Because we now have 13 friends on Wednesday mornings, we are able to have up to three small group projects at one time!  This morning, we explored magnets, mazes, and marble painting all at the same time!  The first group worked with Peter at the small manipulatives table.  Peter had strung several paper clips to the sides of the table and filled the mesh basket inside with a variety of magnets from our class set.  Working individually, but also observing one another, the children selected different magnets from the basket and used them to lift the paper clips into the air.  They used the magnets to swing the paper clips, to cling to the paper clips, and even to make them levitate without touching at all.  It was like magic!  After using the magnets to lift the paper clips, the children experimented with smaller magnets.  The smaller magnets didn’t cause the paper clips to float because they were not strong enough, but they were able to use the paper clips to hold up the magnets!

The second group worked with Ana, our parent helper, to explore the maze that Peter taped to the floor earlier in the week.  One child would begin at one end of the maze and another child at the other end and they would try to meet in the middle!  Once they had solved the maze, Ana added challenges like only stepping on yellow squares to move forward in the maze.  Much like the magnets, the maze challenge could be completed individually, in pairs, or as a small group.

While two groups were exploring magnets and the maze, a third group was using marbles for an unconventional purpose:  painting!  Each child was given a plastic tray with a piece of paper taped inside, a marble, and a palette of paint.  Working independently, they dipped their marbles into their preferred colors of paint, then dropped them into the tray and rolled them back and forth.  The resulting works of art were beautiful abstract pieces!  The marbles created variable lines across the page, sometimes making thicker or thinner marks.  Occasionally the marbles rolled in straight lines, but more often they rolled in curved or swerving lines.  While many of our painting projects result in pages filled to the edges with color, the limitation of using only the marble created much more negative space, which really highlighted for the children how they can create very different works of art simply by changing the paint application tool!