sticks, children began to learn how to manipulate them.    We had time to do other activities as well:  beading and making lanyards, enjoying a fast paced game with balls and ride toys that was created one day in the Trike Room,  We took the light rail to the Seattle Children’s Theater to see their current production of the story.  The older and younger children play and work together so very well.  The two-day program typifies what Lake and Park means by a theme based curriculum.  We want to involve the greater school community in the experience.

About the Story and Some Difficulties in Presenting It to Children

 Written in Italian by Carlo Collodi, the story was constructed as a serial—one installment after another as a magazine format, rather like the modern comic book where the reader is kept on the hook and made to pick up the next installment to find out how the character gets out of the latest predicament.  No wonder there are so many cliff hangers!  And what cliff -hangers!  Collodi seems to spare nothing as he creates one ordeal after another for his most lasting character to endure.  In chapter after chapter, Pinocchio attempts to do the right thing; he is beset again and again by those who would deceive him.  On top of that, he is frequently dealing with straight forward difficulties such as having to wonder where his next meal will come from, etc.  At every juncture, our collective heart goes out to him. 

Because of what I find to be “darkness” in the story, I have shied away from it at times.  I have felt sorry for Pinocchio as I have felt sorry for Curious George.  Children are drawn to both protagonists as they are enduringly appealing; the child audience identifies with the monkey and the puppet equally. Both are put in moral predicaments and asked to “be good” when they have no sense of what that means.  Both try again and again to do that right thing although each is tempted by attractions in the environment.   (On top of that, Pinocchio is bullied and deceived.)  Both are held accountable when they fail.    How to present Pinocchio to a group of children has always been for me, troubling.

The Seattle Children’s Theater Ongoing Production of Pinocchio

But the lightness I was looking for in redeeming the story is in abundance in the Seattle Children’s Theater’s current production of Pinocchio.  It will run through March 9^th.       The show’s conceit is that the audience has arrived before the show is scheduled to be performed. There are no actors in typical costume.  There is nothing but drop cloths and scaffolding and a handful of painters who are surprised to see people in the audience.  They look at us and tell us that they are sorry--they are here only to paint—we must have come on the wrong day.  The children don’t know what to think of this development.  Are they leading us on?  We are led on.  Proceeding as if it were an improvisation, the show takes us through Pinocchio’s tale without darkness.  Rather, there is humor aplenty.  The playwright, who is also the director, references the Italian origins of the commedia del’arte form. He makes reference to Punch and Judy.  He shows his sleight of hand by the way he has his actors seize the opportunities that the painter’s craft supplies.  A shopping cart becomes the stagecoach.  By substituting everyday objects for what would typically be realistic props, the moral tone of the story is kept light.  Seeing Pinocchio comically taped to a ladder tree rather than hung by a rope from a branch that looks like a tree branch takes away the weight of the tale and allows the audience to breathe.  The exploits that the puppet/child gets into are saved from pathos by the camaraderie that the cast as a group of painters who double as creative storytellers conveys. 

If your child missed the opportunity to see the production, I would recommend that you try to see it as a family.

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Upcoming Production of Pinocchio

I want to let you know that Pacific Northwest Ballet will be presenting its own production of Pinocchio in March.  Check their schedule. There are some weekend matinees planned for early March.  A student matinee will be presented on March 21^st, which is an In Service Day for Lake and Park teachers.  Could be a perfect outing for parents and children to do on that day. 

Camille

From Hoffman to Sendak: The Study of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite

·         If one were to search these pages—The Ampersand—one might find annual mention of Lake and Park’s stance toward the winter holidays.  I will repeat it here for the benefit of those new to our traditions. When it comes to the holidays, we seek to be relevant to the children’s enthusiasm for this most special time of year, sensitive to all of the children’s respective traditions, and, of course, be educationally informative.  In past years, we have studied the winter solstice, the gingerbread man and his folktale cousins, Saint Lucia Day, a Nordic tradition, Hanukkah, astronomy, the biology of conifers, and The Nutcracker Ballet.

This year, we were able to study the traditions of Hanukkah in late November and early December and still had time to explore the story of “The Nutcracker”, the history of its production, and various choreographic interpretations.   

Jordi examines a Nutcracker

Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet Company is unique in its position in that its Nutcracker, such a standard for many companies, is the only one in the world with sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak.  Departing from book illustration in mid-career to work on various theatrical set and costume designs, he was commissioned by PNB .  New choreography by the company’s then director accompanied the scenery. Their collaborative take premiered in 1983.  Our timing this year was perfect, coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of the production.

In deciding which direction to take, Sendak went back to the Hoffman tale.  (This version is now widely available in book form with the illustrations Sendak drew in response to the Hoffman narrative.) Hoffman’s tale within a tale:  “The Story of the Hard Nut “is integral to understanding the deeper motifs of the ballet.  However, it reads as a parody of traditional fairy tales.  Here is a tale in the extreme. It is too comic to be taken in the way most fairy tales are meant to be taken-- believable within themselves. In preparation for this unit,  The Big Room looked at motifs and themes that are common to all fairy tales.  “The Story of the Hard Nut” was read by small groups of children and read aloud to by others.  The youngest children were told the tale in storyteller fashion, with stick puppets used to help carry the narrative along.

Most of the ballets dispense with this tale altogether.  Contrarily, Sendak went to the heart of the story as he designed his sets.   Stowell  features a vignette of the tale, while brief, in the ballet’s very beginning.  Ask any current Lake and Park student why the Nutcracker comes to life as a prince, and hopefully he or she will tell you that he was being restored to his original state, Ask why Sendak features a Drosselmeyer, the famed godfather with the eye patch who orchestrates the gift giving as a puppeteer without strings hovering over an unusually truncated threesome on a backdrop scrim: Nutcracker, Mouse King, and princess with garish features, and again that child will probably tell you that her misshapen looks are due to the fact that she was cursed and bitten by a Mouse King in retribution for what her father did to said mouse’s many relatives.  You will then be “in the know”, something that ballet-goers to Balanchine’s New York City production are usually left in the dark about. 

Lilia practices ballet positions

In typical fashion, when we study a topic we incorporate as much as we can into its curriculum, bringing in history, the arts and science.   Children saw various productions, one choreographed by Balanchine and one by Mark Morris.  They learned, in small group format, of the five elemental positions of ballet.  These mini classes were taught by Kristina Johnson, who relied on her childhood training to bring to life ballet lessons in preparation for our trip to McCaw Hall.

We looked at the soldier motif as well as at other wooden toys.  Children built castles with blocks and used nutcrackers and toy hussars and little soldiers to augment their work.  As we had been playing with tops when introducing dreidels in keeping with our Hanukkah unit., we made the connection between tops spinning and dancers spinning.  We went on to talk about the earth spinning on its axis as it travels the sun, moving us into the season of winter.  We learned to sing a beautiful song, first brought to our attention last year by Kathi Titus:

Jane working on a Nutcracker castle of blocks

The earth is round,

Its orbit’s elliptical.

When day seems lost,

It’s eventually found.

Spaceship Earth.

Turning through the nights and days,

Spaceship Earth,

Summer, fall, winter, spring.

The Downstairs class is working on making Season Wheels which will soon incorporate not only the seasons, but the names of the months, as children return to school to to study the calendar as a topic in honor of a new month and a new year.

As a prop for dancing, Quyhn Cao taught children how to make snowflake wands.  Beautifully fashioned from recycled paper, they are festooned with glitter and floral ribbon.

The Downstairs class had one idyllic morning a few days before attending the ballet.  Gathering in the Trike Room, they were seated in a wide circle on the floor, each in front of his own painting paper with an individual pallet of the primary colors.  (Black and white were offered for the children to experiment with pastel and shading.)    As the Tchaikovsky suite played, children took turns wearing ballet costumes and dancing in front of classmates.  Seated children painted their responses to the dancing.  These paintings are currently on display in the hallway outside the Trike Room and are beautiful in their use of color and their interpretation of motion.

Teague painting as students' dance

After a full hour of painting, we gathered to read The Little Dancer, a story about Edward Degas and one hopeful ballerina who became the model for his famous sculpture.    As Morgan Padgett read, the children learned of Degas setting his easel r on stage in order to capture the movement of the ballerinas, doing what we had done that morning.  (Other children had an opportunity to take part in this activity as we recreated it in afternoon sessions.)

All of the children across the grades were introduced to a musical tie-in.  We listen to Duke Ellington’s Jazz version of The Nutcracker Suite. As the children were well versed in the familiar strains of the original, they were able to pick up the modified melodies within the updated suite.

A completed
Degas-inspired
painting

In the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production, the second act deviates greatly from Hoffman.  Instead of going to “The Land of Sweets”, the Nutcracker, now in human form, and Marie/Claire, now a burgeoning adult, go off to an exotic land peopled by the figures that were seen in the wallpaper in the drawing room where the gifts were first presented. 

Constructing a winter wonderland

Perhaps part of the 1983 production has run its course and is now passé.  It was with some dismay that I witnessed, through post twentieth century eyes, the turbaned mice, the pasha, stereotypes of “all things exotic” in a conglomeration that mixed metaphor upon metaphor.    At school, we referred back to Hoffman and the Land of Sweets as he presented it, and as Balanchine and others, including Tchaikovsky, designed it.  A culmination of this whole unit was to then create either the Land of Sweets, or the wintry forest through which the Nutcracker and Clara/Marie traverse out of, what could be better? Sweets!

Turning ice cream cones on end  to make trees, and using royal icing as mortar, snow and frosting,  the children made their winter wonderlands.  They designed on paper first and then embellished with marshmallows, gumdrops and coconut flakes.  Others imagined the candy castle, not a gingerbread cottage, but a grand structure, as inspiration for their designs.

Following Up on the Unit:

Parents were encouraged to take children to see other versions of the Nutcracker, as well as to return to this one as a family, where seats closer to the stage might be obtained and where children could explore the orchestra pits and various aspects of the theater.  Learning about more stories made into ballets is a natural, particularly Hoffman’s Coppelia, which features another mechanical doll who comes to life. Tchaikovsky will be featured again by the PNB as they present his Sleeping Beauty in late January/early February.  We may offer an option for children who are interested in attending another production to go as a school group.     Taking a dance class and attending a symphony are also wonderful responses, as is watching Disney’s original Fantasia, in which the Nutcracker Suite is the inspiration for an animated sequence that has nothing to do with Hoffman and everything to do with the turning of the seasons.