It’s been a sort of sleepy Wednesday here at Harbor City School.  We had 4 fewer friends than we typically do mid-week, so it feels like a Monday or a Friday!  Our parent teacher, Heather, came in with a project that was very hands-on, so we had plenty of adult attention to pass around.  We made pomanders!

A pomander is a hanging ball of some sort of perfume.  Until the 17th century, pomanders were worn as a form of deodorant or a religious article.  Since then, they simply serve as decorative air fresheners and are most commonly made by inserting whole cloves into oranges.  To make this process easier for the Tugboats, Heather brought clementines with thinner skins.  Most of the children were able to press the cloves into their clementines without issue, but some of them requested some assistance getting started.  Grasping and pressing the cloves helped strengthen their fine motor skills, while the children practiced their creative self expression in choosing how and where to place the cloves.  Many children elected to make faces, noticing that the orange clementines looked like tiny Jack-o-lanterns!  Others made stripes, as modeled by Heather, or clustered their cloves together.  Peter demonstrated how he could make letters, but the children enjoyed watching that technique more than they did imitating it.  Everyone was excited about the fresh, spicy scent wafting around the classroom as they planned where they would put their pomanders in their own homes!