El Huevo del huevo, Papá huevo y bebé huevo, Huevos de dinosaurios, unicornios, gallina, rana y avestruz.
Guiding ideas:
This week our idea was to research and experience eggs, and nests in a deeper way.
We also widened the curricula to include nourishing and care and also followed the children’s lead in their play.
This included discussing and holding different types of eggs, watching pregnant sea horse dads, discussing if sharks lay eggs, and boiling and tasting hard boiled eggs.
We also played with ice and sand, and animals frozen in their eggs. We hammered and melted the cold hard ice, and found dinosaurs and other creatures. We warmed up our hands with water and each other’s warmth.
We continued to build with clay, both eggs and nests, but also hives, mountains, and airplanes.
We kept noticing how one thing turned into something else which supports the labs way of engaging with the spiral of life.
Amigues as Maestres, Rafa as amigue: We also asked Rafa to arrive as student child to take in the Lab in a new way. We welcomed him with the book Child of the Universe by astrophysicist by Ray Jayawardhana.
Sometimes the Lab is not one thing, it is many from eggs to star dust.
Ingredients for today’s Lab:
Child of the Universe by Ray Jayawardhana (a gorgeous book chosen by Wendy because it was written by an astrophysicist and we all knew Baby Rafa would love that). THE EGG by Britta Teckentrup (pictures below), and Laurence King’s “Bird Bingo” and without much ado this projection (without sound): 100 Craziest Animal Births Caught on Camera
Eggs: Ostrich, Salmon and Chicken eggs, magical eggs, Croatian designed eggs, rocks shaped like eggs, big and small, frozen eggs in sand, frozen eggs in snow, boiling eggs, and all sorts of real nesting materials, clay and eggshells.
What just happened?!:
From Rafa, el Amigue
I was invited to this last week's lab through a golden yellow and brown "Permission Slip to Play". The text then read "LEAVE YOUR ADULT RAFA AT THE DOOR--KID RAFA ONLY". The permission slept had further prompts
Do you ever think back to baby Rafa?
Is there an amigue at Mi Casita that conjures Baby Rafa?
Name the amigue and think: Why?
I was also reassured that I would be "guided by the Witch and her coven of kids you will travel by extraordinary egg to childhood."
As I entered the classroom and sat down, the Witch introduced me as a new child. She asked "How old is Rafa?" TYLER held up four fingers, while LIVNEH held up three. For the first El Lab session, I landed on being 4 years old.
The school phone started to ring as someone was at the door. As I looked at my phone, Eva said "nuh-uh, RAFA is a kid, Claudia please take the phone from Rafa." I gave the school phone over to Claudia. It was in that moment where I fully settled into being one of the kids - it was for real.
When we started exploring nest making, I put my hands in cotton and hay as I formed a nest. I chose to put a menagerie of eggs in my nest. Ollie joined and added more eggs to my nest as it began to overflow!
As I sat nest making, I let go of documenting what children were doing. I fully allowed myself to be next to other children. I felt the lightness of releasing my practice of observing others to be with myself. It was like a giant exhale.
I brought this into the classroom the next day. I simply sat by MAX as he was stacking legos up in different ways. He stacked and re-stacked them, inviting me to contribute. It was a full ten minutes before I took my phone to jot a note and take photo or two, before putting back in my pocket.
From Claudia, the Colecionista
Ayer pude pasar un rato muy agradable en LAB con todos los amigos de Mi Casita y las maestras. Al inicio conecté especialmente con JACK en la mesa sensorial, mientras iba construyendo una casa para sus papás y me explicaba con mucho detalle cada paso del proceso. Estaba realizando un huevo para cada miembro de su familia y, al final, los unió todos diciendo que estaba construyendo una casa grande para poder vivir todos juntos.
Más tarde, pude observar cómo algunos amigos estaban muy concentrados explorando la nieve o buscando huevos mágicos. CECILIA, en particular, estaba muy enfocada en utilizar un pincel, mojándolo en la nieve y luego sobre la mesa de forma repetitiva. Fue un momento especialmente bonito para compartir con niños con los que no convivo habitualmente y para observar cómo, a través del juego, van creando vínculos durante su tiempo en LAB.
From Nicole, la Jardinera
Los niños llegaron muy entusiasmados a ver lo que había sobre mi mesa. Yo los esperaba con dos recipientes: uno con nieve y huevos enterrados, y otro con arena y huevos ocultos.
Dentro de cada huevo había una sorpresa: cápsulas de hielo con animales congelados en su interior.
Al principio, el interés estuvo en el cuerpo, la textura y la temperatura: el frío intenso de la nieve, la dureza del hielo y la tibieza de la arena.
Pero poco a poco comenzaron a fijarse en los animales. ¡Estaban atrapados!
Los niños tomaron herramientas: picotas, sierras, fuerza, concentración.
KAI y MATÍAS probaron con sierras.
LEO, TOLY y ALIYA insistieron con picotas. Golpearon, rasparon, perseveraron… pero el hielo resistía. Llegar al animal era difícil.
Entonces nos detuvimos y pensamos juntos:
¿cómo podríamos liberarlos?
En esa conversación apareció la emoción de encontrar una solución. Hablamos de esperar a que el hielo se derritiera con el calor del sol.
“¿Y si sumergimos los animales en agua caliente?”
La respuesta fue un sí rotundo.
Cuando sumergimos los pedruscos de hielo en el agua caliente, comenzamos a comprobar cómo el hielo cedía. El proceso se aceleró. El hielo se quebró y los animales comenzaron a liberarse.
Lagartos, serpientes, aves, dinosaurios y ranas fueron tomados con cuidado por Leo, Levi y Jude, y depositados en un lugar seguro: la arena.
Un espacio blando, cálido, acogedor.
El placer de liberar, de rescatar al otro y acompañarlo hacia un lugar mejor fue celebrado con vítores que intensificaron la experiencia:
“¡Lagarto, libre!”
“¡Tiranosaurio, libre!”
Este broche épico me llevó a darme cuenta de que no fue solo un juego.
Fue un gesto ético, natural y profundamente humano: el anhelo de la libertad propia y ajena.
From Eva, la Curadora
The week prior Wendy charged me with being the “EGG-SPERTA” so I spent the week collecting anything and everything that I could share. My favorite moment in Lab, besides waiting for our eggs to boil, and deciding to cool them in the snow was the following which I already shared with NIKO’s grown-up in the moment:
As an element of our Egg-focused lab today, Niko was particularly drawn to a bird bingo I brought for the kids to explore. Niko drew. bird after bird from the bing bag, asking me, "¿Cómo se llama este pajarito?" "¿Y este?" Among the birds he asked about was the Andean Cock on the Rock (funny name). I told him that since it said "Andean", this bird must be from a mountain in Peru called the Andes. Niko then drew a Red-billed Oxpecker to which he said, "I think this one is from Chile." He later pulled out a Blue-winged Pita. To this bird he said, "This one is me because it has a lot of colors." At naptime and inspired by his interest in learning all the bird names, I found a birdwatchers book of New York Birds and gave it to him to peruse before sleep. We looked at it with the light of my phone for a bit, and when I said, " Te lo dejo aquí para después de dormir." Niko got under the covers and hugged the book like it was a stuffy.
From Wendy, la Bruja
Group 1 inspired Poem:
How about we take three eggs and wish on them?
I wish for fun and play
I wish for a thousand golden money.
I am turning eggs into balls for construction.
There is a papa egg and a baby egg.
Birds take our hair and make nests.
Group 2 inspired Poem:
Jupiter is a big gas planet.
Es una cola de ballena
I see decorations.
I see ducks.
That’s scary.
