In the Classroom: The Leapfrogs
All About Us
With a new teacher and a majority of new children in the Leapfrog room, we kicked off the year with a study on “All About Me,” in order to get to know each other.
As we began our study we noted that we had children of different cultures and ethnicities, and who speak different languages in our classroom. To celebrate such diversity, we have been discussing and highlighting how our different characteristics, cultures, language, etc. make us special and unique.
As we began our exploration of “All About Me,” we examined our characteristics and discovered the things we have in common with our classmates, along with our differences. We used mirrors to help us identify some of our characteristics such as eye and hair color, the shape of our face, and the shade of our skin.
The Leapfrogs also utilized the mirrors in their process of creating self-portraits to assist them in recognizing the features of their face. The children worked with various mediums and materials. They created their initial self-portraits using crayons and oil pastels. During this process the children recognized the lack of colors available to represent their skin color.
We next sought out paint of various shades to allow the children to represent themselves and their skin tones more accurately. The Leapfrogs looked through the colors and selected the paint shade they found most appropriate to paint their portraits. Natural objects and other various materials such as rocks, acorns, string, beads, and more were used to create a three-dimensional effect.
We really enjoyed learning about each and every Leapfrog and look forward to discovering where their interests will take us for our next classroom study!