Hands
Children in the Kindergarten classroom were inspired by a book we read early in the school year, I Call My Hand Gentle, by Amanda Haan. Children began tracing their hands and drawing hands whenever they had the chance. Teachers then asked children what they know about hands offering them a chance to share their existing knowledge of this topic. We then took photographs of children’s hand ‘doing’ different things at school. Children took a closer look at their own hands and others’ hands and began to notice all the different skin tones and colors. Using pencils and fine tipped black pens children first sketched their hands and then later, after comparing and creating colors, they added the color they felt was similar to their skin tone. This exploration has afforded children and teachers an opportunity to look more closely at our similarities and differences and embrace our discoveries. As the spring semester begins, we will continue with our exploration. We have created a large collaborative mural by using a projector and light to trace our hands on a large piece of butcher block paper. Children created so many different shapes and intricacies with their hands we decided to keep this as a permanent piece of documentation and then use paint on a canvas to continue to explore color and skin tones. Children again used the projector and traced images they already created onto a canvas. We then worked with paint to mix a variety of shades of colors to represent skin tones. Next the paint was added to the hand shapes on the canvas for our final group masterpiece.

Cows
As CSDC prepares to celebrate our 75th anniversary, children were invited to create cow sculptures to be auctioned off at our auction. There are several reasons cows were chosen as our inspiration; they are our closest neighbor; being nestled in our rural setting we value nature and animals; and each classroom has developed a special relationship with the cows. Children are working on creating their sculptures, using a familiar material; wood. Children have had many experiences building with blocks throughout their time at our school, thus having a solid foundation of balance and construction. Using some wooden shapes they worked with previously, and adding some new types of wood and unique shapes, children collaborated and creatively arranged the wood to represent their cows. Children worked with a teacher to assemble/construct their cows using wood glue, hammers, nails, screws and a drill. Careful attention was given to details of the cows; the bull has horns, the heifer has an utter, and the placement and shape of the ears had to be just so. Children felt it was important to have one cow standing and one laying down since that is how they often see them when we visit it the Dairy Barn so, they decided they needed to create a bull and heifer.