Weeks 7 & 8: Building Cork Floaters

We learned so much in the eight week spring Children's English Hour. Through reading exciting and excellent children's books like Andy Warhol's Colors by Susan Goldmann Rubin, Where's the Fish? by Taro Gomi, and Squishy Turtle from Priddy Books we listened to the sounds of the English language, learned lots of new words and phrases and enjoyed funny, creative stories. Our springtime song list included: Open Shut Them, The Energy Song, The Friendship Song, The World is a Rainbow, The Turtle Song, Bubble Pop!, and the World in Our Hands. Lots of hands-on creative projects with classical, jazz and traditional musical accompaniment and games helped us to remember what we've learned.

Our last project for the spring round of the Children's English Hour required two lessons. The first lesson involved cutting out shapes of sea creatures - otters, whales, turtles and crabs - and painting them using one of my favorite techniques: cork dabbing. Corks are handy little utensils for small hands and dabbing colors together bring bright and beautiful results. The kids were excited to see what we were going to do with the painted shapes next time!




For the second part of the project on week 8 I set up the creative table with name-tags and the kids had to find their name and sit at that place, where they found their painted animal shapes, scissors, a cork, a stick that was split on one end and a coin. They were instructed to fold their shapes in two and set them in a lamination pouch. Once laminated (careful - Hot!) the children had to cut out their animals, leaving about half a centimeter edge.


Then we slid the forms into a slit ing the cork, stuck the stick into the opposite side of the cork and carefully inserted the coin into the split end of the stick. The result looked like this,


but the kids still had no idea what it was they were making until I brought out a tub of water!







Cork Floaters! I was thrilled when some of the children began to sing Bubble Pop! which is about fish swimming in the water, whales rolling in the water, and jellyfish floating in the water, and The Turtle Song about a Turtle who swims in the bathtub.

Everyone wanted to have a bath that evening!

Musical accompaniment for both weeks was the beautiful and lively Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano by Claude Bolling.