Potential

First, if you've been reading this blog for a year, thank you!  New readers are great, too - I preface this post to old readers because I'm making a connection.

Last April, we discovered our outdoor space.  The door opens right from the classroom onto this terrace, and ideally, it will allow children to choose an outdoor activity or an indoor activity.  Last year, most of our experiences on the terrace were unstructured - we dug in the dirt of old potted plants, we drew with sidewalk chalk, and we drew in our sketchbooks.

As the ground starts to thaw this year, I have gardening on my mind.  This is an ideal space for growing some flowers and perhaps a few very simple vegetables, depending on what the children have in mind.  Thanks to Jolayne, I just ordered a copy of Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, which I think will be helpful on our journey.  We definitely have a small space, and it would be wonderful for it to produce some great food - any food, really.

There is more information on the book's website here.

The other PreK class also has a door to the terrace, and we could have a really nice collaboration between the two classes outdoors.  We have a free-flow work time between the two classrooms twice weekly, and incorporating outdoor activities would be interesting.  Hearing the children's ideas about the terrace will have to come into play also, obviously - this is a different group from the initial terrace explorers, and they may have some very new ideas.

The sun is shining, and even though it is cold, I'm looking forward to our outdoor work.

The Pictorial Webster's

I am thinking of Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities as a beautiful tool for the classroom. In the past, I have used both Zoo - ology and Almost Everything by Joelle Jolivet with children, often as a book that is available for the children to look at independently.  There is no explanation, just a picture.  I imagine this is the same for the Pictoral Dictionary.

The pictures are black and white prints, and, being a dictionary, there is a little bit of everything.

Watching the author's video on the making of the leather-bound, letterpress printed limited edition, I thought about young children and book binding.  We do some simple stapled books, and sometimes sewn books or accordion books.  The idea of making a thick book and stamping on the closed pages is interesting, I think.  I dont know if that would ever come about in the classroom, though!

The video also has me thinking about woodcuts and linocuts.  Have you ever used them in your classroom?  Where do you get your materials?

The video is worth a watch - it is a really interesting project.

University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

This is a resource I can see myself using on my own and with the children in the classroom.  This is a database of beautiful images from books, designs, furniture, prints, and much more.  I have often thought about putting together books of "inspiring images" for the classroom to add to our book area, or to simply have out on a table.  With this resource, the children could be involved, in small groups, in helping to think of search terms based on our projects and inquiries, choose images, and create the book.

This also makes me think back to The Nature Lab from a few months back.  I like the Wisconsin collection, though, because you are able to look at the pieces online.

This one is for all the library nerds.

Like me!

I love books, and I love owning wonderful books -- but I have always loved libraries. The smell of the books, the quiet, the selection -- I can spend hours and hours in a good library. The Seattle Public Library opened its central branch right before I moved there in 2004, and I visited at least once a week. One of the most brilliant things about the SPL is that you can look up books, music, and movies online, at home, put them on hold, and then they email you when your items are ready. So I may have been number 3, 287 on the waiting list for a book, but I knew it would be set aside eventually.

Perhaps you have all seen this, but it is exciting and new for me -- WorldCat is a directory of every library catalog in the world. Or the public, electronic ones, at least. None of the books I have entered are in Belgian libraries, but it will lead me to one in a surrounding area where I might want to curl up for a day.

Is your hometown library in the directory?

p.s. come back tomorrow to be in the running for the giveaway!