The children showed an interest in digging,
so we provided them with different opportunities to develop that interest…
As they dug in different environments / soils
(mainly at the beach and in the forest) the children started to notice that different things were under the soil:
“It’s wet, I’ve found wet sand”,A.
“There are shells and baby shells”,M.
In the forest ,
I. digs a hole and as he looks at it notices:
“Roots!”, I.
G. discovered, (near a carrot field where
the farmers where harvesting) a plant with the roots out:
“It’s beautiful” , G.
she decided to keep it to look at it later.
In the little atelier
We observed what we could see in the soil…
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| “It’s really dark inside”, E. |
Clay was made available, so children
could express their thoughts and ideas
through it, if they felt the need to.
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| “These are lines and little holes in the ground”, L. |
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| “This is a small soil, like this “M. (M. shows how he uses the hammer to flatten the clay into a very thin slab) |
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| “Yeah, I have this in my garden too!” , C. |
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| “It’s a flower, I made a flower” M. M. uses a piece yarn on the surface of the clay to create a design. “The rest (M. whispers) I don’t want to tell you” |
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| “This is a worm trail(on the ground) He went this way and then this way”, E. |
L. takes some dry roots,
observes them closely , then
starts to copy the lines he sees,
on the clay, using a thin tool (toothpick)
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| “The roots grow, then we can eat it when it’s red” (T. Explains) “I will do the roots”, T. |
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| “Roots” C. observes her marks on the clay with the magnifying glass ” … then I am cutting it so the worms can come out (of the soil). Yeah, the worms need air, so I’m cutting this” C. |
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| “Big, middle, small”, N. says while he organizes the shapes he made with the dough “…And holes, that are mine”,N. |
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| “This … it’s inside and this and this, they are all inside the ground”C. Although we can’t see it C. carefully |
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| “I need a light to see inside the holes, it’s really really dark”, M. |
Outdoors, the children are taking
time to look under their feet…
Under the leaves the children found a little animal
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| “Look, he’s not sleeping, he’s moving”, N. |
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| But (for the children’s surprise) he turned into a ball…
“Oh!!!”, N. |
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